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Table
of Contents
1. Senior Attorney's Thoughts on the Law
2. What's
Your Number – Book Review
3. Two New Job Sites
People
50 and older who change their careers or launch new businesses are
garnering the lion's share of attention in the media of late. But we
think those who have found their calling and matured in it over the
years are equally deserving of a salute. Mike Wallace, for example,
just 'retired' at 88 to correspondent emeritus status at CBS' 60
Minutes where he spent 38 years creating a distinctive brand of
broadcast journalism. Do the math: Wallace launched his 'second act'
as a journalist at age 50, and did some of his best work in his later
years.
Closer
to home, we are highlighting Lew Segal, a senior attorney who is
helping to carve out a new niche in the practice of law at a time
when many of his peers have hung up their spurs. Lew Segal is on the
team at Outside GC (general counsel), a brand new idea in legal
services which handles day-to-day legal needs as well as more complex
matters for growing businesses, at a fraction of the cost of a
traditional law firm. (Disclosure: we have the inside track on this
one because Howard's son, Bill Stone, is founder and principal of
Outside GC, www.outsideGC.com.)
When we approached Lew for his story, he was hesitant. He didn't
believe his story had the same pizazz as
the “accountant to lion-tamer” stories. Begging to disagree, we
asked Lew to comment about his long career in the law and he sent us
“Some Thoughts on the Eve of Retirement,” penned as he was
leaving a long partnership at Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, LLP,
Hartford, Connecticut. Here are a choice few:
The
first money I ever earned was a quarter. I think I was ten years
old. It was summer. We were at a bungalow in the Catskills across
the road from a dairy farm. One afternoon as I watched the cows
returning to the barn, Farmer Sheldon (I remember his name) asked me
to find a missing cow and bring her back to the barn. He said, “If
you find her lying down, kick her rear end and she’ll get up and
come right back to the barn.” I found the cow, kicked her butt,
and was rewarded with a quarter. In one sense or another, people
have been paying me money to kick ass for the 43 years since I
passed the bar exam.
In
my own perception of my legal career, I was a moderately successful
lawyer. But the success I had was based far less on the knowledge
that I acquired in law school than on my own native intelligence and
intuitive sense of how people behaved and reacted to various
situations. This latter skill was substantially enhanced by my
experience as a waiter in the Catskills. Waiting on tables should be
a required course in law school. At the very least, it should be an
elective.
Practicing
law is a sort of gymnasium for the mind. You have to keep your brain
in shape, to stay alert and sharp, to study and analyze and think.
You have to do these things regularly, in a disciplined manner, with
many repetitions. I hope I can keep my mind from getting flabby.
Lawyers
have fallen into a deep state of popular disrepute. To a certain
extent, this was inevitable. It is a natural consequence of what
lawyers are called upon to do. They oppose the interests and aims of
everyone on the other side of a dispute or a transaction. They have
to be more clever, more diligent, more relentless than the other
side in order to prevail on behalf of their clients. No one has ever
gained friends or admirers through the use of such tactics.
Lawyers
ought to take pride when they are derided for being good at the
things that our social order requires that they be good at. But I
never kidded myself. It’s not possible to be proud of what people
hate in you. The best one can do is understand what the rancor is
about and learn to live with it. I could usually do that.
Of all the really
rotten parts of being a lawyer, lawyer jokes were the easiest to
abide.
Over
the years, I developed, polished, expanded and perfected a set of
skills that it took a career to bring to their current level. It
seems a shame to take that bundle of skills and discard it. The
irony of my professional life is that the skills that I worked so
hard to bring to the highest level in my entire career have
gradually been devalued by the changing nature of the environment in
which those skills are practiced. Gradually, almost imperceptibly,
the Profession of law has evolved into the Business of law. That’s
not the deal I signed up for.
Lawyers
say that the law is a jealous mistress...What lawyers mean is that a
successful and effective lawyer must be so devoted to his
profession, must work so hard at it, that there is a danger that it
will crowd out other things, other relationships in his life and
demand the lawyer's absolute and unshared devotion. To all the
lawyers who believe that, I say that is pure b---s---.
I
was never, I believe, simply “Lew the Lawyer.” In a game of free
association, I believe that anyone who really knows me would not
respond “lawyer” to the sound of my name. I hope that there is
someone who might respond “good friend” or “nice guy.” In
the depths of my heart, I dream that someone might say “mensch.”
That is the career I wanted for myself.
BOOK
SITE
Lee Eisenberg's The Number: A Completely Different Way
to Think About the Rest of Your Life (Free Press, 2006) focuses a
little heavily on the small segment of the population for whom
contemplating The Number, that is, what a person needs to finance a
life of fulfilling choices, is the least
likely to produce insomnia. That said, whether you are in that
fortunate 10 percent of the population or not, or find yourself in
the front or back nine of life, there is much of value in this book.
It's fun, witty and well-written. You might enjoy the author's take
on American obsessions with money and status (Eisenberg was an editor
for Esquire). However, if it's practical, bottom-line advice you
seek, here are two examples of the nuggets you'll find sprinkled
throughout.
Most
financial advisers conclude that up to 4 percent/year is a 'safe'
withdrawal rate from one's investments. Simple math. How/when you
withdraw money are more complex and should be discussed with your
financial adviser.
