What About Paris? ™

« November 2022 | Main | January 2023 »

December 31, 2022

Janus: God of Beginnings.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2022

C.F.S. Hahnemann. Born in Meissen 1755. Died in Paris 1843.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2022

54 Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île, 75004 Paris

Hotel du Jeu de Paume, 54 Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île, 75004 Paris

Posted by JD Hull at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2022

Rule 12: Have Fun.

Long ago, I was a troubled but energetic young Midwesterner who found fun, love, hard work, humility, a little sanity, some power, friends and enemies--and kept them all--by practicing law in our nation's capitol. Rule 12 is from the grating but highly correct Rules of Client Service.

Anyone can do Rule 12. And everyone practicing law must.

First, be born good-looking, athletic, and way-charming into an affluent WASP family that settled here almost four centuries ago. Have family money. Date only twins or actresses who go to Smith. Second, go to school, work hard, make some more money. Third, build your own firm. Fire all but one pessimist. Get a grandiose notion of your targeted client base--and keep them coming back so you don't have to "market". Finally, start up your own "blog", even though you're not at all sure what a "blog" is--but you sure think a "blog" sounds suspiciously show-tunes and at best nerdy and passive-aggressive. Have someone teach you how to "work" the blog. Say anything. Ignite relationship-killing arguments in upstate New York towns you'll never visit; upset inept fellow suits you see every day. Paint older lawyers as Dorks, younger lawyers as Looters.

Seriously? Do Have Fun. If you're a lawyer, and you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong.

So are you? Having fun?

While you are thinking, a confession: I loved college, and the liberal arts I studied there, because I am in love with ideas. Law school, however, was a different story. It came at me so fast I couldn't see any grand design, purpose or poetry. Except for the companionship of some truly unique and innovative classmates and profs, a girl from Shaker Heights named Amy, the drinking beer part, my administrative law and trade regs courses, some good part-time jobs, and somehow making Law Review, I hated law school with Olympian passions. It was stale and uncreative.

I even quit--twice, for a week each time. I told anyone who would tolerate me for the entire 2 years and eight months and 3 days that I was an "artist" of some sort, imprisoned and daily being abused by talented but sadistic academics who were paid, and paid well, to abuse me. I envied my college friends at J-school at Columbia, in the Peace Corps, traveling in Europe or in Alaska or Florence writing unpublished novels. I felt stagnant. And of course by the time I graduated at the age of 25, I was unhappy, out of shape, addicted to coffee, cigarettes, Hunter Thompson, Henry Miller and all the usual excesses of my generation--in short, a world-class ass.

So I moved to my birthplace Washington, D.C., where I would fit in. Sort of. I was so sure I would hate practicing law as much as law school that I deferred practicing law for nearly 3 years--in the form of being a hard-working, entertaining but equally difficult and troubled Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill. There I was once served with a small claims complaint for "back-rent" by an angry DC live-in ex-girlfriend in front of my amused U.S. Representative boss, another amused congressman and the not-so-amused but intrigued senior staff of the House Ways and Means Committee at the 96th Congress. But everything changes with time and a different lens for viewing.

Had it not been for a friend from college who was happily clerking at the Supreme Court--who inadvertently shamed me one day in a conversation at the Tune Inn he has likely forgotten--I might never gone into private practice. So I left Capitol Hill and took a job in 1981 practicing law as one of DC's hundreds of "associates" in the branch office of a Midwestern law firm on 15th Street, N.W.

Everything--and I mean everything--changed for me. It was the same way new life sprung up inside me when the Duke undergraduate admissions people changed my life in 1971. Each day was different. I treated all the difficulties--and it was hard on me and mine--of being an associate as a challenge, and a even a privilege, and ever since then I have felt like it's an honor to do what lawyers do. In 1992, I started my own firm. I like the people I work with, the excitement of talented adversaries, a new project or case and the satisfaction of solving high-level problems for high-end clients, who I really like. And they even pay me for it. If you don't feel that way right away, give yourself time. If that fails, try another firm or another part of the profession. For many people, a different mentor, a new firm or a move to government or in-house counsel--even for a short while--can help you get your "sea legs" and make all the difference.

