The Law of the Letter

The Law of the Letter

It was just a letter, after all. But I came to see I had it all wrong.

Years ago as a young lawyer I got a call from an older gentleman who had a problem with a bill he had received.  He was shaken that he was getting past-due letters.

I wrote a letter as a courtesy to the service provider to straighten out the facts, and it worked.  

A quick conference and quick letter carried the day, and that was that. I brought no special skill or talent to the task. Just my time, and my everyday sorting-out-the-facts experience. The successful result would not get this matter spotlighted in N C Lawyers Weekly, but I came to see its success was of a different kind.

My initial too-narrow view of the value I had rendered changed over the next seven days. I received in rapid order a heartfelt voicemail message from the older gentleman, another vm message from his only child in Richmond expressing deep thanks for helping his growing-more-disoriented widowed dad, and a following letter from the older gentleman himself in his shaky handwriting. The older gentleman was a product of the Great Depression, and his worry touched a tap root of one of his bedrock values:  you pay your bills, and on time.  

I never saw my pro-bono client again. But I held on to his emotional letter of gratitude for many years. When I braved to clean out my desk’s center drawer I would read it again.  It served to remind me of the charge, even in my active, swirling days as a busy lawyer, to find and give out the special currency of kindness I carried with me, much like the idle pocket change I carried home, unused, every day. And to appreciate again the power of what I had for so long mistakenly viewed as an ordinary thing.

Sometimes the most ordinary of problems contains any number of possible legal threads. If you slip too far into gauging what you don’t know, you miss the chance to solve what you do know:  the importance of addressing real problems with real people by simply framing the basic facts and options and lending them your sorting-out voice of experience. And volunteering to do what many callers would often not know to do on their own: writing a quick letter, making a needed phone call, nudging another party to make a matter right, or making sure a more timid  soul is not unfairly disadvantaged.  

The solutions are often less about the letter of the law—knowing every little thing about every little part —than about the law of the letter: simply taking the time to offer your experience as a calibrator of facts and options when you allow another’s real life dilemma to catch your eye.  And you do not have to be a lawyer to do that.

If you are a lawyer, provide any appropriate disclaimers a rough summary of a set of facts may require. Who knows? A years-later answer to a small question penned by the N C Court of Appeals could be an important one. But your most important task now is likely how you answer in the court of life what a Nobel Laureate stated is life’s most persistent and urgent question: what are you doing  today for others?

What I’ve learned about life on the way to the courthouse is this: You possess a deep and valuable skill as a problem solver.  You do yourself and others a disservice if you do not step out a bit and take more chances on the law of the letter. A chance you can help every-day citizens try to shed the tug and pull of some of life’s everyday problems, no matter how ordinary and routine those problems may seem to you. They certainly are not ordinary or routine to them.

The busiest among us, whatever your profession, will tell you a call or letter here and there in a full week of activity is not going impact adversely your ability to get your other tasks done for your family and your organization.  And my, my, my, the good you can do.

My sense from this and other experiences is you have no real idea of the value you can render to others.  Wordsworth called these “little unremembered acts of kindness.”  You won’t get your name up in lights, but isn’t that the point? While some may be amazed by your acts of kindness, try surprising them anyway.  Because kindness, especially for discerners of facts and solutions, is calibrated in different ways.  And sometimes it’s sweetly measured out one letter at a time, in the disguise of a seemingly ordinary thing.

For my latest column in the Winston-Salem Journal about when to hire a lawyer for a personal injury claim, please click the link below.

http://www.journalnow.com/business/localcolumnists/know-when-you-need-to-hire-a-lawyer-for-personal/article_50eeec1d-3655-5352-8d17-a010fa9a7d05.htm.

Being Grateful for our Children--Clap and Cheer Law

 CLAP AND CHEER LAW

May and June are months of special celebrations (Mother's and Father's Days), graduations, weddings, anniversaries, recitals and end-of-term events. They cause us to pause and reflect on the common tie of most of these events (or certainly the promise of them): the dear children in our lives.

