When I was not paying attention one day, I got old. The compression of time in our memories is a phenomenon that is often expressed in the phrase, “It only seems like yesterday.” For me, 1972 feels as if it is a place I will be revisiting any day now. I started at the University Of Cincinnati College Of Law less than a year after returning from the war in Vietnam. Because of my then recent experiences, I entered school convinced I would never again judge myself by the opinions of others. That particular belief survived for about a week in law school. As with most everyone else, I went after the approval of the professors like a big tuna hitting a baited hook. It took a semester to realize I was probably not a fraud who might be discovered and asked to leave law school. During the three years of law school, I enjoyed an entertaining social life and I made friendships which have lasted a lifetime. Also, I learned a little bit about the law.

While in school, I worked for Paul McComas, a general practitioner, who had his law office in Sharonville. Paul’s unexpected death in May of the year I graduated was a tragedy for his family and a dilemma for me. Less than a year before his death, Paul had hired Frank Osborne who was a relatively new attorney with only a year or two of experience. After the funeral service for Paul, Frank and I went to the office and had a conversation about what in the hell we were going to do. After deciding it was unlikely that anyone would want to hire us, we decided to buy the furniture and equipment and lease the office space from Paul’s widow. In 1975, a few mismatched desks and chairs, two IBM Selectric Typewriters, a telephone, a copying machine, and most importantly, an experienced secretary were sufficient to start a law practice. We somehow got through the rest of the year; I passed the bar, and my world began to spin in the greased grooves of the life of a lawyer.

From the vantage point of 77 years of age, the nearly 50 years of my life after law school looks and feels as if family, friends, fun, sadness, and work had been thrown into a blender with the high-speed button pushed. At the beginning of the adventure which I call my life, there was much talk about an information age supplanting the industrial age into which I had been born. Only late in my career did I begin to appreciate a profound shift in the way lawyers worked had occurred 

I spent 20 years accumulating a legal library only to see it turn into nice decorations for my law offices. The little pink slips on which the receptionist wrote telephone messages have disappeared, and in most offices so have the receptionists. Many of the occasions for attorneys to interact in person with each other and with their clients have been replaced by virtual interactions. The budget for letterhead is now too tiny of a fraction of expenses to be noticeable, while the number of emails and texts to read every day is often overwhelming. Paper files are walking toward extinction. In some instances, even an office outside the home has gone away. 

A small but, for me, important change in the practice of law was the eclipse of typed letters by emails and texts. Dictating a letter and reviewing it in draft form before it was typed on letterhead obviously is inefficient when measured against preparing an email and pressing send. However, something of value may have been lost. For me, what was lost was the time for reflection. More times than I would like to admit, I have looked at a draft of a letter and asked myself if I really should send it. The time for reflection is often a causality of the quicker means of communication which technology has given us. As close as I will come to giving advice is to suggest that developing a habit to intentionally not communicate as efficiently as technology allows. 

It seems that nearly all of the tools of the legal profession have changed, but the essential element of our work remains unchanged. Attorneys continue to solve problems and to help people, businesses, and other institutions navigate their way through a complex society with complex laws and regulations. Your journey through your career will be different than mine, but it will not differ in that essential role.

Tom Cuni was born in West Virginia in 1947. He served in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division. Cuni practiced law in the areas of business and tax representation (including litigation) from 1975 to 2012. Cuni currently is a volunteer attorney with ProKids representing the interests of abused, neglected, and dependent children, and, is of counsel to Thomas Downing Law Firm.