It's supposed to be fun. American law is extremely varied, elastic and constantly presenting new practice areas--especially in the larger cities. It has something for everyone. I am convinced of this. Please keep the faith and keep looking until you find it. Put another way, don't quit before the miracle occurs. It's there, and it's all inside you, in front of you. Simple--but still hard. It's a privilege and joy to do what lawyers do when they do it right.

And it really is fun.

So...any questions?

Dan Hull in 1967 with the Pennington Twins.

Original post April 2007.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2022

My Dad on 9/11.

Thank you Dad forever for calling me at the San Diego airport while boarding a seconds-later cancelled US Air flight to DC at 6:30 AM my time 9-11-01 and asking me to stay in close touch with you and telling me my brother Dave was also in an airport 1500 miles away at that moment and was also okay. I am still touched by it. It was a short call. You were back in Cincinnati that day and 73. I knew you loved me.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2022

Saturnalia (1783) by Antoine-François Callet

Posted by JD Hull at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

December 24, 2022

Jonathan Swift

Swift was a Titan in rebellion against Heaven.

-- John L. Stoddard, 1901

Anglo-Irish, Angry and Brave: See one of our past tributes to Dean Swift (1667–1745) in "Heroes and Leaders: Anyone out there with soul and sand?"

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

The Real St. Nick: 4th century bishop, philanthropist, pol, crowdpleaser.

Died December 6, 343 AD

Happy Holidays.

A word about the real Santa is in order, and we are happy to report that the real Santa is not a misty pagan or Druid hangover, as is so often the case with Christmas lore. He is based on a real and really admirable guy. The Bishop of Myra--or Santa Claus to most of the world--lived around 270-343 AD in what is now the Lycian region of Turkey. Both of Nicholas's parents died during an outbreak of the plague, leaving him a great sum of money.

This Byzantine trust-fund baby entered the clergy, and became popular for his kindness, generosity, willingness to take on Rome on behalf of Myra, the town he served, and many instances of anonymous and secret gift-giving that his fortune made possible. After he died, the area around Myra became a major pilgrimage center dotted with new churches, including a church named after Nicholas, which is still popular with visitors to this region of Turkey.

Anonymous giving, by the way, is the best kind. I like to believe that the life of St. Nicholas was a major inspiration for Magnificent Obsession, the acclaimed 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, which twice was made into a movie. One theme of Douglas's book is the importance of giving, and other acts of kindness, without wanting or expecting any type of private or public recognition.

Fresco of St. Nicholas in the Church of St. Nicholas in Demre, Turkey

Posted by JD Hull at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

Adoration of the Magi, Giotto, 1310s

Posted by JD Hull at 05:33 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2022

Christmas

I miss southern Ohio around Christmas time. The Village of Indian Hill, all 220 years of it, will never be gone. It will never change that much. It’s the mirror I keep holding up to myself. No one had a better childhood than Dan Hull growing up in Detroit, Chicago and finally (age 9) Cincinnati. No one lucked out more being born to great (and colorful) hardworking parents. And no one except maybe Dad did or said more “memorable” things year after year at the Eveland’s annual New Years Eve party in that big white house Potter Stewart once owned back in the woods off Shawnee Run. Always thought there should be award for that.

Merry Christmas, all you Buckeyes. You know who you are.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2022

London, 1841: Ben Disraeli is Fed Up.

I cannot be silent. I have had to struggle against a storm of political hate and malice which few men ever experienced.

--Young MP Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), asking Robert Peel for a post in the Peel Ministry in an 1841 letter. Peel refused him.

"Dizzy"

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2022

St John’s 1918 16th and H NW

Posted by JD Hull at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)