The Inveterate (at) Sea Lawyer

Andrew and I have never been much for “life balance”. There are so many wonderful things to see and experience in life, our list expands even as we chase it Westward each day over the horizon.

I want to cross oceans, all of them! I want to meet all the people, see all the places, eat all the delicious food, drink all the coffee and the wine. I want to write a novel, keep up a blog, and take beautiful photography of every single thing I see. I want to live and re-live everything good. I want to be an expert at bread baking and work in a bakery in a tiny village in France. I want to be a cheese maker, and a poet. I want to play the piano, a grand one! which, trust me, does not fit on Sonrisa. I want to meditate, learn to paint watercolor, keep a yoga practice, and sleep at least 8 hours each night. I want financial security, and to contribute some skill I have to the world in a way that brings more peace and better days to at least someone. I want to love Andrew well, celebrate all the big days with all my family and friends, in person! and I want to be there when times get dark or sad for them. I want to play “Jerry-the-Mouse-String” with Katherine Hepburn for as many hours as she'd like to play, and I want to write a second children's book for Isla, my second niece, because if you do something for one, you really must keep it equal for the others. I want to be strong, and fit, and live forever. I want to hike Kilimanjaro like our friends Pete and Jen did aboard Steel Sapphire, and I want to spend many days, not just one, in the rooftop coffee shop we found in Zanzibar.

It stinks that this is impossible given the current state of our understanding of the space-time continuum.

Neither Lawyers Nor Pianos Belong On Sailboats

I’ve always known a lot of the things I want to do cannot be accomplished simultaneously. I love to play the piano, and I’m probably the only sailor I know who lives on a forty-foot sailboat, but still owns a grand piano named Ella. Before we left to go sailing, I’d come to terms with the idea that my life had to be lived in phases. The ten years prior to casting off was a land (piano!) and career phase; the five year circumnavigation would be a sailing, exploring, photography, and creative writing phase. I didn't believe my legal life could reasonably come sailing with me, so I intended to leave Leslie-the-Lawyer behind.

One of my partners at the firm I worked for before I left said, “Leslie, are you sure you don’t want to work remotely? We could make it work!” But, I said emphatically, “No.” I fear being more trouble than help to my colleagues. This concern applies equally to my responsibilities as crew aboard Sonrisa and any role I’d take as attorney.

But Leslie-the-Lawyer is dogged and stubborn; she never stopped pestering me.

Every now and then, even within the five years we were "free” to be at sea, a client would reach out and I couldn't resist agreeing to help. I kept my continuing legal education classes, licenses and insurances going “just in case.” But, this one-off, consulting basis, solo practice was difficult. The further West we sailed, the more challenging it became to manage time zone differences and my sailing schedule without colleagues to back me up or an IT guy to solve my technology problems. My personal limiting belief on this topic only got stronger: “Neither Lawyers nor pianos belong on sailboats!”

A placard attached aboard SV Banana Wind, the first boat we chartered to practice our sea faring, circa 2011. A quote from the novel Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian.

What Is Life After Sailing?

This February, as we hit the five year mark for our sailing trip, Andrew and I started getting more serious about brainstorming the next "phase” of our life. We haven't finished our circumnavigation goal, but this foot-loose lifestyle has financial limitations that will start to chase us, eventually. We wondered: should we sell up and go back to Las Vegas? Start something new? Keep sailing as long as we can? Figure out how to work and sail?

Throughout this trip, people have asked job related questions: “How will you ever be able to go back to work after being free for so long?” “Do you think you will be able to get a job again?" “Will you return to Las Vegas?" “Will you still be a lawyer?" And the question my mother probably fears most: “What if you never stop sailing?”

I’ve always held firm to two ideas: (1) we built our careers once, we can do it again, and (2) I will know what to do next when the time comes. Life never leaves you entirely without guide posts. Five years ago, I didn't know where we would be or even who we would be after leaping aboard Sonrisa and hoisting her sails. We will figure it out. We are really good at making long term plans and executing them; we also seem good enough at “following the wind shifts" to our next port. And so, I accepted I didn’t know the answers to most of these questions, and all I could do was wait to see. This Spring, I seemed to come around the bend of my current life path to see a fork in my road…

…or maybe a channel marker buoy on my chart?

Remote Work While Sailing?

Two years ago, a close friend/former work colleague and I were having a celebratory FaceTime call to cheer over the fact that she recently achieved one of her own life goals: to move her baby girl, husband, and father from Las Vegas back to New York City where she was born and where her soul resides.

“Are you working at a New York law firm now?” I asked, wondering how raising her baby girl fit with the crazy all-hours-work hours those guys tend to keep.

