Tag: writing

I went to Hawaii for Two Weeks (and the Law Firm Survived)

The last time I went to Hawaii was in 2008, and I was on my honeymoon. I had just started work at a Big(ish) Nashville Law Firm, and I was nervous about taking a full week off, only six weeks in. (I was sort of worried that they’d deny my request to take a vacation.)

Fast-forward to this summer, 17 years later. Five years ago, I started my own law firm, and, as we planned another trip to Hawaii (with a 14 and 12 year old in tow), I began to worry about being away for two weeks and all the possible things that can come up.

Spoiler-alert: It was pretty easy.

My old law firm was run by folks in their late 60s and early 70s, and things like remote practice and cutting edge technology was never a priority (though our leather bound Martindale Hubbell collection was pristine).

When I started my own firm, I saw the rapid advances in technology made during the COVID pandemic and incorporated as much as I could.

The technology and systems that I use every day made the vacation so much easier than the one I took in 2008. For this trip, I leaned heavily on a few core tools:

  • Cloud-Based Practice Management: My firm uses Clio. All case files, deadlines, and client communications are accessible online. My firm bills via Clio, and, on the 12 hour flight, I was able to get all of my May 2025 bills generated, approved, and delivered to clients…from the airplane.
  • Microsoft Office: We are a Microsoft Office law firm. Microsoft is slowly pushing users to use the very secure online portal for Outlook, Word, and all the other applications. This is useful for remote work, obviously. I was able to access my entire law firm, easily, using a Microsoft Surface tablet.
  • Zoom & Microsoft Teams: Client meetings ran as usual. Other than the random and exotic bird noises they could hear.
  • NetDocuments with secure access: I use NetDocuments, an online document management system, so every document I needed was instantly available, but also secure. My paralegal could draft documents that I could easily access and respond to.
  • VOIP Phone System: I use Dialpad (but am not a huge fan). Regardless, when a client called my office, they got me (in Hawaii) or my staff (not on vacation with me).
  • E-Filing and Online Dockets: Lawyers violently oppose most technological advances, but the e-filing of pleadings (and new lawsuits) is so useful that even the most stubborn lawyers don’t fight this. In a pinch, I prepared and filed a lawsuit from a beach chair, and coordinated service of process via Proof Process Servers.
  • Calendar & Time Zone Discipline: Hawaii is 5–6 hours behind most of my clients and courts. That meant early mornings — I typically started work at 4:30 or 5:00 AM Hawaii time to stay in sync with the mainland. This worked pretty well; instead of emails “trickling” in during the morning, I had a full plate of emails to power through with coffee, and I’d check in again at lunch by the beach (when my banker clients had gone home for the day).

What I Learned

  1. Time zone planning is everything: Build your schedule around your clients’ time zones, not your own. Having said that, to keep my family happy, I had to close the laptop by 8am in Hawaii…which was 1pm Nashville time. The time difference actually worked in my favor, as I had ample time to work, and then have guilt and distraction free days at the beach.
  2. A tight schedule keeps you focused: Being away from the day-to-day distractions of the office actually helped me focus. With a solid daily routine (coffee, sunrise, email triage), I found my time blocks more productive.
  3. Clients don’t care where you are, as long as you’re responsive: Big law firms cling too tightly to the old vestiges of tradition — fancy offices; suits and ties; strict hierarchies. For me, no clients cared that I was working remotely, because every call and email was answered promptly.

Final Thoughts

There are different mindsets when talking about running a law firm remotely. Some lawyers (the ones that may not have school age children) have the flexibility to run a truly remote firm, working in a new and exciting city and without being bound to a single location or your law partners’ judgey faces.

For me, I just needed to have a reliable tech-stack that would allow me to service my clients effectively while I was away. I had spent months preparing, blocking my calendar during that time, and warning clients about my limited availability.

It’s never easy to take a long vacation, especially if you are a busy solo lawyer, but it can be done–and fairly easily.

