Tee Up for Lessons in Law
By Howard K. Berry III

If life is like a box of chocolates, the practice of law is like a game of golf. First of all, when was the last time you advised a client, filed a pleading or tried a case that you felt “perfect” or even “brilliant” was the proper adjective to describe your performance? We learn to be extremely satisfied with good work like we learn to be satisfied with a golf drive that stays in the fairway or an iron shot that dribbles on the green. This is despite our knowledge that Tiger Woods would blow it 100 yards more or nail it 12 feet from the pin. This is not complacency. This is reality.

I recently attended a professional golf tournament in Tulsa. On the first hole, two contestants approached the green with their shots. One dropped it in the trap in front of the green, the other on the green about 30 feet from the hole. I stood behind the green as the trapped golfer blasted her shot from the sand. Unbelievably, she knocked it over the green, over my head and into the creek behind the green. She bravely dropped out with a penalty and calmly pitched her fifth shot onto the green where it rolled into the hole for a bogey. The player on the green in two, just as unbelievably, four putted for a six. Hasn’t it happened to you that the case you thought was going to put you on top of the world just went mushy on you and left you wondering what hit you? And the one you were certain you should never have taken on suddenly turned sensational? Lawyering is, like golfing, full of surprises.

The practice of law, like golf, is best when done quietly, calmly, politely and during daylight hours. Even golf can be played at night some places but it’s not the same. The best golfers have long careers by getting lots of sleep, taking care of their health, complimenting their opponents and saving their voices. This discipline helps the mind focus when it really counts. Need I say more?

Your choice of golf partners is very important. If you have ever played golf with an uptight player frequently disappointed in his play, you know you cringe when he swings mightily and tops one just 30 yards or sprays one far right into certain exile. The pronouncements of self-deprecation to come are equaled only by the feigned disbelief after his next bad shot. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he says, as the club is jabbed violently back into the bag jangling everyone else’s nervous system. Wouldn’t you rather be around lawyers who fatalistically accept the rulings of judges, the decisions of clients or disappointing juror’s verdicts with calm dismay rather than boisterous suggestions that the judge is on the take or the client is nuts? There are lots of viewpoints in the world and the one we hold is not the only reasonable one. We do have some choices about whom we practice law around.

Finally, there is always tomorrow. No matter how grim things feel on the golf course, golfers cling to the notion that tomorrow’s round will be better. The wind will lay down, it will be warmer, swing timing will be better and the putts that stopped on the lip of the cup today will fall in the hole tomorrow. We lawyers are certain that tomorrow’s case will be sounder, and there will be less need to compromise. The gray areas of the case we are struggling through this week will be replaced by blacker and whiter areas in another case next week. We charge back after every disappointment and sometimes we are pleased to find the next case is a lot better...but we keep a sweater nearby just in case it’s not.