“No, Leslie! I'm practicing law in Nevada, but living in New York City," She told me. “It’s like a dream come true."

“Really?" I said.

“Yes, you should come work with me at my new firm!” She told me.

It sounded great, but even with her good experience, I struggled to imagine a law firm that could accept an Inveterate Sea Lawyer into their ranks. Even in the most progressive firms I know of, non-traditional work styles or schedules seem to be tolerated at best. I gave her the list of reasons it could never work.

She said, "well, when you are ready, you should reach out."

Fast forward to the Seychelles, a second friend and fellow Nevada lawyer was chatting with me over text, catching up. We were speaking about sailing, life, legal careers, and the like when he told me he, too, was working with this same firm. “Oh! You work with Moorea," I said. “She's told me great things about your firm.”

He explained the business model to me: “The 80-hour per week business model of legal practice is bad for lawyers and bad for clients. We sell our time, but more than that, we sell our creativity and sharpness of our brains. How many studies are there showing that creativity and productivity drops after a certain number of hours in the office? Our clients are better served by lawyers who’s minds are fresh from hiking in Tucson, Arizona, joyful from raising their family in the city they've always hoped to live, creative after a day's physical work on a full-fledged family farm...yes!” he said, sensing my disbelief, “One of our lawyers owns and runs a family farm in Utah. Some of the best lawyers in the industry leave the practice because they feel like they can't live a full life and be a lawyer, too. We think that is a waste of talent, and we want to use it to our client’s benefit.”

I knew from personal experience, after the first few months traveling, sailing, and passage making, my creativity flourished. My writing felt easy, I reached the “flow state” more quickly than I used to, and when I did take on legal work, I felt sharp. I could see issues and opportunities lighting up around my clients’ problems like the stars I watch on passage. They are brighter when you get outside the pollution of mind-clutter and city lights.

"But how?" I asked him, “From a practical perspective, how do you keep all this running smoothly?"

By the end of a couple conference calls with my friend and the husband and wife team that founded the firm, I was cautiously optimistic. “Join the team, we think it will work," they told me.

A Lawyer, a Sailor, and a Pianist Walk Into a Beach Bar…

“What do you think?” I asked Andrew.

He shrugged, “We always have the Angora Rabbit Farm as a fallback plan,” But his eyes twinkled, and I could see him imagining the benefit that a renewed legal career might offer in sustaining his unhealthy addiction to the chaos of a new landfall. “We could afford to outfit Sonrisa for a bid around Cape Horn! Patagonia, here we come! …or maybe we should live aboard for a year in South Africa. We could use Sonrisa as a home base and travel all over the continent for a week or two at a time. Did you know Rwanda is one of the best places to travel in the world these days? Year TEN in Norway!"

For me, I immediately felt more at-ease in my skin. Though I hate to admit my identity is wrapped up in being “Leslie-the-Lawyer,” the opportunity offered me back a missing piece of myself. Also, I wouldn’t have to worry anymore how we might keep Katherine Hepburn (the ship’s cat) in the fancy kibble she so enjoys.

At the close of on-boarding, my optimism grew. They spend a lot of time thinking through the technology, strategy, and philosophy needed to coordinate legal professionals working together from far off places. More importantly, the whole team seems to buy in. I can see, now, how “some, but not all, of my time” would be more helpful to my colleagues and clients than none. So, for now, I am the H1 Law Group “Night Watch Crew.” With Sonrisa and I being located in a time zone exactly twelve hours different than the rest of the firm, I'm available to take up the relay stick and run with projects while everyone else sleeps.

As it turns out, this is powerful. This firm embodies the "work smarter” strategy, and I’ve already learned so much from Eric and Katrina Hone about embracing, rather than apologizing for, the circumstances and traits that make me unique. The strategic tools I use to keep me alive and thriving as an ocean sailor can be turned in favor of my clients, and indeed, where else will they find a lawyer like me? I can’t imagine there are many Inveterate Sea Lawyers for hire in the Nevada market.

P.S. I recently learned that some sailors actually do keep pianos on boats. What will they think of next?

P.P.S. If you need some professional headshots that successfully reduce a tendency toward “the crazy-eye” (as I did), I highly recommend Logan Walker at Pepper Nix Photography. Proof is in the pudding, and she captured some headshots I’m happy with. https://www.peppernix.com/about-us/

P.P.P.S. For absolute ethical and legal clarity: when I call myself an “Inveterate (at) Sea Lawyer”, I strictly do not mean that I have expertise or hold myself out to be an expert in maritime law. I am a commercial litigator practicing exclusively in Nevada, working on behalf of Nevada clients, with Nevada legal issues, who hire a Nevada law firm to solve their problems.