TO-WIT: HARD DRIVE, PART I
I wasn’t actually aware I had a problem until my young partner – my sweet, demure, young, wouldn’t hurt-a-fly partner – looked at me and said, “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
She had a good reason to be mortified. Not good reason to say it, mind you, but good reason to feel it. In anticipation of her almost-momentary maternity leave, we were in her office going over her files so I would be up to speed, so I could carry on in her absence, so I could have that many more things in my life to aggravate me.
We had already been at it for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was probably no longer than maybe 20 minutes when I went blank right in the middle of her recitation. I could hear the words, but they were not getting through; I could associate no meaning with them. It wasn’t that they were going in one ear and out the other; it was that they weren’t going in at all.
“I just told you not two minutes ago that the statute of limitations run out on this case in four months,” she said. “So why did you just ask me when the statute expires?”
I put both palms to my eyes and rubbed them for a while. But all I saw was stars.
“You know,” she said, “this has been happening to you a lot lately. You don’t seem to remember anything.”
“That’s not true,” I countered. “I remember the entire cast of Howdy Doody.”
But she was right. I had a problem. The truth was I couldn’t remember anything, marionettes notwithstanding. Wasn’t it just last week my secretary came in to remind me that I had a dentist’s appointment in an hour? And wasn’t I still sitting at my desk an hour later when she came in and reminded me that I was late for it?
“Why didn’t you remind me, damn it?” I snarled as I dashed for my car. Professional as ever, she said nary a word in response. As I climbed into the car, however, I could feel yet another sharp, stabbing twinge in my left shoulder. I’d have never given her my photo if I had known she was going to stick pins in it.
Yes, it was obvious I was having a memory problem. If a new-client interview lasted more than 10 minutes, I couldn’t remember the client’s name. In the middle of depositions, I was forgetting what I wanted to ask. And recently in court I rose to make an objection and forgot it by the time I got to my feet.
“all right,” I told my partner, “I’ll see a doctor. I mean, why not? Why shouldn’t we both be on medical leave at the same time?”
“Hi, Fred,” I said to my long-time personal physician when he cane into the examination room.
“Memory problems, huh/” he queried, dispensing with the formality of a return salutation.
“Oh, you’re the best,” I replied. “I haven’t said a word and yet you know it’s a memory problem. How could you tell?”
Because my name is Howard, remember?” he replied.
After he examined me, the took me into his private office. “How long have you been practicing law now?” he asked.
“Thirty years this fall,” I told him.
“Has it been easy?”
“No, it’s been a pretty hard ride, actually.”
“And how many cases have you done?”
“Oh gee, I don’t know, maybe 3,000, maybe more.”
“Three thousand?” he responded with amazement. “Honestly?”
“Oh, honestly? I dunno, maybe 500. But in total, yeah, probably 3,000.”
He let my little joke go, and laid his stethoscope on his desk. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing physically wrong with you, but I think I know what the problem is. You’re mid-50s now; you’ve had a busy, successful career, and I think you’ve reached that point where the brain is just full.
“You know,” he went on, “we only have so many brain cells to store information. After a while, they get all used up. It’s not that uncommon, especially for lawyers. Typically they don’t have that much capacity to begin with.
“Look it,” he continued, “the mind is just like the hard drive of a computer. When it gets full, it slows down, takes longer to retrieve information and has no room for more data. It’s not a serious condition. You just need to erase some files, free up some memory cells, just like deleting date from your hard drive. You’ll be as good as new.”
“But how do I do that?” I asked. “It’s not like I have a delete key or anything.”
“Of course you do, you just have to figure out where it is. Here, give this to the billing office on your way out,” he said as he handed me a piece of paper. Then he was gone.
I had my doubts about what he said until I found myself still sitting in my car in the parking lot a half-hour latter, trying to remember where the hell I wanted to go.
Maybe he had a point after all. Thirty years, 3000 cases, maybe 5,000 lawyers and twice that many laws, Lordy, it’s a lot to keep track of. But I figure I’m going to practice law for at least another 10 years and I still need my wits about me. Oh sure, I could run for judge, thus solving that problem, but it’s not what I want to do, at least not anymore.
How cruel, how ironic it would be for the passage of time, that very process by which we acquire so much knowledge about what we do and how we do it, to be the self-same vehicle of our disarmament in the end. There has to be a way to solve this problem, and of course there is.
I know I am not alone in my concerns. I know many of my contemporaries out there have had similar experiences and could benefit enormously yet again from what I have to say. But the dictates of space being what they are, you are going to have to wait until next time to find out, assuming you can remember to look for it, and assuming I can remember until next time exactly what it is.
© 2000, S. Sponte, Esq.