The Season of Gratitude

That holiday corridor between Halloween and New Year’s has a unique feel for a personal injury law firm. Of course it makes sense that occasions that feature increased alcohol consumption lead to more drunk driving, more car wrecks, and more injuries. And some insurance companies, eager to clear liabilities from their books before the calendar rolls over, are just a little bit more willing to be somewhat reasonable in negotiating claims in the last couple months of the year, making the last quarter a busy time for mediations and settlements.

In the past I’m sure I’ve bored people silly with statistics about drunk driving. Yes, the proportion of wrecks involving alcohol increases around holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. The worst holiday for drunk driving, and the most dangerous day on the road, is actually Memorial Day, though (and the second-most dangerous day on the road is the day after Daylight Savings Time starts, for reasons that have nothing to do with alcohol and have everything to do with hubristic technocrats falling in love with a notion Benjamin Franklin was smart enough to promote only as a goof).

Still, I don’t want to focus on the dangers on the roads. Yeah, if you drink don’t drive, and don’t handle your phone when you’re behind the wheel – take care of those around you and don’t be that person who puts somebody’s mother or father or husband or wife or son or daughter in the hospital, or worse.

But we are in the holiday season, and in just a couple of days it will be Thanksgiving. So rather than wallow in doom and gloom I want to give thanks.

• Thanks to those hard-working staffers who made it possible for us to get so much done this year. Heather, Angela, Steve, Max – because of your efforts we have been able to help a lot more people, a lot more effectively, than I could ever do on my own.
• Thanks to our clients, who have trusted us to handle such important matters for them. No matter how many cases we have at a given time, I always keep in mind that for the client, theirs is the only one in the universe, and it is our privilege to help.
• Thanks to everybody who has referred a potential client to us. Virtually all of our cases come to us by referral, and the vote of confidence implicit in a referral is an enormous honor. I am especially thankful for those who have sent us multiple referrals, and to those clients who have themselves referred new clients to us, because that is the best, most positive feedback we could hope for.
• Thanks to the court system and the judges and juries who work in it, for giving us the best system for the production of civil order and for the peaceful resolution of disputes that has ever been devised.
• Thanks to my colleagues, who in the past year have been nothing but courteous,
• Thanks to God, for life, for nature, for opportunity, for everything.
• Thanks to my parents, who brought me into this world, raised me up, and helped me launch. I wish I had understood at the time how hard what they were doing was, so I could have appreciated it earlier and longer.
• Thanks to my kids, who drive me (up a wall, a lot of the time, I am willing to admit) and give me my ultimate reason for doing what I do. I thank them just for being themselves, but also for being Rainbow Princess Ballerina Unicorns, John Lennon, and whatever else they happen to be at Halloween or at any given time.
• Thanks to my wife, who is a better person than I ever could be, and who loves me far, far beyond anything I deserve.
• And thanks to our country and those who have served it over the years and centuries, and who have handed down to us a free, prosperous nation in which we can work, play, worship, and speak, according to the dictates of our consciences and the desires of our hearts.