When I was at my first law firm job, I had an office next to a guy who would buy all sorts of used pinball equipment and sell it on eBay. At that point in his career, he was about ten years out of law school and quite miserable. He commuted at least an hour to work each day, constantly told me his suspicions that his wife was having an affair, and often slept in his car in the parking garage when he needed to go to court early in the morning—which was at least a few days a week. One of the highlights of his year was when he had to take a trip to Orlando to depose a witness. After the deposition, he decided to spend a few hours at Disney World. His cell phone had died and he could not retrieve messages.

When he returned to his room at about 8:00 pm that evening, there were a bunch of messages on his hotel phone as well as a fax. A partner in Los Angeles was very upset with him because he wanted to hear how the deposition went. The final message was quite dire: “A lawyer always needs to be reachable. I’m taking you off this case and putting an attorney I can trust on it.”

When he got back to Los Angeles, he was sat down and lectured by a few partners for being “irresponsible” and “unavailable.” He did not enjoy practicing law but he had a house, children, and a myriad of responsibilities that kept him busy. The only thing that made him happy was dreaming about starting his own business.

That dream was how he came to collect pinball machines and start his small side business selling them on eBay. He would spend the occasional weekend driving around California to buy the machines at various auctions. He would regularly come into my office and say things like “I just made $600!” or “I’ve got 25 bids on these flippers! Come check it out!”

I never saw him happier than when he was doing this. The rest of the day, he would sit in his office morosely writing briefs and so forth. He would have the machines shipped to the office and at times there were four or five of them stacked in his office. Partners would come in and talk to him without even saying anything about it. His secretary would spend at least a few hours a day helping him ship things out to his buyers.

“How much money are you making with this business?” I asked him one week. He proudly told me he figured he would make “at least” $10,000 over the course of the year doing this. The $10,000 he was making probably barely compensated for the time he was spending; however, that did not matter. He felt more alive and happy running his little side business than he felt when he was practicing law.

Many attorneys (like this attorney) dream of an escape from the accountability inherent in practicing law. This attorney never quit practicing law and has been a partner at another major law firm for a long time. As much as he might have liked to, he never left the practice of law. He had a family to support, and it is doubtful he could have done so at the same level if he were selling used pinball machines.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3643785&forum_id=2#33528005)

Flame jumped the shark here

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3643785&forum_id=2#33532390)

Not flame at all

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3643785&forum_id=2#33532460)

That box is at least 5 feet tall.

Pinball Wizard, Esq. had six of those.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3643785&forum_id=2#33532498)