“I pity the fool, and I will destroy any man who tries to take what I got!”

Friends:

In 1982, when I was in 2^nd Grade, I saw a movie that changed my life… for about a month.  The movie was “Rocky III” (you know, the one with Mr. T) and I vividly remember riding down the escalator at the Pacific Theater in the old Sherman Oaks Galleria (from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Commando” fame) profoundly moved and inspired.  My fists were pumping, I was shadowboxing in the mirror surrounding the escalator, and the transformation had been made.  First thing Monday morning I informed Mrs. Fry that I was to be called Rocky from then on out.  I wrote my name as “Rocky C.” on my homework, in my books, and on my notebook and required that everyone on the playground should call be Rocky.  Like I said, it lasted for about a month and then faded away when Grease 2 came out.

Fast forward two years to 1984 and 4^th Grade when a new transformation took place; the transformation into a living, breathing, break-dancing machine.  The movie?  “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.”  It didn’t mean anything that I was a white Jewish kid from the suburbs, I was determined to make my mark along side Shabba Doo and Boogaloo Shrimp.  The kitchen, the family room, the aisles of the supermarket… nowhere was safe from the break-dancing machine. 

So why do I bring this up?  If anyone tells you that we are not influenced by what we see on television and in movie theaters, they are full of crap, just go ask Rocky C. and Boogaloo Cohen.  Which is why the changes in sports and entertainment, even over the last 25 years, are frightening for the 35-year old Rob with a 5 year old daughter. 

We are moving closer and closer to the society envisioned by Stephen King and immortalized in the adaptation of his book, “The Running Man.”  How soon before reality television includes death and dismemberment, all in the name of entertainment?  Think I am being extreme?  Isn’t that what these sporting events are promising?  Extreme skating, extreme skiing, extreme martial arts?

What inspired this recent post were the events that took place at the Raiders/49ers football game last week at which there were beatings and shootings.  If a 6 year old can watch a boxing movie and change his name for a month, why are we surprised that adults watching grown men beat the living snot out of each other on the gridiron won’t be similarly swayed and influenced to beat each other up?  Not to mention when you add alcohol to the mix; why do we act as if this type of behavior is unexpected and bewildering?

And just this past week I heard news that the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has designs for ultimate fighting to be more mainstream and as popular as the three/four major sports.  Will we be similarly surprised when viewers of UFC events start beating each other up and kicking and biting and putting each other in headlocks and sleeper-holds?  At least with wrestling everyone knew it was fake (isn’t it?).  But UFC is real.  It’s bloody and gruesome and shocking and intense and the participants feel the pain.

It used to be easy to argue that if you don’t like violence on television and in movies, don’t watch the news.  But that argument doesn’t work anymore and you all have to agree with me on that.  The news is nothing compared to primetime television. 

Am I truly concerned that my daughter will go out and beat people up or want to change her name to Rampage or Kimbo?  No, of course not.  And as it regards my girls, it isn’t them I am worried about.  It’s the boys she goes to school with.  I saw it on the playground just the other day.  One of the boys grabbed my daughter as she was running and while it was harmless, I got a glimpse into the future.  What will boys be like when they get wind of football and UFC and first-person shooter games and what used to pass for “R” rated movies but which are now “PG?” (If they haven’t already, of course.)

Of course I am not arguing for football and UFC and violent movies and videogames to be tossed by the wayside and abolished forever.  And I wish I could say I wonder when it will end, but we all know it won’t end.  So the better question then is, “What are we doing to prevent the fan violence, the influences that violence has on our temperaments?”  How are we educating our children so that they learn that they cannot act out when they see similar acts in entertainment and sports?

We all know that one rotten apple can spoil the bunch and it is always one moron who brings these issues to light while the majority are perfectly capable of understanding that it is just a game, or a movie, or a TV show.  But as we see more of it, as access to more of it is made so much easier to the point that we are virtually inundated with the violence, then aren’t we providing a breeding ground for more morons?

I don’t have an answer and unfortunately all I can do is work with my own children; I cannot control other people’s children.  But we have been heading down a path from which we cannot turn away.  The future is bright yet also potentially bleak unless we get a hold on how we view entertainment.  Dictionary.com defines “entertainment” as: “agreeable occupation for the mind; diversion; amusement.”  Or, to put it another way, it is something designed to take us away from our normal lives; i.e., it is not real.  We cannot act like it is real.  We cannot internalize it like it directly impacts our lives.  It is strictly a form of amusement. 

