Everywhere around the world, They’re coming to America…

WARNING!  WARNING! WARNING!

 

This is NOT a retraction… I am not a journalist, I do not report the truth or what I think is the truth, I just write what I think.

 

And right now, I think I love soccer.

 

Now wait, before you start buying me my own Manchester United football jersey, I feel I need to clarify things.  I love soccer because of what happened on Thursday.  Believe me, if Landon Donovan had thrown his eighth stone closest to the button to win the final game in curling or had hit the bulls-eye on the final target of the biathlon, I would be writing about my love for either of those sports. 

 

This is why I love soccer: because of the nationalism that was exhibited around this nation last week, as millions of fans pulled in one direction, for the USA.  And I will have you know that despite my email of a few weeks ago, I was actually listening to the match on the radio when the historic goal was scored by #10. 

 

I watched a video online (and I am sure there are many of them) that shows clips of groups of Americans reacting to the goal all over the country.  The reactions, the excitement, the elation were enough to give me goosebumps.  (Although I did find it interesting that one of the videos I watched had the fan reactions set to music from a baseball movie; I’m just saying…)

 

But it was more than that.  It was the sense of community, the sense of being a part of something, of everyone jumping on the same bandwagon.  And I am confident that many of the people celebrating were not die-hard soccer fans, but were fans of America.  That is what was truly inspiring about it.

 

Think back to times in history when the entire nation banded together for a common goal, when everyone was affected the same way by an event.  Now, how many of those events were positive events? 

 

I remember this same sense of nationalism on 9/11.  I remember it in 1986 with the Challenger disaster.  I am sure the United States was like this on December 7, 1941.  I remember it, on a smaller scale, in 1994 after the Northridge earthquake.  Those were times when the nation pretty much stopped moving in order to be a part of these events.  It was like that on Thursday when the game-winning goal was scored.  The nation stopped, even just for a moment, to celebrate as one.

 

I thought this was especially prescient given the fact that we will be celebrating the 4th of July at the beginning of next week.  Even the 4th of July, to me, pales in comparison to the Donovan goal.  Many people lose sight of the purpose of the 4th of July and what it commemorates.  Instead we think of fireworks, of drinking beer, and of not wanting to be on the roads for fear of drunk-drivers.  We think of pool parties and barbecues and the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest.  (My money is on Joey Chestnutt to win for the third straight year, by the way.)

 

But we don’t think of the 4th of July as uniting the country like it should.  Landon Donovan’s goal did just that.  This might be the event of my lifetime where I will be able to say exactly where I was when it happened.  Everyone remembers where they were when bad things happened.  JFK assassination, the Challenger disaster, 9/11… all heart-breaking events.  But when a good thing happened?  Makes for a much more satisfying memory.

 

So for that reason, I love soccer.  I can’t wait to see how this country erupts when the USA wins the World Cup.  Wait, they lost to Ghana?  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. 

 

Have a great week and a safe and enjoyable 4th.  Celebrate what makes this country so great.  Need a refresher?  Look to the Bill of Rights and number 1 stares right at you:  in other countries, I might not have the freedom to even send out this email and post these blogs…  Imagine how less fulfilling your life would be without my posts to read!

 

Rob

“Before the merriment of commencement commences…”

It’s graduation season and I had the opportunity to attend a graduation last week that was the culmination of years of hard work and dedication… pre-school graduation.  The gateway to a successful kindergarten career.

 

Before I had kids, I was just as skeptical as all of you.  Seriously, a pre-school graduation?  And this graduation was carried off with all of the seriousness of the commencement exercises of M.I.T., Harvard, or Princeton.  Aside from the songs about loving Friday night, how it is not good to be a turkey on Thanksgiving, and wanting to be a Maccabee.  Aside from that, it had the full pomp and circumstance, the processional and recessional, the caps and gowns and the receipt of diplomas.  Although I didn’t see any “graduates” wearing leis or bikinis under their gowns.

 

So sure, I thought it was kind of ridiculous.

 

Until I really thought about it.  So what?  What is really wrong with a pre-school graduation?  Is there a slippery slope?  Are they now going to be holding graduation ceremonies from kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade, 11th grade, all the way up the line?  If they do, so what?  I am 100% in favor of it.  And this is why…

 

Graduations are dividing lines; they are goals to work towards and conclusions of chapters in lives.  And once you complete your studies, with limited exceptions, you don’t have those dividing lines anymore.  If you are a teacher or a professional athlete, this may not apply to you because your career may actually be pursued during specific dates of the year.  But when you are in school, you have a goal– to graduate.  To finish the school year and feel the sense of triumph that comes when you walk across that stage and collect that diploma, a simple, maybe even meaningless, piece of paper that means you did it.  When was the last time you got that kind of recognition in your job?  Or, more importantly, when was the last time you actually had a destination date by which you marked an accomplishment?  Other than retirement which we all have penciled into a calendar someplace, right?

