Fury Bailey - Personal Injury - Wrongful Death Attorneys

LET THERE BE MUSIC

By William S. Bailey

Fury Bailey

710 – 10 th Avenue East

Seattle , WA 98102

(206) 726-6600

billb@furybailey.com

A mentor in the trial bar once said to me in my early career, “This is a brutal business we're in. It is results oriented, and everybody is trying to take a bite out of you – opposing lawyers, judges, juries and even our clients. You won't make it if you don't find ways to put back in what gets sucked out of you.” The legendary Moe Levin went one step further, using the mortality of the trial bar as a set piece in his closing arguments:

A trial lawyer's life is not too long. These tensions that occur constantly don't do our life span too much good.

After years of the cycle of stress and conflict as a trial lawyer, the truth of this is now all too evident to me.

The qualities of control, perseverance, and focused concentration are double-edged swords. They help us to overcome all the obstacles to getting results for our clients. In our business, even paranoia is a necessary mind-set in that they really are “out to get us” and our clients. Yet, these same qualities that bring professional success are difficult to disengage and step back from. Like a jungle animal on patrol, a trial lawyer's instincts are constantly engaged on ready alert.

I have come to realize that one of my Achilles heels is this inability to let go when I am away from the job. In the past, my wife has had to forcibly schedule vacations with “I'm going, are you?” ultimatums. I protest initially with, “You don't understand, the whole situation may blow up in a moment if I'm not here to watch over it,” but I end up going and enjoying myself.

My saner self knows that it disserves both me and my clients not to detach from the combat mindset of the job and renew my spirit. The key ingredients in a trial lawyer's arsenal for success are passion, creativity and inspiration. These do not flourish in a climate of constant fatigue and stress. Some of the very best ideas occur by indirection – e.g., the apocryphal story of Sir Isaac Newton formulating the law of gravity when bonked by an apple while lazing under a tree.

In terms of both longevity and career success, I have regularly asked myself, “How can I create a nurturing atmosphere where serendipity and indirection allow my mind to forage for sources of whatever divine inspiration I am capable of?” The answer for me is playing in a rock & roll band.

Like many baby boomers growing up in America in the 1950's, Elvis Presley was a singular cultural icon for me. I can still vividly recall his initial appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show when I was a first grader. As John Lennon later said, “Before Elvis, there was nothing.” When I moved to the Bay area during high school, Elvis was replaced by the Beatles and the pounding rhythms of California surf bands, soon to evolve into the glory days of Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium and the free outdoor concerts of bands like the Grateful Dead at Golden Gate Park . All of this was more than a passing fancy to me – the molten core of passion within that defines me as a person (and later caused me to be a trial lawyer) found a natural reservoir in the music of my generation.

While in high school, I quickly realized that I could not impress the females in my peer group with my meager athletic ability. So I built upon years of the “You'll be so popular” piano lessons that my mother had insisted on and moved in the direction of playing in rock & roll bands. But, this was more than just a dating vehicle for me. The afternoons of practice among the usual clutter of gardening equipment in the garages of various band members' houses catapulted me into states of exhilaration, with moments of sheer magic when everyone in the band merged and created a whole sound greater than the sum of its parts. Played correctly, even a three-chord song like “Louie Louie” can lift you higher and higher. While my rock & roll career was left behind when I went to college, the imprint of what it meant to me was never forgotten.

But as college led to law school and then proving myself in the courtroom after graduation, the emotion and enthusiasm essential to who I am as a person began to suffer in the grind. I will never forget when a somewhat colorful client who knew me in my early career as a public defender said in a chance meeting ten years later, “Something's changed in you sweetheart and it's not good. You're losing the fire. Don't. It's your best quality.” That comment and others like it started a metamorphosis, which seemed glacial in its slowness, but which brought music back into my life. The guitars came out of their cases where they had been entombed for an 18-year dormancy period. I began to take lessons to learn over what had lapsed from long disuse. Within two years, I was back practicing in garages again, some 40 years after my high school glory days. Yet, somehow it was even sweeter this time for I had reclaimed something that I had nearly given up for lost.

Since then, I have played in “classic rock & roll” bands at supermarket openings, sandwiched between Presto logs and racks of bedding plants, in smoky gut bucket dive taverns, and next to Ferris wheels on midways of county fairs. Upon seeing this newfound avocation emerge, my sensible college age daughter, Mimy, scrunched up her forehead and asked, “Dad, isn't this just a little bit degrading for a middle-aged lawyer to be doing?” I smiled and laughed, “Yes, it probably is. But somehow I don't mind. I'm happier than I've been in years. I just wish it hadn't taken me as long to get back to it.”

The life shortening strains of trial work that Moe Levin spoke of are still there for me. But after a killer day, it is the next best thing to the pleasant carefree life of floating in the womb to take my guitar in hand in my study, put my fingers on the fret board and let my spirit soar.

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