Why do people have such a hard time with that?  Why do people beat each other up and shoot each other because of what team they root for?  And why did I change my name to Rocky C?  I mean, I couldn’t possibly think I had a shot at being a boxer, right?  But I definitely had the backspin down pat. 

Have a good week.

Rocky C. aka Boogaloo Cohen

“The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met.”

Friends:

Pete Rose said something last week that really resonated; and, surprisingly enough, it really didn’t have much to do with baseball.  Instead, it was a commentary on life and death and how we deal with the parts in between.

Towards the end of last year, Sparky Anderson, the hall of fame manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers, died at the age of 76.  In honor of Sparky, on June 26 of this year, the Detroit Tigers retired his number “11” and posted it on the brick wall of the outfield.  Pete Rose had played for Sparky while with the Reds and, upon being asked about the Tigers retiring Sparky’s number, Rose basically asked why it took so long.

In February of this year, legendary Dodger Duke Snider died and, on August 9, the Dodgers held an evening at the park in his honor and gave out Duke Snider bobbleheads to all of the fans.  The Snider family was in attendance and threw out the first pitch, and throughout the night videos played of Duke’s career and accomplishments.  My whole family attended the game, celebrated Duke’s life, and added bobbleheads to our mantles (not Mickeys, though, because he was a Yankee).

It wasn’t until later that I heard Pete Rose’s comments and it hit me about what was wrong with the Duke Snider bobblehead night and tribute… it was a tribute.  Tributes, by the way, are held after someone has died.  Why did the Dodgers wait until after Duke Snider was dead to honor him with a bobblehead and his “night”?

Before we go any further, let me just say that I have been going to Dodger games since 1982.  I have not been to every game and it is very possible that the Dodgers had held nights in Duke’s honor prior to his death.  But this night, this specific night in August 2011, was solely in response to his death.

There is nothing worse than being a day late and a dollar short.  Why put off doing today what you may not be able to do tomorrow?  If you want to celebrate someone, why wait until they are dead to do it?

This is not about baseball.  This goes for music, television, movies, you and me and the guy down the street.  Don’t believe me?  Any posthumous award, to me, is a waste.  Voting someone into the hall of fame after they have died?  Giving out a Pulitzer Prize or creating a postage stamp?  Sure, it is nice for the family and ensures some form of remembrance and preservation for “history,” but the beneficiary of the honor is dead and cannot enjoy it.  The “lifetime achievement” honor in entertainment; by its very nature, the person being honored has had a lifetime of contribution to the art… how unfortunate it is that sometimes the honoree is not alive to be celebrated.

(Of course, none of this applies to the tragic premature death.  Heath Ledger winning the Academy Award after he had died does not factor in here.  But had he lived, would he have even been nominated?)

We are all guilty of it.  We go about our daily life and do our very best to keep in touch, maintain relationships, and stay present in someone’s life.  But as life goes on, time gets away from us; the day to day grind and our nuclear family becomes of immediate and constant focus and it is invariably a death that brings us back to our loved ones just on the periphery.  And it forces us to focus on what our relationship with that person actually meant.  The good times and the bad times and the bonds we had developed but allowed to fray over time. 

Look, I know it is impossible to be everything to everyone everyday; to call everyone everyday, write an email or send a card to everyone everyday, to celebrate a birthday or share a happy occasion with everyone everyday.  I know it.  We all have felt it, that sting of regret when we hear of a death of someone who used to be close to us; someone with whom we simply seemed to have lost touch, but who never ever became less important to us.  It has nothing to do with someone being important or not, they just become less present.  It isn’t a bad thing; it can be a regrettable thing, but it isn’t bad.  It is life.

We can live life to the fullest, accumulate friends and family members and memories, but the more of all of those we amass, the more likely it is that we will have that regret, that sense of “what if.”  It’s that sense that we somehow failed to honor and celebrate that guy. 

But it isn’t really the celebration is it?  It isn’t the fact that the Dodgers didn’t do a bobblehead night before Duke had died or the Tigers hadn’t retired Sparky’s number before he died or Major League Baseball didn’t retire Jackie Robinson’s number before he died.  It is the feeling that while they were alive they were not appropriately appreciated for their contribution.  So in effect, it’s on us.  We don’t regret that they weren’t alive to enjoy the celebration; we question whether we did enough to show our appreciation, our love, our enjoyment of them.

So it falls to us.  Are we going to show our love and our appreciation?  Or are we going to wait until a death to remind us that we didn’t do enough?

