They have been around this forum for -- like -- forever! And many have met them in person and say they are wonderful people.

But there are many more of us who have not met them and may never have the pleasure. And just because they have been around like forever does not mean we know them.

So, I have decided to make them joint WTF'ers of the month because they come to us not just as individuals but as a couple. We can ask questions of one or the other or both together getting a sort of "he said, she said" thing going.

Let me get it started...

Kathy -- how did you get into elder care law?

Jack -- is your law practice focused on a specialty like Kathy's? Or is it more general in nature?

Jack - how long did you stalk befriend Kath before she finally agreed to date you?

Tell us about your careers prior to law school.


And tell us how the decision to go to law school came about? And did you work through school?

Great idea!

I know both from meeting them a few times. I like them both...a lot.

What I sometimes read from them online though is not the same as being in a social conversation with them (and mostly I don't even read political threads).

And honestly, I don't think I would get into political matters with either one in a personal setting. There are so many more aspects to our lives to share.

Jack, other than being a teacher, what was your life like before Kathy?

Kathy, you are always so ambitious and creative, where do you get your drive and creative energy from?

You live in a HUGE home.

Do you see yourselves staying there during retirement as well?

Do you have upkeep help with the home?

When did Kathy first tell you she had two boys? How did you react? Did you get to know them before you began to date formally?

How in the world do two lawyers get along in the same household?

So, this is what I get for being nice and creating a register of the past two years of WTF'ers is it, Rick?

Well, JF better do his fair share here.

Well, I've always said these threads need pictures. So, here we go.



Our wedding day, June 1992, in that yard you've all seen so many times.

Jack--I'm torn.

Seeing that picture I don't know if I should kiss you like a brother in all happiness on your marriage or punch you in the nose and steal your bride.

I really love the both of you.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Zimmer:
Jack -- is your law practice focused on a specialty like Kathy's? Or is it more general in nature?

Estate planning, small businesses (including especially acquisitions), and some real estate. No trial practice at all anymore.

jf

So, Rick, Elder Care. We actually call it elder law, but that's a *very* common misnomer. My first job out of law school was in a small firm in Maine. I was the fifth lawyer, and in many respect the fifth wheel. I got to deal with the dregs - the stuff none of the other lawyers wanted to do. So, I was doing a lot of petty criminal defense (the repeat offender tatoo artist was probably the most trying and colorful of those clients - he still owes me some free tats), family law (read: bloody divorce battles - gag!) and I was thrown into the pit w/o very supervision doing small time personal injury cases. It was tough going as no one there gave me adequate mentoring, so it was largely trial by fire (no pun intended). After one seat of my pants jury trial which I would have and should have settled out of court but for my pushy boss who insisted I try it, even though I knew it was a loser, and lose it I did, I knew I needed to find a new direction. To the extent I was able to get the work, I dabbled in estate planning, and through that discovered this area called elder law. I did as much of that sort of thing as I could while at this firm, but my opportunities were limited as one of the partners was the estate planning attorney and he was quite protective of his corner of the playground. I probably would have continued spinning my wheels for a long time, but lo and behold, little Puffin entered the picture. When the firm wouldn't extend my maternity leave to suit our needs, I decided to venture off with a former law associate of JF (in a similar situation) and start an elder law practice. She had already been doing it for a couple years with a different partner, they'd had a falling out, and I was able to cajole her to give it a whirl. The first year was slim pickins, but things picked up steadily and I haven't looked back.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Jack - how long did you stalk befriend Kath before she finally agreed to date you?

From September through April of our second year in law school. I was three years single at that point and really horny had had only a few dates and short relationships in that time. I first noticed kathy in our first year but saw that dreaded ring so I paid her little mind.

First day back in second year the ring was gone! I struck up a conversation in the career planning office as we were researching job ops and all of a sudden she just blurted out all this stuff about her marriage breaking up and her sociopathic ex tormenting her.

Then she told me she ALREADY had a new boyfriend!

So we became best friends, although I always had ulterior motives and made no secret of it.