If
you've wondered how much can you safely spend a year to get through
the rest of your life, here's the formula: A. Total your invested
assets. B. Multiply this by .04, i.e. The amount of investment
income you can reasonable withdraw per year. C. Add the value of
home equity (divide home equity by the number of years you expect to
live.) D. Add inheritance income. E. Add Social Security
benefits. F. Add pension benefits, if any. G. Add income from work
or other sources. Total B through G.
You
might do as well by adding two books mentioned in The Number
to your reading list: George Kinder's The Seven Stages of Money
Maturity, (see our profile:
http://www.2young2retire.com/georgekinder.htm) and
Jacob Needleman's Money and the Meaning of Life.
QUICK
TAKES
Howard
speaks:
In
Owings Mills, MD, Thursday, May 31, 7 p.m. Reinventing
Retirement. Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore.
$10/JCCM, $15/NM Advance purchase required. Tickets available at
cashier's desk. For More Information Contact: Call Sara Gibber or
Reva Silber at 410.356.5200 x315. More info:
http://jcc.org/calendar.php?sdate=2006-05-31
Florence,
MA. Monday,
June 5, 2006, 1:30-4:30 p.m Oh!
The Places You'll Go Expo!
The Garden House at Look Park.
Keynote: Howard Stone.
Sponsored by Highland Valley Elder Services
&
Massachusetts Coalition on Vital Aging. Reservations/info:
sebh@highlandvalley.org
or 413-586-2000, ext. 142. http://www.highlandvalley.org/invite.htm
Next
2young2retire
Certified Facilitator Training. Six weekly 1-hour teleclass sessions
beginning Wednesday,
June 28. Choose your time slot: 12 noon or 7 OM Eastern Daylight Time. Registration
deadline: June 21, 2006.
http://www.2young2retire.com/facilitatorform.html
Sometimes
the shortest way to launch a rebound career is through your alumni
connections. Seasoned Pro is doing that, with employment conferences
at various universities around the country. Their signature event
is a two-day Experienced Alumni Recruitment and Career conference
held at leading universities entitled, A Holistic Approach to
Mid-Life Career Transition. Check out:
http://www.seasonedpro.com/
Would-be
employers and employees, check out this new-ish site that aims to be
your “easy button” connection to each other. Free accounts,
newsletter, surveys, and thoughtful articles.
http://www.retirementjobs.com/
Congratulations
to our nominee, Rick Koca of StandUp for Kids
(www.standupforkids.org), one
of 70 finalists for Civic Ventures' $100,000 Purpose Prize. A
distinguished panel of judges including Sherry
Lansing, Sidney Poitier, David Gergen, Gov. Marc Racicot, Cokie
Roberts, and Gloria Steinem, will select five social innovators over
age 60 from the finalists. Winners
will be announced in September.
Brain
food for the entrepreneurial mind. Amsterdam-based Springwise,
http://www.springwise.com/
, is an ageless, fun site that will stimulate your imagination and
powers of invention. You can submit your ideas, too, or become a
Spring Spotter – 8,000 members in 70 countries so far. Here are
two recent ideas we really, really like.
Mobile
schools:
http://www.springwise.com/nonprofit_social_cause/mobile_schools/
Innovative
bike rentals:
http://www.springwise.com/transportation/city_bike_schemes/
Speaking
of biking, National Bike to Work week just ended (unless you happen
to live in Chicago or Wyoming where it is in June). But 2005 was a
record year in bike sales and 2006 is looking like another record
breaker. Take that, Big Oil!
Hey
guys, unless you've permanently traded in your business attire for
sandals, this is a fun, off-beat site to visit.
http://www.blacksocks.com/
Michael
Moore is working on a new documentary about health care, and he's
interested in hearing from members of the freelance community about
their experiences getting the health care they need. If you have
personal stories, concerns, and/ or problems with the health care
industry that you want to share you can learn
more about the project
on Michael Moore's website, or send your response directly to
michael@michaelmoore.com
Life
Lessons to Share? Post your thoughts on a new site created by The
Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging. This is a
collection of thoughts from people 60 and older, who want to share
wisdom about work, family, health, marriage, spirituality. Click on
www.citra.org/survey.php
“Your
newsletter is always a welcome sight when it arrives in my e-mail! I
want to especially thank you for the information on MIT's Open
Courseware that you just talked about. I have been retired almost a
year now and have been keeping a low profile (not willingly, however)
due to some knee surgery that didn't quite fix the problem. This
information you provided was just the shot I needed at this
time...Thank you so much for brightening my day! I am ready to
begin.” -- Mary Tierney
“I
can't remember now when I wrote that online column (at
www.fortune.com); it also went
out as an e-newsletter) about your book — but I do recall that I
heard from dozens of readers who
thanked me for mentioning it! These
were people who were yearning to start new careers, in most cases
instead of a
traditional "retirement", but just didn't know
how to start or whether their dreams could be realized. Your book was
an inspiration to them. Keep up the
great work.”
-- Anne. (Look
for Anne Fisher's Act II column for Fortune magazine, to be launched
in June.)
Stay wel, make it new, make it better.
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