Seasons Change and So Does the Practice

Spring!  I had just started believing that old man winter was going to pull an Olaf and stick around to see “whatever it is that snow does in summer”*.  But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?  It is the sun, praise God, and it may warm my tootsies up to 63 degrees today!   

I don’t know about every small firm, but for ours, the change from winter to spring also means a change in practice area volume.  For us, January/February is family law flood.  Lots of folks have made it through one last holiday with a spouse or significant other and decide to start the new year making a significant life change.  People receive their tax return and use it to file for modifications in parenting time, or for contempt for missed holiday time, bad gifts and holiday indiscretions… you name it, it gets filed. 

Then comes the warmer weather.  Every year, with the warmer weather, like the new crocus bulbs in the garden, come the rush of new public intox and DUI cases.  Something about the nice weather makes people want to do their drinking outside or on the move.  I get it, totally, yesterday I heard a Jason Aldean song on the radio and thought “hmmm that IS “my kind of partaaaay”.  Trust me though, my drinking will not be done on the move, I don’t even intend to get “thrown into public” while intoxicated and I won’t even buy package alcohol in a county that may or may not rhyme with “camilton”…these are my choices.  I encourage folks to make similar choices.  I mean, sure, I love going to court for public intox cases in my “home counties”.  The courts are well run, the prosecutors are generally slightly more relaxed and it pays the bills.  However, I don’t wish the damage that these hiccups cause on anyone. 

So please, enjoy the weather, the flowers and the “cultural appreciation days”. 

Just please enjoy them safely and in ways that don’t make me enforce my “Emergency Time” clause.  I’ll come see ya’ at 3am downtown, but neither one of us is gonna be happy about it. Well, my boss who pays the bills will, but I won’t.  I need my beauty sleep.

-DEC

*Seriously, I love Frozen.

** Not me, doesn’t even resemble me, and NOBODY actually sleeps like this.