Here is a piece that reflects on our special role as shapers of confidence and character in our children and grandchildren, sometimes in the midst of the most ordinary of events.  And for those of you who are on the hunt for leaders for tasks large and small, one’s clear understanding of this special role is a pretty good predictor of true leadership, by my lights.

So here goes.

Every person who has had the joy of raising children knows the experience in which your young child may not be on the front row of the event.  However talented your child may be, there are going to be some activities in which they are not the star.  For parents, your child's role is always the best role of all, no matter how seemingly minor it may seem, at least for the most affirming parents among us (which hints to us at least part of the answer.)

When our daughter was a little girl, she took dance lessons at our community's favorite dance studio.  She was tall for her age, like all the Wells girls, and she generally started the three minute recital dance routine on the back row.  But the teacher knew her audience well, so at the ninety second mark, the last became first and the first became last, as if to fulfill the ancient directive from the Good Book.  Our sweet Laura (now the mother of her own sweet girls) was, of course, the star of the show when she circled around to the front and danced her heart out.  (And the best picture on my desk at work to this day is the small picture of her bright smile on the day of one of her May recitals.)

But school plays do not always practice equal employment opportunities.  Some children sing solos, and the rest are part of the accompanying chorus. And some may not even make it to the chorus.

We all want our children to be successful, but they are going to have at least their share of performances in venues that do not play particularly to their strengths.  So what do we do with this, one of life's inevitable events?

One of life's greatest lessons is that we are all a combination of strengths and, shall we say kindly, lesser talents.  Some among us have lots of talents, but the most fortunate one among us is the one who finds a solid traveling companion in their set of skills for their journey.  In the end, the best among us are not always the most talented overall, but the ones who find one of life's most valuable sight lines: how do you feel about yourself?

To see this true test clearly, however, you have to feel valued by others who have shaped your life along the way, whatever your role, when you do your best.

Years ago a young girl had a teacher who saw her most important teacher role clearly when the teacher handed out assignments for the school performance.  The young girl came home from school to tell her mom about the upcoming event. The daughter named over which child would play what roles.  When her mom asked her daughter what role she would play, she said brightly and enthusiastically: "I've been chosen to clap and cheer!"

What I’ve learned about Life on the Way to the Courthouse is this:  life has a lot of "clap and cheer" moments that generally play to our level of talents for the task at hand.  We cannot all be from Lake Wobegon and be above average in everything.  But you should make your children feel valued and important, until they grow to a level of maturity in life when they understand they will not be judged in life by how many "clap and cheer" assignments they had along the way. The trick in life is to feel good about yourself.  You give this to your child and you have given them life's greatest treasure.  And something very real to clap and cheer about, for sure.

Some practical and helpful legal advice

Here is some practical legal advice about abandoned personal property I provided at the request of the Winston-Salem Journal recently published on Sunday, May 31, 2015. (Just hit Control and click on this link.)Here is some practical legal advice  In the month of May I was honored to speak to members of the Wake BestHealth organization on Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, outlining practical ways to avoid many emotional pitfalls; to the YMCA on Elder Law issues; the Forsyth County Library on estate planning and elder law; the Forsyth County retirement seminar on estate planning ( the most frequently asked speaker in this seminar series over several years); and to host the station's longest running weekly guest radio show, "You and the Law," on Tuesday mornings on WSJS 600 AM radio from 9:00 until 10:00 am (since 1991).

 I am also pleased the Journal continues to honor me as one of their regular columnists on May 3, when my column addressed common challenges in estate planning. (I have been one of their regular guest columnists (legal issues) since 2003.) Just hit Control and click on this link.)
 Don’t put off estate planning.

In the month of May I was honored to speak to members of the Wake BestHealth organization on Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, outlining practical ways to avoid many emotional pitfalls; to the YMCA on Elder Law issues; the Forsyth County Library on estate planning and elder law; the Forsyth County retirement seminar on estate planning ( the most frequently asked speaker in this seminar series over several years); and to host the station's longest running weekly guest radio show, "You and the Law," on Tuesday mornings on WSJS 600 AM radio from 9:00 until 10:00 am (since 1991).

