Marcel Strigberger.

As my hair started turning salty and peppery, a most common question I received was, “Are you retired yet?” And now that I am retired from practice, a most common question is, “Are you ever considering going back to practising?”

Fair question. Is it worth considering? If I do think about it, some of the following issues come to mind.

Stressors

I still get nightmares about things going wrong. For example, I have this recurring dream about arriving at the courthouse for a trial, and as the judge is about to enter the courtroom, I realize I have not brought my file with me. In fact, I have brought the wrong file. Another case.

I get panicky. What will I tell the judge? Hey, Judge, I realize we have the Ferguson case on the docket, but I made a boo-boo and brought the Moscovitch file. Can we deal with Moscovitch instead?

I don’t know why I get this recurring nightmare as this scenario never happened to me in 40-plus years of practice. I never even had a client called Moscovitch. Maybe the dream is just an omen to stay put, not dare return to the battlefield. I can’t interpret it.

Crowded profession

There is little doubt there is no shortage of lawyers. When I got called to the Ontario Bar Association in the mid 1970s, I shared space with a prominent lawyer who got called in 1928. (His hair was definitely salty.)

When we discussed the subject, Leo said back then, there were “plenty of them out there too.” I had difficulty reconciling this comment in my mind. How overcrowded could it have been in 1928? I thought about Al Capone. I wondered how he vetted his search for a lawyer.

And given the present preponderance of lawyers, how would I leap back into the game? Apply for a job? How would I explain where I worked the past nine years? The only court I went to was to play pickleball. Not overly impressive?

Technology deluge

Technology generally overwhelms me. I know that in my previous life I must have been a devout Luddite. During practice, I considered the greatest technological revolutionary (next to the invention of the Gutenberg press) the arrival of the sticky note.

My post-retirement years saw the major tech arrivals and proliferation, such as Zoom, social media and, of course, AI. I have issues dealing with all of it. I often get stumped going online. I sometimes try dealing with a 24/7 chatbot, and when I ask it something revolutionary, like how to access a live person, the bot often replies, “Sorry, I don’t understand your question.”

And I find it amusing when I hear about lawyers getting dragged over the coals using AI that produces grave errors, such as hallucinated, nonexistent cases. It actually makes me happy. And speaking of happiness, are most lawyers really happy?

The joy factor

I Googled unhappy lawyers, and my search showed gazillions of results, such as “Why lawyers are unhappy,” “7 reasons why lawyers are unhappy” and “I hate being a lawyer.” As renowned real estate and news mogul Mortimer Zuckerman said about abandoning the legal profession, “The law is the opposite of sex. Even when it’s good, it’s lousy.”

I would not fully agree with Zuckerman’s metaphor. But it does make you think.

Nonlawyer freedom to be bad

Our Ontario Rules of Professional Conduct make it an offense to engage in “conduct unbecoming of a lawyer.” This conduct also envisages verbal abuse, such as profane or disrespectful language in practice and even in private life if it might affect one’s ability to hold a license.

Though a factor to be considered, I will say that during all those years in the trenches, I never resorted to personal ad hominem attacks on opposing counsel or their clients. Well, maybe as Gilbert and Sullivan’s Captain Corcoran said in H.M.S. Pinafore, “Hardly ever.”

But I have heard a judge or two let loose with some naughty verbal bombs in their private situations, including one who was not happy being kept waiting at a doctor’s office and who let loose, dropping a few nonking’s English phrases at the reception desk. To get this guy to cool down, I was almost tempted to offer to give him my closer place in the queue.

At least being retired, I have some wiggle room on how to behave. As Albert Einstein said, “I have reached an age where if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.”

And so it may appear that I do not care to rejoin the world of Lady Law. But there is one possibility.

Speaking of judges

I would seriously consider going back to the courtroom were I offered a position on the bench. And I am not thinking only about the generous salary, prestige or princely vacation allowance.

If a trial judge errs, the court of appeal can correct it. And for that matter, an appeals judge on a panel has even more wiggle room. If the judge finds the case boring ad nauseum or over his or her head, said judge can simply endorse the court record with the words, “I concur.” Looks good to me.

As for stressors, I doubt they have those nightmares I have about bringing the wrong files to court. The judge might just say, “OK, nevermind Ferguson. I’m the judge. We’ll deal with Moscovitch.”

And as for tech problems, I’m sure the courts provide judges with tech support at a snap of their judicial fingers. I would not have to fumble around trying to figure out the meaning of “clear your cache.” And I certainly doubt when going online that I would have to personally convince a robot that I am not a robot. Hey, I’d be the king of the castle.

I also mentioned conduct and no doubt judges, like lawyers, must act exemplary. I suppose if appointed to the bench, I could live up to the standards expected of both lawyers and judges, though I need not be a Mother Teresa. And certainly, if requested, I would have no problem wearing socks.

Nor need a judge ever worry about there being too many judges out there. Many of our current cases jam up the court dockets, taking ages to resolve, for want of more judges. I’ll never know why a position was never offered to me. Justice’s loss.

But until that happens, I’ll continue to enjoy my retirement days. I’ll stick to the court of pickle.

Marcel Strigberger, after 40-plus years of practicing civil litigation in the Toronto area, closed his law office and decided to continue his humor writing and speaking passions. His latest book is First, Let’s Kill the Lawyer Jokes: An Attorney’s Irreverent Serious Look at the Legal Universe. Visit MarcelsHumour.com, and follow him at @MarcelsHumour on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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