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I have been a lawyer at Butler Snow LLP seven years today! It’s extremely hard to imagine that time has flown by as fast as it has since joining the firm. Getting up every morning, going to work or getting on the road & giving my all until late into the night & then coming
back home or sleeping in a hotel room to then repeat it over again without pump and circumstance is a normal day. I often say that practicing law is like a jealous mistress.
She is unrelenting in her demand for my time and attention, and she is forever one of the prongs of the three legged stool - God, Family and The Law - that has the ability to tip over at a moment’s notice. For the last 3 months, I have been doing a lot listening. A great deal of
thinking. Reflecting. Finally getting around to writing more and finishing a paper I have been working on for a while. Learning to meditate (poorly). And just taking care of myself and my loved ones. Three things of particular concern come to my mind this morning as I reflect on
the last three months: the pandemic, racial and wealth disparities in America and widespread unemployment/eviction.
As for the pandemic, I have had a dear cousin to die from the COVID-19. I have seen my father-in-law hospitalized for 5 nights in NW Arkansas & my best friend (41) who lives on the Miss. Gulf Coast feel so sick that he couldn’t breathe, answer the phone or get out of the bed.
He too was hospitalized as he continues to suffer from lingering effects of the virus. This pandemic is far from over & it is ravaging us both mentally & physically. I laud those on the frontlines doing everything they can to help each of us persevere.
I’ve also watched tragic events unfold throughout this country from the unexplainable and unjust deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. I have had to watch acts of terror, racism and inequality like this plague my community for what seems like an eternity.
But in the legal arena and in my firm, I am witnessing colleagues come together and look inward and ask themselves what each one of us can do to stare racism and inequality squarely in the face and put mechanisms in place to strike a mighty blow against it.
I am witnessing unprecedented unemployment and evictions in America - coupled with the comorbidity of the pandemic and race relations - that makes it feel like a powder keg.
There’s no conclusion here. Just action (to be continued).