My thanks to all for giving to me these opportunities to provide so many of our citizens with common sense practical legal advice on a host of important legal issues.  (And for free, too.) My schedule for these courtesy talks and presentations for organizations and groups is limited, but call 336-283-8700 to determine availability, or feel free to email directly at mike@wellsliipfert.com.

Useful Free Legal Seminars on Tuesday, May 19 on important legal topis at Reynolda Library Branch in Winston-Salem, NC

Useful free legal seminars on important areas of the law from 2:00 pm-5:00 pm on Tuesday, May 19, 2015 in Winston-Salem.

UPCOMING FREE SEMINARS. Many of you have attended one or more of my free practical seminars on the law, and you have inquired about the upcoming schedule for 2015. I am pleased that The Shepherd Center and the Forsyth County Library have endorsed this public-service series again in 2015. This series of free, practical, and easy-to-understand seminars on important legal topics is now in its 18th year. (No reservations are necessary to attend.) I am grateful for these partners, and for all of you who attend the seminars and who support them.

Here is the schedule for the free seminars on Tuesday, May 19 at the Reynolda Library Branch, across from the Reynolda Shopping Center:

• Social Security Disability, Personal Injury and Workers' Compensation Claims. (2:00 pm-3:00 pm): When are you entitled to benefits?
• Estate Planning Basics (3:00 pm-4:00 pm): Learn about the basic documents everyone should have, recent estate planning law changes, and what you should do now.
• Elder Law Basics (4:00 pm-5:00 pm): 

A Quality Association between Winston-Salem State University and Wells Liipfert Law Firm

Our law firm is so pleased to have the opportunity to work with a quality student intern Emily Simpson, who worked for our law firm all of this past school year.  We have already hired another WSSU student, who will start this summer.

Here is a link to a great article WSSU wrote for their students and alumni about this past year:

http://www.wssu.edu/about/featured-stories/student-success.aspx.

Actual piece on Dean Smith recently published by the Winston-Salem Journal

Mike Wells: Dean Smith, a true friend

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Posted: Monday, March 2, 2015 8:30 pm

Mike Wells

We all lost a true friend with the passing of Dean Smith, the former head basketball coach of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Those of us who attended other ACC universities that were regularly bested by the Tar Heels in basketball came to respect him, grudgingly, as a coaching genius. But all of us came in time to admire him as a person of character, courage and humility, and well be-yond his example on the basketball court.

If Dean Smith had been a lawyer, he would be favorably compared with Atticus Finch, the iconic but mythical southern lawyer who stood up for the hard thing at a hard time and in a hard way. Except that in a very real and concrete way, Dean Smith did stand up for the hard thing at a hard time and in a hard way.

I remember as a student at the University of Virginia in the late 1960s when the basket-ball team of UNC, after an afternoon game in Charlottesville, walked in to a concert after the game that evening. One of the UNC players who had been recruited by Dean Smith was Charlie Scott, the first African American UNC basketball scholarship athlete, on whom all eyes were fixed. It took real courage, and great risk, to recruit a player of color in the South back then, and the mood of the crowd that night would have told you that.

At the end of a moving memorial tribute to Coach Smith recently, Coach Smith's daughter asked the most important question of the day (and of all days): what are we to do with this, this shining example of a leader who took a stand when he did not have to do so, and to take a stand which involved risk?

Coach Smith's daughter told us to do something good for someone else if the memory of Dean Smith is to live on. To do so for the right reason. And to do good for goodness’ sake, as our parents and our faiths have taught us to do.

In this high season of faith, I offer this thought: not one of us got to where we are without the help of others. Perhaps the best thing we can do to honor this wonderful man passing before us is to do what he did all of his life, despite his tremendous success: To stand up and remember those who gave you a chance. To point in a measurable way to those who gave you an assist. To acknowledge in a tangible way for all to see the other people who made your success possible. And in the process for us to be, each in our own way, good for goodness’ sake, too.

Isn’t that what Dean Smith taught to his managers and assistant coaches, to his stars and scrubs, and to all the rest of us?

God speed, Dean Smith.

Mike Wells is a local attorney who writes a column on legal advice for the Journal.