Let’s do what we can, shall we?  Let’s tell them we love them, go out of our way to thank them, demonstrate our appreciation.  We don’t need to throw a party or retire a number or enshrine them in a hall of fame.  We simply need to thank them and show them how much they mean to us.

“Summer lovin’ had me a blast…”

Friends:

Don’t look now, but summer is over. No, I don’t mean the meteorological phenomenon that results in different weather patterns, but the “real” summer, the time between when school ends and school begins again. It used to be that summer was three very long and relaxing months. Now, the time passes so quickly, it is over in the blink of an eye and the hard work and daily grind of school begins again. It seems like just yesterday we were discussing graduations and the completion of school; now, it starts back up again.

So in honor of the end of this, my most favorite time of the year, I thought we could share some pleasant and, dare I say, “winsome,” memories of summers past. Now this one is audience participation-please share some of your memories with your fellow readers. Go to the webpage at www.robcohen13.wordpress.com and please post a comment with your favorite summer memory.

Here are a few of mine, in no particular order:

1) My family’s first real trip-a two week east coast swing, through Washington, DC, New York City, Boston and Montreal. At 8 years old, getting to see the monuments to the Presidents we had just been learning about, taking a picture of Abraham Lincoln from each step up the Lincoln Memorial, seeing Ghostbusters in the theater and then walking right past the library where the opening scenes took place, trying to find Filene’s Basement in the rain and all those one-way streets, and free tickets to the Expos game against the Astros after making friends with Jose Cruz, the Astros’ leftfielder.

2) Having our pool installed in 1982 and swimming all summer with the radio blasting “Abracadabra” by The Steve Miller Band, “Caught Up In You” by .38 Special, and “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” by Chicago.

3) Summer camp at Sierra Canyon and all of those big stick popsicles. Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. I also happen to remember the talent show where we tried to sing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” with me playing “drums,” which was really just my trapper keeper and some chopsticks. That one I wish I could take back…

4) The semester-abroad program in London. Six weeks taking one class (who studied?) and exploring London and Europe. Amsterdam, Nice, Paris, Rome… a great time with some great friends. And don’t get me started about the London nightlife-at least I had the presence of mind to get my friend’s jacket when we were getting kicked out of the club… But also the fireworks in Nice, the trampolines in Monte Carlo, and the ice cream at the McDonald’s next to the Spanish Steps.

5) The cruise after the BAR exam. Europe, the Mediterranean… the thing I remember most about this is what I didn’t bring with me. After I took the BAR exam I was so convinced that I would have to take it again, I wanted to bring my BAR review materials with me and study out on the deck and in my stateroom. But my mom talked me out of it and good thing too. Didn’t have to take it again and would have wasted a whole lot of time.

6) The trip to Hawaii at 12 years old and the first time on a golf course. It was also the first time behind the wheel of any type of vehicle. All I am saying is that it wasn’t me who drove up on the curb…

7) The All Star tournament that took us from Northridge to Goleta to Fountain Valley, but no further. Too many innings riding the pine while others weren’t getting the job done.

8) Brooklyn’s first trip to Europe. It is amazing she still speaks to us; we must have dragged that poor little girl past every museum, monument, and souvenir shop. But she did get to see Disneyland Paris. Weird how those princesses spoke French.

9) All of those 4^th of July celebrations. Where have I celebrated the 4^th? Los Angeles, Boston, New Orleans, London, on an airplane to Paris, on the highway from Washington, DC to Akron and I am sure a few others. The one that still confuses me is why we thought that we would find fireworks in London on the 4^th of July. Walking around at 10:00pm on the banks of the Thames convinced we would find fireworks… What were we thinking? Were the British celebrating that we had won our independence from them?  

So what does this all tell me? Life is a lot of fun. Summer is the time to travel, to swim, to be a kid and do silly things, to make friends at camp and make a fool out of yourself, to explore new places and have no experiences. Which is why I love summer so much, and why I will miss it.

Until next summer-don’t go away for too long. I am thinking about you already.

What are your memories?

Enjoy the rest of your summer.  Take advantage of every opportunity to make a memory…

Rob

“Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live, and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Deut. 16:18-20)

Friends: 

It’s been almost 70 years since the end of World War II and I have to tell you, aspects of it still bother me.  No, not just the atrocities and unnecessary deaths, but the aftermath, the adjudication by the victors.  We have discussed it before – win the war and you control how history is written. 

