What I Just Learned from Super Bowl Lawyers

I was just killing time when I read the AmLawDaily piece, Super Bowl Special: A Look at the Legal Fees Racked Up by NFL Players Ahead of the Lockout. My light reading about lawyers and football quickly became a teachable moment, though. What I saw after scrolling through the list of legal fees that law firms earned from the players’ union was this: a mention that the law firms at which the union’s relatively new executive director had worked seemed to be picking up more football-related business. So there it was: something to walk away with thanks to a quick “rah-rah the Super Bowl is this weekend and let’s peg a piece to it” writeup in AmLawDaily­—a reminder never to burn bridges. Just because people have left one’s current workplace isn’t a reason to let them drop out of your world. Good relationships forged years earlier may well bring lucrative gains in the future. Or they’ll just help you lead a more fulfilling life. Either way, there's a good lesson here. So create and maintain an alumni database—even if it is just done on an individual basis if a law firm can’t bring itself to put together a firmwide one. Then use it. Stay in touch. Maybe even take a former colleague to a football game. Now, go Giants!