VACATION COMMUNICATION

Though I am retired from full time litigation practice, as the summer of 2022 enters the final week before Labor Day, I was caused to think of summer vacations past.

It started during a recent extended telephone mediation. Things had stalled. To move things along, I sent out a 2-day notice for a general conference call.  The afternoon before the conference I received an email from a previously non-communicative lawyer, stating he was on a family vacation "with little or no workable cell service or internet. I get internet in the am when we drive into town for coffee, etc."   Thus, he had created plausible deniability if he didn't respond to the conference call (he didn't), and if he didn't respond to the continuing, and reasonable requests for documents supporting his case.  Bad reception.  We had been warned.

Pure BS, of course. His firm is probably the most tech savvy in the state.  I wouldn't be surprised if they had a dedicated satellite link.  I'm sure the firm provided him with any number of methods to connect.  This isn't 1995.  And I can't think of any family whose children would survive being deprived of social media for 5 minutes.

On another level, I can sympathize.  Assuming the lawyer was on vacation with the family, he owes it to them (and himself) to turn off work to the extent he can.  Despite what we say on LinkedIn, we should be working to live, and not living to work.

Firms, clients, and courts expect attorneys to be available 24/7.  We were probably at that point before the COVID/Zoom era.  Now, you can go from the shower to a court appearance in 5 minutes, from your home office, basement, bedroom or kitchen.  Phones and tablets turn attorneys into the obstetricians of the legal system-always on call.  It is hard to relax-ever.

I was not raised during the Depression, but I feel like it when I recall communication, or the lack thereof, while on vacation during my legal career.  

Shortly after we were married, my wife and I went to the same Lake Huron resort (I am sure the term was used ironically) cottages (the size of an average suburban family room) my family went to during my childhood.  No TV, no phone, no AC, a barely working stove, and water of the same consistency, if not quite the same color and clarity of a pint of Guinness.  The cell phone, the internet and the email had not been invented.  No way to call the office and no way for the office to contact me.  Well, there was one way.

The cottage was on the Lake Huron shore, just east of US23.  On the west side of US23 was the Sunset Motel, shown below, in a photo that could have been taken at any time from the date of its construction up to the present.

What is not shown in the photo, is the south end of the parking lot, with accompanying utility pole.  Attached to that pole was a pay phone.  So, what I did, was walk to US23, cross the northbound lanes, the grass median, then the southbound lanes and try to call my office, collect, from that utility pole pay phone. It was tough trying to carry on a conversation with semis whizzing by.  I felt like Eddie Albert in Green Acres.

Civilization did progress, and a few years later, we went to Disney World for the first time.  Still no cell phones or email.  But we did have a phone in our hotel room.  Unfortunately, we weren't in the hotel room during business hours, what with hobnobbing with Mickey, Minnie et al, and waiting in line 45 minutes for "It's a Small World".  Think how much work a modern-day attorney gets done while standing in such a line.

When we returned to the hotel each day, well after 6pm, I'd look immediately to the phone to see if the red light was blinking. On day 2, it happened.  Three weeks after my vacation I was set to start a jury trial at Frank Murphy.  Even though this trial came early in my career, it has forever held last place in my list of favorite trials.  Before leaving for Disney, I had filed a bunch of pre-trial motions, and the court had not yet given me a hearing date.  Not knowing the judge, or her courtroom procedure, I was stressing as to what might be happening in my absence.  I couldn't reach anyone at the office, so I stewed overnight, and called immediately after the office opened the following morning.  The temp, who was filling in for my secretary, who somehow had come down with a weeklong illness the Monday morning of my one-week vacation, informed me that she had called because she could not make out "a" word in my dictation.  Wonderful.  I translated for her and went off to Epcot, relieved and ticked off at the same time.

Even as technology improved, off-site communication was still a challenge.  My plaintiff firm was slow to embrace email and the internet.  One of the guys still there still does not read his email, leaving it to his assistant.  Another does use a computer for work.  We never had remote access to our firm network, nor our work email (when we had that).  And cell phone reception could still be an issue.  Indeed, one year the family did go up to a cottage in northern Michigan.  No wifi. We actually did have to drive to a Tim Horton's about 5 miles away for internet access and decent phone service.  That was about 15 years ago.

So, in the olden days, getting away from the tension of the practice was a lot easier.  But, coming back was a bigger problem.  In the days before efiling, everything came to me by US Mail/FedEx.  So, for each day while I was gone my assistant would fill a large manilla folder with the various motions, briefs, notices, letters, records, liens, etc.  At the end of the vacation week, the accumulated folders would be piled on my office chair, to greet me upon my return.  I'd start stressing out on Friday about what would await me.  Not stressed enough to call the office (if possible) and go through the specific contents of each day's mail.  It was marginally better to remain blissfully unaware while you could.

I remember returning to my office to confront the pile.  None of the folders actually jumped up and attacked me, but when you said that, you had said it all.  The first run through was to make sure I still had a law license.  Then, a check for SD motions, usually a surprise (court rule requirements notwithstanding).  Trial notices, dep notices, non-dispositive (but still dangerous) motions came next.  Finally, correspondence from lawyers, clients, tribunals, litigation funding companies, etc. Some stuff did get put in the "deal with when, if ever" pile.    Vacation return was a traumatic event.

Now that we are all connected 24/7, there is at least one consolation.  At the point I went over to the defense side, everything was done by efile and email.  I was "connected" all the time, whether I liked it or not.  So, while I could always be reached, I was always up to date on what was going on.  The traumatic return, with its accompanying stress, disappeared completely.  And for me, anyway, that was an immense benefit.

Happy end of summer.