I love all those expressions about the randomness of life. There’s “Feast or Famine”, “When it rains it pours”, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”, “Man plans, God laughs”, “The only constant is change”, or “Life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get”. Sometimes these passages have a positive and optimistic spin and sometimes not so much. Sometimes you have to “Roll with the punches” – adapting to unexpected hits and you have to accept that “Life’s a gamble” – emphasizing the element of chance. Other times “Chaos is a ladder” – suggesting that you can find opportunity in unpredictability. Any way you look at it, “Life is a wild ride” and you can’t avoid “Dancing with uncertainty” or “Surfing the waves of chaos”, or even “Walking through a maze blindfolded”. We all know that you have to “Expect the unexpected” and that “Murphy’s Law” says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, Ultimately, “You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails”, so we all go about doing our best. These expressions often serve as both observations about life’s unpredictability and gentle reminders to stay flexible and resilient in the face of uncertainty.
Today I woke up with a sense of purpose. In the psst week I have had two existing cases come back to life from a dormant state. And then, as though on cue, a case that I recently interviewed for suddenly wants a second call and looks to be coming my way. Over the weekend I wound up scheduling one call each day for the three days this week before we all fly out to Denver for our mini family reunion. What I thought was the end of my family summer now looks like it might be the end of my summer altogether. August was going to be a lazy month with little or nothing on my dance card, but that all changed suddenly. The call I had today was for a moderately big ($50 million) case where I represent the plaintiff and they are greatly aggrieved at what they believe the defendants did to them and their business. They are a substantial and quite litigious firm that is one of the “big boys” on Wall Street and they do not feel they can afford to be lax with people who do them wrong. I initially did the research, analysis and report writing on this case in 2022 and its been two and a half a half years since my deposition. That means I haven’t thought about this case for those years. Today’s call was to discuss trial preparation for a trial scheduled for mid-September. They had asked me to block off 10 days for prep and trial and to plan to be in New York for those days. Today’s call was to review the state of play in the case and decide a rough schedule for preparation as required. I did a few hours of review ahead of time just to be sure I remembered the basics of the case and as the Zoom call took shape (only half of the attorneys on the call were there three years ago) the issues and the trip-wires of the litigation all started rushing back to me. It takes a while to remember the details and that will certainly take a lot more rereading and studying to lock in, but the big-picture issues and the skirmishes from the deposition became very familiar very quickly as they were discussed. I was also reminded that the “rock and a hard place” questions that the opposing counsel always likes to force an expert like me into are delicate and need to be carefully prepared for.
The outcome of this stage-setting call was to tell me a number of things. First, they want me to come to NYC a few days earlier than planned so that I can be there for the whole trial. That means they want me to attend to hear all the fact witnesses to be sure I align as well as I can with the tone of the client witnesses and get used to the opposing counsel’s hardball manner and tactics. They tell me to expect the cross-examination to be very harsh. They also want me now to come in to NYC for another visit for in-person prep in August so they can mock beat me up like they did before the deposition. That will be in addition to some Zoom prep calls as well in August. And finally, they told me that I need to do as much preparation as possible on my own to reread as much of the primary materials and depositions as I can so that I have as good recall of the facts and testimony as I can. In other words, whatever I did to prepare for the deposition (which was a lot), they want me to do more for the trial and this time none of it is fresh from my report-writing exercise, so its a lot more work. I had always estimated that this would be somewhat the case, but today’s call told me that the 100 or so hours I spent doing this for the deposition would be almost double that for the trial. That’s a lot of hours in the next eight weeks. But there’s more….
The call I have Wednesday is for a case that got teed up in January and has required little work since I did the preliminary scope and strategic recommendation back those 6+ months ago. As I reviewed the new evidence I was sent in preparation for Wednesday’s meeting, I also reviewed the timeline. While that may have changed and I may hear of those changes on Wednesday, if not, I will be writing the report (~ 50 hours of work on my part) in August and early September and testifying at the arbitration hearing in the third week of September. There is probably also a deposition in the middle of that in late August or early September as well and that and the hearing will require at least 30 hours. If you combine those two cases, I have 250 or so hours to log in over the next two months. I’m sure I worked more hours than that when I was fully in the saddle, but any way you slice it, that’s a lot of work for a retired guy. But there’s still more….
I have a call tomorrow (Oops, it may get rescheduled for Thursday now while I’m flying to Denver with the family) to take on a new “Big” case. That would presumably happen mostly in Q4 and Q1 of next year, but I bet there will be some September info download as well to review. I have one existing case that is supposed to reignite in Q4 and two “on-the-hoof” potential cases (both of them also big ones) that supposedly will start in Q4/Q1. If any or all of that kicks in, as I expect it might, that will make for a busy three quarters in a row for me. I guess this is the feast part of the Feast or Famine.
What I can tell you is that I could literally feel the adrenaline rush into my veins today as I got myself ready for these three calls over several hours in my office. It’s a familiar feeling for me that I have not forgotten. Good thing my venous sonograms showed no venous insufficiency so that all that adrenaline can get pushed where it needs to go so I can be as tough as I need to be on the stand. I guess I will just pull up my compression socks and have at it.