My wife, a family physician for 37 years now, almost always warns her patients who bring up retirement to never retire. “Retirement makes you die too fast!” she exclaims and explains. And she has plenty of scientific data to back that up. “Work slower, work less, work at something from slightly to even totally different from what you’ve been doing for your life,” she tells people. “But never let a day go by without having a reason to get up and get going doing well in the world by doing good in it.”
Back in January of this year, I had the pleasure of attending the funeral of a law colleague in Memphis named Lewis Donelson, the original founder of Donelson & Adams, which became known by many names by many mergers over half a century until it became Baker Donelson a while back, which firm grew into Baltimore by merger last year as it assimlated Ober-Kaler into its “borg.”
“Lewie” loved lawyering so much he did it actively for 70 years and less actively for many more. He was still the Senior Counsel of the firm when he turned a triple digits a quarter before he smiled his last smile at the age of 100 and almost three months.
Lewie was 72 when I started practicing in his courthouse in 1990. He treated the place not only like he owned it, but more importantly, like he was personally responsible for it.
A time or two over the next three or four decades, when I’d see him in the courthouse or socially, I’d ask Lewie if he planned to retire yet, and he’d tell me, “NO! Because I just luvvvv the law that muuuuuch.” Lewie was (and will always be in my mind) as southern as a southern gentleman can sound.
I had a free lunch today (a rarity for me) with a man, Lou Ullman, whom I believe may give Lewie a run for his money. Though Lou has decades before he catches Lewie, he appears to be in great health, sports the title “Retired Attorney” at Offit Kurman, whose email address he still uses, and now continues his passion for helping people as a partner and senior consultant at a fee-only wealth management company.
I asked Lou, whom I’m tempted to start calling “Louie,” to explain the transition and he said, “I just got rid of all the parts of practicing law I hated and got to keep all the parts I loved.”
Seeming as financially strong as he physically looks, Lou no longer worries about logging billable hours, nor billing clients for them, nor many other less pleasant parts of being a member of a major firm. Now, he just helps old people figure out the next steps in their lives, does the “big picture” estate planning and sends them to younger lawyers to get their papers drawn up.
Lou manages to practice law, without really having to manage a law practice. I hope he keeps on doing it the way he apparently loves doing it for as long as Lewie did it and then some. Just seeing his example of this idea makes me want to emulate it in its proper time.
So, here’s the question to the rest of us, “How can we help each other love what we’re doing as long as Lewie did and Lou is doing?”