FROM THE EDITOR

By Ann D. Zeigler Nelson S. Ebaugh, P.C.

Dedication to ServiceA Few Thoughts

With Independence Day and Labor Day past, we have settled into the post-summer work routine again.  I have been thinking about what keeps us going every day as lawyers.  Disaster is all around us every day—economic as well as physical and emotional.  We are the people who are supposed to be ready to handle problems for our clients—to “make it better,” whether it is a transaction or a lawsuit, keeping disaster at bay. And no one calls a lawyer just for the fun of it. 

So, we live with other people’s insoluble problems and stresses every day.  In addition, people we work with are as stressed out as the people we work for. Not an attractive sight.  So, what gets us up every morning and into the suit (and for some of us the additional delight of pantyhose)?  From this corner’s limited perspective, it is our dedication to service. 

I graduated in May from the Houston Police Department’s Citizens Police Academy—a ten-week program (a three-hour evening per week) to introduce citizens to the day-to-day realities of HPD’s policies and procedures.  Our speakers included officers who work in specialized areas such as family violence, homicide and gangs.  We also got hands-on experience with “shoot-don’t shoot” training, as well as visits to administrative areas such as the command center, the 911 dispatch center and the fingerprint lab.  (Yes, my photo and computerized complete handprints are now in the national AFIS electronic database.) 

During my afternoon-shift ride-along with Officer Garza out of the Mykawa substation, I learned a few things about dedication and public service.  What I learned most of all is that I could not do what HPD patrol officers do every day when they put on their uniforms—go wherever they are called to go, deal with distraught and angry people, sort things out, get the facts, and do the paperwork, with the opportunity to be shot, stabbed, run over or otherwise harmed at any moment.  Thanks, but no thanks, Officer!

Being a bankruptcy lawyer, I’m currently in the practice area that is on the “front lines” in the economic meltdown, addressing the financial problems of both businesses and individuals.  One debtor’s disaster and subsequent inability to repay causes further economic stress for other businesses and individuals.  On it goes through the financial system.  My colleagues who have consumer debtor practices spend a fair portion of each day telling people that the good times are over, irretrievably, and the fresh start of a bankruptcy discharge will bring a heavy downside with it.  And then we get up the next morning, put on the suit, and do it all over again.  

What normally sane individual would do that?  Well, never mind that question. Why would people in what is considered one of the highest levels of professional training continue to do this day after day? I think it’s for the same reason Officer Garza got in that patrol car with me on a Thursday evening and went out looking for whatever was going to be out there—dedication to serving others. 

Officer Garza and I got different things out of that evening.  He got another eight hours into a career he clearly loves, keeping the peace, encouraging people to solve their problems verbally rather than physically  (plus an hour of forms and reports). I got eight hours to observe small portions of Houston in action, and to think about people and the reasons they do things.  He got a very quiet shift; I got an apology that he didn’t have a single opportunity to turn on the lights and siren, plus an invitation to come back on a Saturday evening if I felt the need for more excitement (which I will probably pass on, thanks). 

But for both of us, as for you, the next day is the same.  We do something to make other people’s lives better (or less horrible), both because we can and because we love it and want to do it. 

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