Its was 94 degrees in Boston today and things were definitely heating up. I had a interview with
Grayer & Dilday, a small firm that practices family law, for semester in practice and I was pretty excited about this opportunity. My good friend, Christine Lee, worked there last summer and had nothing but praises for this firm, so I anxiously got on the T and went over my resume in order to prepare myself for the interview. The interview was at 2:30 but since it was so hot outside, Tisha gave me a ride to Davis Square so I didn't have to wait outside for the bus in my suit. As we got closer and closer to the Park Street, I felt a mixture of nervousness and excitement so I pulled out my copy of The Catcher in the Rye, that I keep in my briefcase, and read a few pages to calm down. However, just then, the T stopped on the bridge just before the Charles
MGH. After a few minutes, a voice came over the load speaker and announced that there was a communication problem on the red line and all trains were not permitted to move. Well, to make a long story short, we sat there for over 40 minutes waiting for the system to come back on. I called Grayer and told them my situation and they assured me that they would wait until I arrived. When the T finally started to inch towards the Charles
MGH stop, the
MBTA worker announced, "You get out now and walk to your destination or you can ride to the next stop but we're not sure how long its going to be before we move again." I sat there and thought about it for a few seconds and decided to walk from Charles
MGH to Downtown Crossing. If any of you know Boston, this is not a nice little walk in the park. It's mostly up hill and accompanying the fact that I was wearing a suit in 94 degrees weather, needless to say, I was pretty sweaty by the time I got there. It took me a little while to find the place but once I got there, I gained my composer and knocked it out of the park. I start on Monday. I also have a crazy story to tell about the ride home but I'll spare you the details.
The building on the right could be my place of employment.
Since I was in a picture taking mood today, I decided to take a few pictures around the office.
The major thing that I am learning at Grayer & Dilday is that divorces are messy. Working with husbands and wives who are going through ugly divorces makes me appreciate my own marriage. For example, I was in court all day on Friday for a divorce case, which was highly contested. Certain assets had to be divided between the parties and the issue of health insurance and credit card debts where major sticking points. The other lawyer was playing hard ball for most of the day so a settlement was unlikely. I really enjoyed being in court and reading through depositions in order to zing the other side with a direct quote. Grayer felt I did a great job on Friday so he asked me to help prepare for a million dollar case that we are negotiating in a few weeks. Although we ended up settling the case by the end of the day, the animosity of the wife towards the husband was a chilling reminder of the ugliness of the divorce process. The division of assets and debts are things that you don't even worry about as you're living together. Taking out college loans for your children and buying property that you want to retire in; all have to be dissected under the scrutiny of two lawyers and a judge who gets the final decision if a compromise can't be reached. I didn't just learn a lot about family law last week but I learned a lot life as well. The experience made me want to run home, kiss my wife, and thank God that our relationship will never get to the point where separation is an option.
I really love my job at Grayer & Dilday. Today was only my second day on the job and I got the chance to interview a client in a child custody case. It's a very difficult case but I love the complexity of the issues. I'm gaining lots of experience at this firm and I truly love the mentoring that I'm receiving from Mr. Grayer & Mr. Dilday. Tomorrow I will head to work for a few hours and then go back to school for an interview with a New Hampshire law firm, McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton. Keep me in your prayers. The picture above is from my first hiking trip to New Hampshire's Mount Whiteface.
