"In his domestic administration my father had this system . . . to keep a journal and insert in it all occurrences of any note . . . A record very pleasant to look at when time begins to efface the memory of events, and very well suited to get us out of perplexity: When was such and such a thing begun? When completed? What retinues came? How long did they stay? Our trips, our absences; marriages; deaths; the receipt of happy or unhappy news . . . An ancient custom, which I think it would be good to revive, each man in each man's home. And I think I am a fool to have neglected it." (Montaigne, Book I, Essay 35 (publ. 1580))

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Time for a change . . .

I graduated from ND law school in 1982 and have worked in large law firms ever since (except for about four years working for corporations in-house). So it’s been all large organizations, all the time. 23+ years. Which starts to sound like a long time.

On Friday, September 30, 2005, I cleaned out my desk and left Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, where I’ve been a partner for the last 5+ years. SSD has been a good place to work; a large international law firm with 800 attorneys and offices around the world (www.ssd.com); about 75 attorneys in the Phoenix office.

My new firm has about 792 attorneys less than SSD. I’ll be the eighth partner at a small firm in northeast Scottsdale (Feldman, Brown, Wall, Hall & Agena PLC, www.phoenixlawgroup.com). My bio is at http://www.phoenixlawgroup.com/pgales.htm (but no photo until I get a chance to get together with the photographer this week).

My practice areas won’t change, though I will be able to focus more effectively on smaller companies (which is the right market to target in Phoenix). But work life will be quite different with far greater flexibility and far fewer resources. I’m looking forward to it.

It happens that we had a bottle of 1993 Dom Perignon sitting around the house that was a closing gift from a client on a $200 million refinancing transaction from 2002. When I got home from cleaning up the office, Patricia and the kids had the idea to break out the bubbly and toast my last day. Nicole and Patrick were visiting here in Phoenix along with the usual suspects, and Mary Beth Stern also showed up. So that was a nice idea and I appreciated it.

Then we watched a home movie from 1995-96; we probably haven’t watched this one since it was recorded. The scene of Kelly chasing racecars around a slot car track is quite hilarious. PJr also had some trouble finishing street hockey breakaway chances. Among other good scenes. I need to get back on my project of converting tape to DVDs.

The only down moment was realizing that Nicole forgot to bring a coupon for Kelly's ProPlan food with her from Chicago (see posts of September 23 and September 21, below). Uh oh.
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