Which makes the subject of my latest scholarly exploration so troubling.  When WWII ended, the Allies felt it was imperative that the leaders of the German government be subjected to legal process to determine whether they should be punished for their “crimes.”  What was borne of that need was the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. 

Now, here is where I struggled.  The warring factions of my person, me as a Jew versus me as an attorney, were tested.  Because Rob the Jew, needing revenge, found the trial to be too good for the German high commanders.  They certainly did not allow the six million Jews that they eradicated defend themselves in a trial or argue for their lives.  So why should such civil liberties be granted to these monsters.  But Rob the Attorney…?  Well, there is a different perception altogether.  Looking back on it almost 70 years later, Rob the Attorney is having a difficult time viewing the trial as anything other than a farce.

First, as always, I offer a caveat.  I am no expert on the trial, its derivations, or its after-effects.  It can be argued that the trial, though imperfect, served as a necessary precedence for later war crimes trials, whether for crimes during the Vietnam War or those in the former Yugoslavia.  But the trial itself, viewed from the standpoint of legal scholarship, very easily could be perceived as preposterous.

As a result of the need to create a forum for the prosecution of the German leaders, the U.S. basically created a judicial system from scratch.  They wrote the rules, they created the procedure, and they hired the judges.  One might argue, even, that they stacked the deck against the potential defendants.  Yet, through the process of creating this judicial system, they had to find ways around fundamental tenets of moral law. 

First was the issue of the retroactive ratification of the laws on which the defendants were tried.  Article 1, Section 9 of the United States Constitution prohibits the passage of any ex post facto law.  Do you remember from 12^th Grade Government class what that means?  It basically prohibits the law of retroactivity.  The government cannot criminalize an action that was legal when the action was committed. 

No matter which way you cut it, the Nuremberg trial was one of retroactivity and the justices at the trial struggled with this and scholars continue to struggle today.  At the time the Nazis rose to power and began their charge for world domination, there were no laws prohibiting these aggressive acts.  There was no “world constitution” or over-arching body that governed all countries.  But the justices had to find a way to characterize the actions of the Nazis as crimes.  So they created charges that were, minimally, related to violations of previously executed treaties or agreements between nations.  Then they created a subset of laws that dealt specifically with the atrocities themselves, the crimes against humanity.

Point one.  When you win the war, you can create the laws.

The second issue with which the justices had to wrestle was what the adjudicators called “tu quoque.”  In its simplest terms, it’s the “I know you are but what am I” defense.  Regardless of the testimony and evidence, the defendants were proscribed from asserting as a defense that whatever the Nazis’ actions, the Allies were no better.  If the accusation was that the SS murdered millions of women and children, they could not argue in defense that the United States killed thousands of women and children by dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that the Americans were no better than the Germans.

Point two.  If you won the war, then the methods you employed to prevail were appropriate.

The two legal conundrums that faced the creators of the tribunal were addressed in the only sensible manner; they were basically ignored.  It was believed that there was a yearning for judgment to be passed on the progenitors of this terrible war and so the “legal” barriers were effectively swept under the rug.

As an attorney, this bothers me.

I will make one admission.  I believe that the trial itself was prosecuted with the most upstanding of intentions.  I don’t see the trial as a public lynching with predetermined verdicts.  In fact, quite a few acquittals were handed out.  But seriously, how would it have looked to the rest of the world if no convictions were handed down?  Every aspect of the trial, from the laws to the procedures to the judges themselves, was handpicked and choreographed.  It could not fail.  The defendants did not stand a chance.  Sure they deserved every punishment they received, but the method of examination of the crimes was flawed. 

Did they do the best they could?  Well, in that respect I am not so sure.  I think that some part of me feels that the greatest legal minds of that age failed while another part of me wonders what could have been done differently.  Not that I have any better suggestions, but the United States had never been in this position before.

I tried to think of another situation in which the U.S. was faced with a similar quandary.  I found only one (although I am sure there are others).  In 1865, after the Civil War had ended the U.S. attempted to address the actions of Jefferson Davis and the government of the Confederate States of America.  Jefferson Davis was a war criminal after all, wasn’t he?  He instituted a war of aggression and was indicted for the crime of treason.  So what happened?  Nothing.  He was imprisoned for two years while awaiting trial, was released on bail, and the charges were dropped in 1869.  So the U.S. track record wasn’t so great.

