In June of 2013, Allison and I were about 12 years into our practice.

Our little firm had grown over the years, and at that point we had hired two associate

attorneys, Jason Poulson and Andrew Tangent, who we'd originally hired on as interns

at a law school.

Little did we know that in the very near future that our world would be turned completely

upside down.

Because the fact is that you never know, when you are in private practice when you are

going to get the call.

The call that lands you, the biggest case of your career.

And when that call comes, you are filled with both excitement and terror simultaneously.

For instance, when Sam Amorant called my father after receiving his Western Union telegram,

wherein my father and choir of Sam needed help on the gasey case, my father, despite

having offered his assistance, initially buckled.

Because when that call happens, the magnitude of what is to come hits home immediately.

It's not just self-doubt which inevitably creeps in, because you can turn yourself with

whether or not you are prepared to handle such a case, not just mentally, but practically

speaking.

And you realize that when you take on a case like gasey or Garcia, that every other area

of your practice will suffer.

And it suffers because huge cases like that eat up all of your time.

Leaving you little time to handle existing client cases, it prohibits you from taking on

new cases which are the lifeblood of any small practice.

...