 

This is the thing.  The real world is unlike the world our kids live in when they are in school.  The rewards don’t come as often.  And the lines of demarcation are sometimes non-existent.  So why not let them enjoy it?  Why not celebrate their accomplishments?  And have this celebration start as early as possible.  Have it ingrained in their psyche that there are destinations, goals to achieve and rewards to reap when they reach them.  The rewards being celebrations in their honor, a reason for people to give them gifts, a reason for people to be happy for them and laud their accomplishments. 

 

Because seriously, once you get out of school, those types of celebrations are few and far between.  Why take this away from them?  Celebrate them.  Give the kids reasons to be happy, to celebrate, to feel a sense of accomplishment.  Because once they get out of school and work, there aren’t as many opportunities for those types of celebrations.

 

This week, find a reason to celebrate your accomplishments.  Whether it is landing a new client, getting a good result for a client, or simply feeling good about some work you did, reward yourself in some way.  Because it will be a long, long, long time before someone throws you another graduation party…

 

Have a great week.

 

Rob

www.ahslawyers.com

www.robcohen13.wordpress.com

 

“Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in,outside of soccer.”

Friends:  You know that I am not one to make political speeches or take stances on hotly-contested social issues.  But I guarantee this will be, by far, my most controversial post yet.  All I request is that you hear me out before you brand me a heretic. With the World Cup firmly upon us and (presumably, with “rolled” eyes) the world watching, I felt it was time to say it once and for all:  I don’t like soccer and I certainly do not care about the World Cup. Hold the phone!  Before you start setting up the websites by which you intend to torch my (good) name, brand me as an unenlightened, and start listing all the ways that you think soccer is better than baseball (which it isn’t), just hear me out.  I typically do not take a stance this firm without having some understanding of the subject, and I believe I can justify my dislike.  You don’t have to agree; you don’t have to approve of my position.  Just respect the fact that I have defended my position with some degree of intelligence.  1) The field is too big.  I won’t go into the fact that the fields… err, I’m sorry, “pitches,” are inconsistent in size since baseball fields are different sizes as well.  But the pitches are traditionally between 90 and 120 meters long (metric system!) and between 45 and 90 meters wide (all depends on whether you are playing international adult or non-international adult).  On television all that metric system bunk means one thing — too much grass.  It requires too much running to go back and forth, which means that the majority of the play takes place too far away from a goal.  Thus, the excitement level of the “red zone” in football or inside the blue line in hockey, is few and far between.   And with that much space to run, it is that much harder to get close enough to a goal for there to be real excitement, let alone the dissipation of the excitement once a defensive player kicks the ball away from the goal, like the air spewing out of a balloon.  And seriously, calling it a “pitch?” 2) The clock ticks forward.  The shot at the buzzer.  The bottom of the 9th, 2 out walk-off home run, the hail mary pass… None of those exist in soccer.  Want to know why?  Because all of the foregoing examples rely upon a race against the clock.  The seconds tick away (or the outs remaining diminish) until triple zero is on the clock or 27 outs have been recorded.  In soccer, the clock counts forward.  It starts at triple zero and ends at… ?  Well, it could end at 90 minutes; it could end at 90 minutes and 23 seconds; it could end at 91 minutes and 14 seconds.  There is always the possibility that time will be added at the end of the game because of penalties or stoppages in play.  So when the game actually will end is in doubt basically until the game is over.  How is there drama and excitement in that? 3) Tie Games.  What is the point of playing a game and not resolving the issue of who won and who lost?  What was Kreese tell Johnny in The Karate Kid Part II?  “Second place is no place!”  And yet, in the World Cup, if you tie, you still get points.  How does that make sense?  I don’t understand the tournament rules in World Cup, but is it possible that if a team ties every one of its games it might accumulate more points than a team that wins some and loses some?  Play until you have a winner.  Hockey addressed the issue of ties with the shoot-out, one of the most exciting events in sports.  But soccer ends in a tie!  Congratulations, no one lost.  Kind of like my daughter’s T-Ball games.  Fun, demonstrates good sportsmanship since no one has to lose, but all in all, unfulfilling. 4) Too Many Leagues.  I don’t understand this at all.  There is the MLS (Major League Soccer), there is the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations), there is the FA (Football Association), there is FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) … and there may be more.  How do you keep them all straight?  Especially since the players are free to move in between the leagues.  An MLS player is free to be loaned to an FA team… and FA teams sometimes play MLS teams?  I really don’t understand it at all.  Last, and certainly not least: 5) You Cannot Use Your Hands.  I know this is what makes soccer soccer and not rugby, but seriously, no hands?  In all fairness, soccer to me looks more like a form of interpretive dance than a sport.  I won’t sit and watch a track meet and I won’t watch a soccer game.  I want athletics that require coordination of more than just your two feet.  I am not saying that soccer players are not gifted, they surely can do amazing things with their feet and how they kick the ball, but coordinating four appendages and the rest of your body is more impressive.  Catching a football on the dead run while avoiding would-be tacklers… the alley-oop requiring a run, a timed-jump, and raising the arms and slamming the ball down… the science of hitting a round ball with a round bat square.  Hand-eye coordination is one of the most amazing skills an athlete has but it doesn’t exist in soccer because you can’t use your hands. Ok, one more…  6) The Laws of the Game.  As a lawyer, I respect the law.  I understand it, I appreciate it, I understand its prominence and importance.  There are many types of other laws.  The laws of physics.  The laws of attraction.  But why does soccer need laws?  Soccer is just a game, right?  So is Monopoly and it has rules.  Boggle has rules.  Yahtzee has rules.  Baseball has rules.  But not soccer.  Oh no no!  Soccer has “laws.”  Sounds kind of pompous and self-righteous to me.  Whatever…  Now, you are all entitled to your opinion.  Those of you who are staying up until the wee-hours of the morning to watch these games, matches, whatever they are called can knock yourself out.  But don’t expect me to get all excited and worked up about it.  I’d rather watch paint dry…. or golf. Have a great week.

