AGING LAWYERS AND NEW CALLINGS

Michael Sean Quinn*


The self improvement literature for aging baby boomers has a number of books on how to bounce back or avoid retirement* (“Start something new.”) or how not to quit** “Do it [or not] just right/”).  One attractive option is to change “specialty” from antitrust litigation to suing nursing homes (or defending them if insurance companies will hire someone crowned in gray) or handing guardianship matters for those who need it or for those who think someone else needs it. (*See Chris Tarrell, UNRETIREMENT: HOW BABY BOOMERS ARE CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT WORK, COMMUNITY AND THE GOOD LIFE (2014).)  See Peg Streep and Alan Bernstein, MASTERING THE ART OF QUITTING; WHY IT MATTERS IN LIFE, LOVE AND WORK (2013)

Some new “callings” are not such a good idea. Renting a law office somewhere inside a used car dealership may or may not be one of them. Inelegant, to be sure. May get you kicked out of the country club. But some might regard the rigorous vindication of some creditors’ rights not only a noble calling but one that invigorates.

One that should probably be avoided is being a drug dealer.  A lawyer in Austin, Texas is apparently learning this the hard way. He did that and got caught.  The poor devil was allegedly selling heroin to an undercover cop (or maybe a mere law enforcement informant). As if this weren’t enough of a problem, this aging “idiot” is now accused of “inviting” the ostensible  drug purchaser to murder someone for him in exchange for a very small fee–“small” given the act sought.

In mid September, counsel (“Edward Imbecile, Esq.”[Esq”]—“www.ObtuseAttorney.com”) was charged with solicitation to commit capital murder.  That which is easily findable on the “Net,” including a visual, tends to support the idea found in the charge.

Two—maybe three–questions immediately occur to me. (1) Why was Esq. not charged with a drug offense as well as solicitation? (2) Who did Esq want whacked and (3) why?

One of the people I talk to frequently, receive questions from, and occasionally listen to, theorizes that Mr. Imbecile was not actually selling drugs—a practicing attorney could have done it more cleverly and obscurely that this—and didn’t actually want to hurt anybody—not even an adult offspring who no longer paid attention to him. No. My interlocutor’s theory is that this poor, woe-some fellow was very broke and was looking for a free place to live, sleep and eat.  He conjectures that this move might be a way to deal with loneliness, and it will certainly get the attention of his kids, if only momentary. In similar cases, my partner in dialogue has , in the past, even speculated that some people who end up like Esq may be pursuing some sort of charitable obligation.

Myself? I reject this view. Esq’s is a shade young for a man to pursue this adventuresome course.  Esq’s investment of his only asset–his time–is probably going to be a large one–too large I suspect.  So I don’t really have an explanatory theory. 

 Maybe there is some truth to my friend’s theory. Esq will be able to continue the practice of law, although it will no doubt be of the unauthorized, and therefore criminal, practice of law. This would certainly meet the criteria for a sort of jail-house unretiring: it would be from from sleaze-ball creditors’ rights litigation to very, very low fee criminal work for the confined criminal. 

 Of course there are other ideas, as well. One might experiment with the idea that Mr. Imbecile was creating a street satire on the “retirement avoidance” literature. But that idea presupposes a certain level of comedic, subtly,  sophistication and creativity, and there is not history of there being inclinations in this direction on the part of Esq.  


Michael Sean Quinn, Ph.D., J.D.
The Law Firm of Michael Sean Quinn et
Quinn and Quinn
                                                  1300 West Lynn Street, Suite 208
                                                              Austin, Texas 78703
                                                                  (512) 296-2594
                                                             (512) 344-9466 – Fax
                                                  E-mail:  mquinn@msquinnlaw.com