The passage of time, though, has done nothing to assist the perception of the Nuremberg trial.  As more is learned about the Nazi party, its rise and its cruelty, it creates the perception that the Nuremberg trial was nothing short of anti-climactic.  Our education of the Nazis and WWII has focused on the names of Adolf Hitler, Adolf Eichman, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Leni Reifenstahl, and Reinhard Heydrich.  Can you guess how many of those people were tried and sentenced at the Nuremberg trial?  The answer is zero.

Instead, the trial focused on, amongst others, these names:  Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Rosenberg, Keitel, Donitz and Frick.  Any of those names ring a bell?

No, of course not.  And why?  Because our study of this era in history has focused on the egotism and narcissism of Hitler and his close cadre of like-minded villains.  Looking back on it now, we know that the defendants in the Nuremberg trial, for the most part, were without options.  They couldn’t stand up to Hitler.  They couldn’t argue with him or challenge him.  Sure they agreed with him, but if Hitler had said that his mission in life was to paint all of Germany pink, they would have put on their painters’ hats and grabbed brushes.  We now know that if any of them had demurred, had resisted the directives to build concentration camps and execute Jews, they simply would have been killed themselves or reassigned and the next person in line given the order. 

But Hitler and Himmler and Goebbels and countless other cowards committed suicide, preventing the Jewish people and the Allied powers their pound of flesh for the millions of lives lost at the hands of these monsters.  Hitler and his cronies adopted a reign of terror that would place have placed even Robespierre himself in fear for his life and the world (it was perceived) needed an outlet to punish and the war crimes trial was concocted.

The more history that is unearthed about Hitler and his supremacy, the more trivial the actions of the defendants of the Nuremberg trial certainly seem.  They were sheep.  They were followers.  They were not original thinkers.  They were lackeys who were left holding the keys when Hitler and his closest confidantes took the cowardly way out.

And yet, at the end of the day, was justice served?  As an attorney, do I feel like the good guys won and the bad guys received their just desserts?  It is hard to say no; though it certainly makes you wonder if it was all just an act to show the world that something was being done to punish the aggressors.  Admittedly, the punishment that was meted out on Germany after World War I only served to give Hitler a basis for his rise to power.  Many believe that WWII would not have happened had the Treaty of Versailles and the German reparations not been so onerous and disastrous to the German economy.  So was this a worthy alternative?  Instead of simply punishing the nation, the world punished the individuals who promulgated the war and its atrocities.  I guess it makes sense.

But I can’t say that I, as an attorney, am entirely comfortable with it.

 

I know this was a bit long, but thanks for sticking with me.  I would be interested in your thoughts if you have any.  Feel free to post them on the website of email me back.  I certainly don’t have all of the answers…

Have a great week.

Rob

“I’m innocent. I’ve committed no crime. A crime’s been committed against me.”

Friends: 

You know how they say that there are five stages of grief?  I don’t remember what they are, but I think some of them are denial, anger, bargaining… grump and dopey… or is it sleepy?  Anyways, in practicing law for almost 11 years now and seeing litigation from commencement to adjudication and every step in between, I have come up with my six stages of the litigation psyche from the position of the defendant.  The psyche of the plaintiff is completely different and maybe we can discuss that another time.

If you’ve been involved in litigation, you will know exactly what I am talking about.  If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky.  Because not only is the litigation process a lengthy one, it is psychologically demanding and debilitating.

First, as always, a caveat.  I am not in any way a psychologist, psychiatrist, sociologist, or any other kind of “-ist” except for a jurist.  I am a layman when it comes to matters of the brain.  I know where it is and that is about all I know.  That and that we all have an id, an ego and a superego.  And some of us have alter-egos too.

As we attorneys say, “notwithstanding the foregoing,” here are my five stages. 

1)  Embarrassment.  Look, even if we had peered into a crystal ball and seen that this lawsuit would be filed against us, we are still embarrassed.  We stick it under our pillow and hope that no one will ever find out about it.  We don’t want to tell anyone because there is a stigma attached to being a defendant in a lawsuit.  The outside world will think, without any other information, that we had done something wrong.  Think of it this way—the standard response to trying to get out of jury duty is to claim that the criminal defendant had to have done something wrong to be sitting in that chair.  It is embarrassing to have to admit that someone out there thinks you harmed them.

