Sez Who?

Got my picture in the paper yesterday, along with a nice article.  That's supposed to be a big deal, and I thought I would feel really proud.  Instead the public comments -- at least those posted to the online version -- said I should be hanged for treason as a traitor to the United States, disbarred, and put in jail.  Ordinarily I do not spend a lot of time reading those comments, and I should not have changed that practice.  The ideas spat out by those persons caused me to think.

What I do is not for the purpose of seeking praise from the public or getting my name and picture in the newspaper.  Neither is it to receive a pat on the back.  I do not expect everyone to understand what I do or to agree with the work.  My time and services are donated to help persons who cannot afford to hire a lawyer.  I select them to be my clients, and they agree to let me serve as their attorney.  I cannot take care of the entire world, but I use my time wisely so that I can represent as many as possible that I can help.  I do it because I believe it to be the right thing to do.  It is my duty -- plain and simple.

I have always told the people I mentor to do the right thing for the right reason, then not to worry about the results.  Both parts of the equation must be there (the right thing and the right reason) for this to be true.  I think I learned yesterday that if a person plans to serve in a leadership role or any type of decision-making capacity, there will always be someone with something negative to say about your work.  For this reason, it helps to hearken back to the basic rule:  Do the right thing for the right reason & don't worry about the results.

By reading the comments section I let myself get caught up in the critics, knowing their measure is not the ultimate test.  I'll try not to make that mistake again.

Maybe one way to avoid it is by trying what I did on Friday.  I unplugged.  I did not turn on my computer.  I did not make a single call on my cell phone.  I did not send one email.  I did not write my blog or do anything else that required a technological bone in my body.  I read a book, an old-fashioned one, the kind with paper pages that must be turned by hand.  I watched football on TV and I ate leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner.  And I remembered again all the reasons why I am thankful.

Then on Sunday I heard about a man who made a secret gift during the Great Depression to people who could not afford anything for Christmas.  His grandson has written a book about his story called, appropriately,  A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness - and a Trove of Letters - Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression.  In Canton, Ohio shortly before Christmas in 1933, Sam Stone anonymously offered $10 to 75 of the town's neediest families if they responded to an ad describing their hardships.  The checks were written by Mr. B. Virdot and no one ever knew who he was until a suitcase was discovered 75 years later by Sam Stone's grandson, Ted Gup, the book's author.  The suitcase held all those letters.  Mr. Gup tracked down the descendants of the check's recipients and put together a reunion and wrote a book about what he found.  It's a wonderful story about the joy of doing good for others.

Doing good for others is a noble aspiration.  As lawyers it is part of our ethical rules to perform pro bono work each year.  The term pro bono means "for the public good."  I may not be able to hand out checks at Christmas as Mr. Stone did in 1933, but I can give what I have:  my time and my service as a lawyer.  I get to say which clients I will serve.  It will not be left to the peanut gallery in the comments section of the newspaper. 

Sez Who? 

I say and my clients say.  That is all that matters.

By the way, Sam Stone was a Romanian Jew that had told everyone he was born in Pittsburgh.  He made a difference in a lot of people's lives every year -- especially at Christmas.