“You have business cards? You’re a stormtrooper. There’s like a million of you. What do you need business cards for?”

This week, I promise no politics, no policy-change ideas, no activism.  I was able to solve the jury system and problems with teen drivers, but I am done for the time-being.  Get answers to the BP crisis or global warming from someone else.  

This week, I thought I would share a story with you of one of my first interactions with another attorney after I had passed the BAR exam .

I don’t know if any of you were like me, but I grew up wanting one thing: a business card.  I had been working at Anker Reed for over a year as a law clerk and every day when I grabbed the key to the men’s room I would look at the business card holders with all of the pretty business cards inside.  The beautiful bonded paper and black embossed writing.  “Attorney At Law.”  It carried such esteem.  Do you know what it meant?  Legitimacy.  Sure, you can flash your BAR card to someone, but to me, the true demonstration of being an attorney was having a business card.

So when I passed the BAR, the first order of business was to order business cards. “Robert A. Cohen — Attorney At Law.”  I had played around with all types of ideas: “Robert Cohen — Attorney At Law;”” R. Alan Cohen — Attorney and Counselor At Law;” “Rob Cohen, Esq. — Atty At Law.”  The business cards could not come fast enough, and when they finally arrived, I was convinced EVERYONE would want a card.  I brought them everywhere.  I had them in all kinds of business card holders on my desk, on the receptionist’s desk, in my car, in my briefcase, in my wallet.  Who wouldn’t want a business card from “Robert A. Cohen – Attorney At Law?”

Well, you can imagine my ecstasy when another attorney, we will call him Greg, finally asked me for my business card.  I remember it so vividly.  I was getting ready to meet with Greg and a potential new client who he was referring to the firm.   As we were waiting for the new client to arrive, Greg looked at me and asked me if I had just passed the BAR exam and I told him that I had.  Without offering any congratulations, he asked me if I had a business card.  Can you imagine how excited I was?  This is it.  This is what it is all about.  Legitimacy!  I am finally a “real” attorney because I have business cards and I can pass them out upon request…

So when he asked me for my card, I mentioned that I happened to have one in my shirt pocket and, very nonchalantly passed it across the conference table to him, as if I had done it thousands of times before.  I think I even did it with a little wrist-flick to get it to slide across the table.  Then I thought, “Damn, did I appear over-eager?”

