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| Marcel Strigberger |
Years later, I realized Shakespeare had already mapped it out.
As he observed in As You Like It, all the world’s a stage, and we each play many parts. For lawyers, retirement is not a single event. It arrives in stages.
And not necessarily in order.
Lawyers are trained to think in terms of beginnings and endings. Retirement, I discovered, is neither.
The first stage, for me, was not retirement at all. It was the beginning. Freshly called to the bar, I was focused on one thing: clients. Where were they? I was in this for the long run. The chair confirmed it.
The second stage came with my first courtroom success, an acquittal in a break-and-enter case. It helped that the prosecution’s key witness failed to appear. My client, a man named Rick, was grateful enough to present me with a fine leather briefcase. I chose not to inquire as to its origins.
“Don’t ever retire,” he told me.
“Not a chance,” I replied.
I had a chair to justify.
Stage three crept in over the next couple of decades, when the practice became less a profession and more a three-ring circus. There were urgent motions, difficult clients and the occasional belief that I was less counsel than conjurer.
One client warned me that her husband was dabbling in voodoo and was not fond of me. He later delivered a shoebox to my office. My assistant opened it under my direction. It was empty, which was reassuring. I had recently seen The Godfather and feared a fish.
Around this time, my blood pressure began to express its own opinion, and I joined what I call the “just a little pill” club.
During a lunch with my mentor Hank, already retired, he raised the subject of retirement. I dismissed it. I still enjoyed the practice. Mostly.
Then came the moment that lawyers rarely discuss.
The gradual realization.
It was not one case or one client. It was accumulation. The Sunday evening blues began arriving earlier each week. Eventually, they showed up on Friday afternoon.
At the same time, the profession itself was changing. Email became expectation. Immediate response became obligation. For someone who believed the sticky note was civilization’s high point, this presented challenges.
What we rarely discuss is that retirement is not a decision. It is a series of small recognitions.
Hank, meanwhile, was frequently unavailable for consultation, usually because he was on a cruise. I began to suspect that retirement might simply be a maritime condition.
By my late 60s, the question began to appear with increasing frequency:
“Are you retired yet?”
Followed closely by:
“When do you plan to retire?”
These were not really questions. They were gentle notifications.
Eventually, I called Hank again. I reached him just as he was preparing to depart on a river cruise.
We discussed my situation. I admitted that, given the choice, I would prefer to spend more time writing.
“Question asked and answered,” he said.
The next stage was the announcement.
Timing required some care. I did not want to surprise my assistant, who had been with me for years. When I finally told her I planned to retire, she responded with kindness and what I can only describe as professional accuracy.
She had already noticed.
Apparently, my demeanour had been filing its own affidavit.
We prepared an exit checklist. Files were closed, clients notified, and a final date was set.
The last stage was moving day.
As the movers were loading the contents of my office, one of them asked me a legal question about his marriage. I considered it briefly. Technically, I was still entitled to practise until midnight.
I felt like Cinderella.
At the stroke of 12, the law practice would turn into a pumpkin.
What, then, was I?
A lawyer? A former lawyer? A retired lawyer? A lawyer emeritus?
I am still working on that.
What I do know is that retirement does not arrive with a single decisive moment. It unfolds gradually, in stages, often without our noticing.
The practice does not end all at once. It loosens its grip.
I have no regrets about my career, nor about stepping away from it. And I still use that chair.
Marcel Strigberger retired from his Greater Toronto Area litigation practice and continues the more serious business of humorous author and speaker. His book, Boomers, Zoomers, and Other Oomers: A Boomer-biased Irreverent Perspective on Aging, is available on Amazon (e-book) and in paper version. His new(!) book First, Let’s Kill the Lawyer Jokes: An Attorney’s Irreverent Serious Look at the Legal Universe, is available on Amazon, Apple and other book places. Visit www.marcelshumour.com. Follow him on X: @MarcelsHumour.
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