A remembrance of Professor Tom Nenon and a Reminder of the Value of the Small Things

University of Memphis professor Tom Nenon passed away last week. I want to tell you a very small story about Tom, who had a very big impact on my life.

When I first met Tom Nenon, he’d hadn’t yet been made provost. He was just a professor in the (Memphis State) Philosophy Department.

This was in 1993, and I was starting my sophomore year, still struggling to find my way at a big university.

After a first semester in some difficult pre-med courses, I received a not-so-kind letter from the scholarship office over the Christmas holidays, informing me that, if my grades didn’t rise and exceed a certain threshold, I’d lose my full-ride (and then some) scholarship. My grades weren’t awful, but they were middling.

I was a first generation college student, and my first year was a bumpy ride. As the kid of a grocery store check-out clerk and a factory worker, I had no idea what college looked like or how I fit in there.

When I shared the letter with my family over the holiday break, my parents just shrugged their shoulders and said something to the effect of “Oh well, you tried. College isn’t for everybody.” It’s crazy, but also completely understandable. They had worked every day of their lives to build a great home and life, and they simply didn’t see why their healthy, smart 18 year old son would waste 4 of his prime working years.

It was nice to not get fussed at, but it was also pretty clear that, if I lost this scholarship, it was my problem to solve and, maybe, the end of college for me.

I was terrified. What scared me the most was that my grades weren’t the result of too much fun or partying or enjoying the college life-style. Instead, I was trying as hard as I could and, for the first time in my life, began to wonder if I was good enough to succeed.

I’d love to tell you that the second semester of my freshman year was all redemption and great successes. Nope, it was still really hard. In the end, I got my grades just up enough to keep the scholarship, with Biology II and General Physics making sure to keep me in doubt about my future.

The next year, my sophomore year, I avoided all the science classes. My parents–who were confused why I was even at college–were even more confused to hear about my studies in Sociology, Communication, and Classical Issues in Philosophy.

I was still a bit lost, but felt like, maybe, I was heading in the right direction.

Then I met Tom Nenon, my Philosophy 1101 professor.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably expecting to hear about an internship or research project or some mentorship that grew into a life-long friendship. This is not that.

Here’s what Tom did for me. A few months into the semester–maybe in October–at the end of a lecture, he asked if “David Anthony was present and could meet me in my office.”

It was big lecture class, with about 75 students, and I remember the looks on my friends’ faces wondering what I had done. I was also a little bit concerned.

In his office, he greeted me as if I was a long-lost friend, and he sat me down and told me how impressed he has been with my work in class. He asked if I had ever considered studying philosophy, and he gave me a sales pitch about the department, the students and faculty, and all the things I could do with a philosophy degree (by that time, I had vaguely identified a law degree as a possible path). I felt like a 5 star point guard in the basketball facility. It was awesome.

In the end, I didn’t become a philosophy major. I took 3-4 more philosophy courses, but followed my heart into the English department. Other than a few hi’s and how are you’s, I’m not sure I talked much with Professor Nenon after that.

But here’s why I’m posting all this. After that day in his office, I never questioned whether I belonged on that campus. I also never questioned taking courses that I was passionate about. I never made anything less than an “A” in any class. And I never forgot the guy who not only saw my potential but made sure to celebrate and encourage it.

When Nenon was appointed Provost years later, I emailed him to congratulate him but also to share my gratitude for that very small moment that had such a ripple effect on my own journey.

His response was very kind and effusive, and I wish I still had it.

But, having read more about his life and passion for others, I am sure that I am just one of the thousands of students, friends, and colleagues whose lives and journeys were touched by Tom, and I’m so glad I was able to thank him, even if it came 20 years after the fact.

It’s a reminder how often we have the ability to help or encourage somebody, with the smallest gesture, and how easy it can be.

Thanks for the final lesson, Professor Nenon.