Well, you will never guess what happened next.  Greg took the card, looked at it and then… pulled out his cel phone.  Wait, he isn’t going to call a friend of his to tell all about this hot-shot new attorney he met, right?  Or wait, is he calling his secretary to have her input my contact information into the database and rolodex?  Maybe he is going to put my telephone number into his speed-dial so that he can call me anytime he needs to send business my way.

No — he didn’t do any of those.  This is what he did.  He called his voicemail.  And then proceeded to turn my business card upside-down and write down his messages on it.  Now I have heard that there is some etiquette in Asian cultures with respect to business cards, but I am not up-to-speed with that.  All I know is I have never felt so deflated or hurt as I did that day.  Is this the way attorneys do it?  Is this how they show respect to one another?

But you know what?  I look back on it now and I laugh my “you-know-what” off.  I would never, ever, ever, EVER do that to someone else, but it is really freaking-funny…

However, just in case you never noticed it before, I always ask for your business card because I deeply respect the power of a business card, the perception that comes with having a business card, the feeling of accomplishment that you have because you have a business card.

So, that being said, anyone need one of my business cards?  The new ones are glossy so you can’t write on them!

Have a good week and hand those business cards out…

“You’ve Been Psyched Out!”

Did you think that I forgot?  In the 40-something weeks that I have been doing these, this is the first time that my e-mail has not gone out on a Monday.  A few reasons:  a) I wondered if I might have some Memorial Day inspiration so I waited; 2) I started a new work-our routine and Sunday night I could barely lift my arms let alone write an entire email; and 3) I was just plain lazy.  I admit it, sometimes even I get tired.  But here I am, please don’t hold it against me.

 

And for those of you who actually read the subject lines of the emails, they always have some meaning.  Since I just got home from the Dodger game, maybe you can understand the subject line of this week’s email.

 

Now, on to the matter at hand.  Last week I gave you some suggestions as to how to fix the system of jury duty.  I appreciated your thoughts and, umm, criticisms, so I felt emboldened and thought I might tackle another topic of concern, the reckless and dangerous world of teen driving.

 

What brought this on?  I live in a community that is rife with young families.  It is a great breeding ground for the PTA, neighborhood watch, and community pride.  But it is also a community that every year is faced with hundreds of new drivers.  I see them everyday on my way to work and on my way home.  And frankly, my friends, I am scared to death.  I was once a teen driver myself, and I don’t trust them to be safe, especially when there are so many young families walking their dogs, running together, or riding their bikes.  So I figured I would give it a shot to address the problems.

 

I don’t know the statistics, but I know that young drivers account for a significant cross-section of accidents and injuries with vehicles.  They can be reckless, experiencing their first taste of freedom, the freedom to go wherever they want, and however fast they want.

 

Here are my thoughts, and again, I appreciate your comments.

 

I have two alternative ideas.  First, raise the driving age from 16 to 18.  I know, when I was 15 1/2 I had heard the rumors that the driving age would be raised and I dreaded hearing the news that I would have to wait 2 extra years to drive.  As a father now, I feel more like a responsible adult.  You don’t want the driving age raised, youngins, then be more responsible drivers at 16.  If you are 15 and the driving age is raised, the only people you have to blame are your friends the 16 year olds who you think are cool because they get to drive fast.  They are making it worse for all of you. 

 

If you don’t want to raise the driving age, then here is another thought: you will only be allowed a driver’s license if you have a job.  At 16 you can have a part-time job, even a job in which you can only work on weekends (for the athletes who can’t work during the week).  Why do I think having a job should be a pre-requisite?  Because having a job shows an appreciation for responsibility.  I truly believe that the reason why teenagers are sometimes reckless drivers is because they do not appreciate the responsibility of being a licensed driver.  Now, I don’t know the statistics of how many teenagers have to buy their first cars and how many are just plain given them as gifts, and I don’t know how many have to pay the insurance or gas or repairs or any other expenses of having a car.  But when you get your first paycheck and come to grips with how much work it took to get that paycheck, I think you might think twice before you speed or drive recklessly.  Having an accident or getting a ticket means a lot of those hours working.  

 

Ok, as I said, I am tired, so I will leave it at that for now.  I will leave you all with one parting thought:  Having a driver’s license is a privilege, not a right.  And that privilege is subject to the driver’s compliance with the laws.  That also means that the DMV can create its own regulations for allowing membership into the driver’s fraternity. 

 

Have a great week, all of you.

 

Rob

www.ahslawyers.com

www.robcohen13.wordpress.com