Page 376 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
that I had to spend a fair amount of the client’s money for something that the hotel seemed unfamiliar with—milk, (e) that Danny got to spit up on Max’s shoe while we were having a strategy session in the living room of Bungalow 7, (g) that when Max asked us to recall the name of our airline industry expert, I replied that I remembered it, because it was unforgettably silly: it was “Selig Selig,” and (h) that Max, not appreciating the humor, replied, in a very unforgiving tone, “My brother’s name is Selig.”
Later, I would spend months analyzing purchase orders for air- plane seats in order to figure out whether the alleged damages that were claimed in the New York case that was brought by Macrodyne against Dayco were as great as they were alleged to be (they weren’t), all the while trying to move from litigation to the Real Estate Department.
Stipulation of Discontinuance
While I had some excellent experiences in the Litigation Department, met some wonderful people, both partners and associates (in September 2014, I hosted a very successful reunion of about twenty of my contem- poraries from the firm, most of whom, it transpires, were litigators), and learned things that would stand me in good stead as my career moved forward (I still believe that you can’t be a fully effective commercial lawyer if you do not understand the litigation side of things), through time, I came to believe that I did not want to be a litigator.
I felt that I would prefer a practice where, although you had an adversary, you and your adversary would share a goal, namely, making sure that a transaction that was desired by the clients actually hap- pened. I saw litigation as the constant battling of adversaries who had diametrically opposed goals (until it became clear, if it did at all, that a particular settlement was in everyone’s interest). I did not like the con- stant threat of papers being served before a weekend or holiday or the
• 358 •