Then her boyfriend dumped her after sociopathic ex slashed all his tires. At about the same time I got a call from Gretchen, a woman I knew in and had not seen since high school, and I drove to Providence for dinner with her. She was still incredibly beautiful and sexy and I cam back very excited about finally having a good date, and I shared all that excitement with my best friend kathy....

...who called me up later that night and started "wondering" aloud what it would have been like if we had started out as lovers and not friends, at which point I said...

..."Look, if you're going to fall in love with me, you need to let me know really soon because I am getting really excited about seeing Gretchen again...."

"I think I am falling in love with you," she said.

So we made a date for the next Friday night, and because she had two small boys at home and no money for a sitter, the date consisted of me coming over with a six pack.....

jf

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Tell us about your careers prior to law school.


And tell us how the decision to go to law school came about? And did you work through school?

I had an MFA in Photography and taught that, along with Psychology and Computer Programming for ten years in a prep school. Lived in a dorm with the kids. Coached softball!

I was really tired of being poor, bored with the work, and my marriage was ending. I had a sabbatical coming up and instead of taking a semester off at full pay, I took a year off at half pay and entered a Counseling Psychology masters program. Figured I would make a career out of counseling teens--the one part of my job I still really liked.

I had a mad crush on a woman in my counseling practice class and invited her for a beer one afternoon. (Why is there always a woman in the middle of all my stories?) She was in the Divinity School (I in the Education School) and told me she was leaving to go to law school. She told me she thought she could do as much "good" as a lawyer and get paid a lot more than being a UU minister. Then she told me that some law students actually got paid $1,000 a week for summer jobs. Since I had been making about a third of that as a teacher, I thought she was joking!

But the idea began to grow on me. I taught for one more year and then at the age of 36 with very little money and only a Golden Retriever to support, I quit my job, moved into a house in the next town rented by a bunch of single adults, and went to law school. My notion was to do Family Law, so it wasn't that far off from the family counseling I had been considering. Happily, I ended up doing very little Family Law.

jf

Jon, I got a degree in music therapy and actually *did* work as a music therapist right out of school. The job was working with last chance kids in one of those old Cuckoo's nest kind of state hospitals that no longer exist since the deinstitutionalization wave of the 70s and 80s. In any event, I hated pretty much every minute of it. So, I took off to Europe and stayed for around two years, living pretty much hand to mouth, surviving on sundry jobs, including church organist. After I had had enough of that, I decided it was time to get grounded back in the states and I settled on Boston just because I heard it was a quaint place and it had tons of schools. I knew that some further degree was going to be necessary. In the meantime, I worked as an administrative assistant, Joe-Friday for the Indian Data General OEM (really interesting guy), got preg, got married, had a baby and quit and then divorced. Got a job as office manager for a small MIT start-up tech company (also some super cool egghead types who invented and market a special hear monitoring device used in molding high temp plastics and used in aeronatics), got preg, got married, had a baby and quit and then divorced. See a pattern there? ;-) Oh, but before the 2nd divorce, I had started law school.

JF will probably touch on this too, but at Northeastern School of Law, after the first year, one alternates a quarter of work with a quarter of academics, so during those last two years, one ends up with four quarters of real work experience under the belt. That was the reason I chose Nothereastern, as I knew it would be next to impossible to make it otherwise. Geez, I had one 12 week stint at one of Boston's big firms and made $1,100 per week! And this was in the 80s.

quote:

Originally posted by lilylady:

Jack, other than being a teacher, what was your life like before Kathy?

Seems like it was someone else!

I grew up in an upper middle class family, the oldest of five and the only boy.

In high school I was in a garage band. We literally did practice in a garage!

College was mostly rock n roll--I was not a great student--and I wanted to go to Art School. I did manage to graduate from college (barely) but had no marketable skills or any notion about how to find a real job.

I did manage to keep a girlfriend for two years and we married soon after graduation. I was 22 and pretty clueless. After two years of working at this and that, I went to a two year MFA program in photography and started teaching right after that. My wife then began a three year MLA (landscape architecture) prgram, so we had a long time of stress and no money putting each other through school.

I started gardening--growing veggies--when living at the school where I taught. We had a community plot. It wasn't until I moved to this place in Maine that I really got into growing flowers.

jf