2)  Anger.  How dare someone sully my name and call me a defendant.  How dare they think that I did something wrong.  I was brought up right; I’m a good person; I pay my taxes.  I wouldn’t hurt a fly and here this person is claiming I should pay them money???  If anything, they owe me money!  And if I did do something wrong, I was completed justified in doing so.  As soon as this lawsuit is over and I win I am going to sue him and make him pay me for all of the time and money I spent in proving that I did nothing wrong.  HOW DARE HE!  I will spend every last penny I have to make sure he never gets any money from me.  I would rather pay my attorneys and live on the street in a cardboard box than pay him money.  HOW DARE HE!!

3)  Conviction.  The facts of this case are so simple.  Any ignoramus can see that I did nothing wrong.  This won’t even have to go to a trial.  It doesn’t need a jury or a judge to decide who wins and who loses.  It should be as easy as writing a letter to the other side and telling them all of the reasons they are wrong and this case will go away.  The other guy is lying; I am totally believable and everyone will see through his fairy-tale.  He is just trying to extort money out of me.  This will be a slam-dunk and won’t even go to trial.  I’ve got nothing to worry about.

4)  Impatience.  When will this be over?  How much longer is it going to take?  This lawsuit has been going on for 8 months and it seems like nothing is happening.  It is interminable.  It may be a month of rapid activity and then three months of nothing.  But, oh yeah, the attorneys’ bills just keep coming.  Written discovery, depositions, motions… the attorney says we need to do these things, but it’s a waste of money.  Who cares what the other guy says?  My word is my bond and everyone will believe me.  Just get me on the witness stand, let me tell my story, and all will be over, we can be done with this.  I don’t want to have to wait 6 more months for my day in court.  Can’t we just get to it now? 

5)  Resignation.  I’ve had it.  I don’t really even care anymore.  This case has been going on for 11 months, we still have three months until trial and my lawyer tells me that it’s going to be another twenty thousand dollars just to get to trial.  I’ve already spent forty thousand dollars and it seems like no progress has been made.  The mediator told me five months ago that there was a possibility I could lose, but I didn’t believe him.  Now I am beginning to wonder whether I really even care.  I could pay my attorney all that money to go through the trial and then I could lose and have to pay the other guy also.  I have been living and breathing this case for almost a year now.  My work has suffered.  I’ve been depressed and I miss being who I was.  At this point I would rather it all go away whatever the outcome.  Yeah, I may have to pay the other guy some money, but what’s the price for regaining my sanity?

If Stage 5 prevails over your psyche and you push for settlement and resolution is reached, you may have conflicting feelings – relief, despair, liberation, reawakening, or regret.  If you succeed in repressing your feelings of resignation and proceed to trial, Stage 6, the final stage, awaits you…

6)  The Comedown.  Whether you win or lose, you are in for a tremendous fall.  If you lose, there is the realization that you spent all of this time and money in a losing effort.  And now the bad guy, the REAL bad guy, has bragging rights and will pursue pursue pursue.  He is going to attach you property and garnish your wages and empty your bank accounts.  You go into preservation mode.  How can you prevent this guy from actually collecting anything?  A whole year of fighting, of living and breathing this lawsuit, all for naught.  And I could have settled this lawsuit six months ago for maybe quarters on the dollar.  Ahh, what was I thinking…?

Or–

If you prevail, a different kind of let down, burdened by further anger.  Why did I have to spend so much of my money and time just to be told that I was right all along, just like I had been telling everybody?  I spent so much money and what did I get in return?  A piece of paper that said I was right… Why wouldn’t anyone listen to me when I was saying it?  I have always been right and I had to spend so much money.  I want the him to pay me for all of the pain and aggravation, but do I really want to go through this again?  Another lawsuit, another emotional rollercoaster, another year or more of my life?  I won’t get that time back.  I could have settled this thing six months ago; sure I would have paid some money, but it would be over and done with.  The attorneys’ fees would have ended.  At the end of the day, it’s only money, right?  I could have been living the last six months in renewed peace; instead, here I am, an empty wallet and a hollow victory for which no one is going to pay me anything without fighting more.

So, in the end, I ask this question—was it all worth it? 

Of course, there are benefits to the process and sometimes there is no way to obtain appropriate adjudication without the proceeding through the entire litigation process.  But just be prepared.  It is a marathon, not a sprint.  Only about one in a hundred go away without these stages. 

So what can you, as the defendant, do to combat these stages? Rely on your attorney and trust him/her.  Your attorney has been here many times before and he/she will hold your hand and guide you through it.  Make sure you have someone in your corner who you trust and in whom you have the utmost confidence.  They will help you navigate through the stages…

Have a litigation-free week if possible.  I won’t, but hey, this my job and I love it.

Rob