Author Chats
Ira C. Wolpert Reflects on 54 Years of Legal Practice
February 01, 2022
In Duly Noted the D.C. Bar continues its author Q&A series featuring members who have published works in a variety of genres.
Following his retirement in 2015, Ira C. Wolpert began writing a book to record some of the most memorable occurrences in his long career as an attorney. You Can’t Make This Up! presents a collection of these vignettes, each of which serves as a wry illustration of the victories, defeats, and unexpected twists attorneys encounter in the course of practice.
Can you talk a little about your career?
I’m a graduate of Cornell (1959), I attended Georgetown [University] Law Center, and after that I went to work for a lawyer who specialized in tax and estate law. I was not very interested in that. It was very boring. In regard to that first job, there was one incident in the book that I relate called “Unsolicited Advice Well Received.”
When I was with that lawyer, there was a temporary [assistant] that was typing up my W2. She came in, closed my door, and said to me, “Mr. Wolpert, I may be out of line, but I’ve worked for a lot of law firms and just saw your W2 statement. And I must tell you, you’re a better lawyer than you’re getting paid.”
I was kind of shocked, and I said, “Oh, no, you know Mr. Goodson … I’ll eventually inherit his practice.” And then when she left, I started thinking about it and made some inquiries, and I was underpaid. So, I made a change and, by the way, that lawyer lived to be 90.
Anyway, I stayed with him for about two years, and then I got an associate position and then became a partner in the firm representing a lot of small corporations doing a lot of trial work. I left there after 20 years. I left because when I came in in the morning, I would be just overwhelmed with phone calls and mail. I [was] in charge of the office personnel, dealing with the partners, lawyers, the courts.
I complained to a client about it one time and the client said to me, “Would you rather lose your wallet or your calendar?” I said, “What do you mean?” and he replied, “Well, if you lose your wallet, you can replace it, but if you lose your calendar, you can never replace your time.” That really got me thinking. And just about that time a client who was in real estate development asked me to join him as executive vice president and legal counsel to a real estate workout company. I did that for four years, but we ran out of inventory.
Then I was partner at Foley & Lardner, but it was a big firm with over a thousand attorneys, and I was having conflicts that restricted the number of clients I could take in. I left to open my own office in 1996 and retired in 2015. Private practice was still too busy for me.
How did you get started writing essays?
Before the pandemic, my wife and I did quite a bit of traveling, and during those travels other fellow travelers were always asking [about my] occupation. When I would tell them what I did, they would always ask, “What interesting stories do you have?” and I would relate a few. Many of the travelers would tell me I should write a book. I kind of shrugged it off and never thought much about it.
When the pandemic came about, as I relate in the book, I had a lot of time on my hands and thought, maybe I should do this. So, I started writing one essay, and the next thing I knew I was writing three or four a day. One day I got up at three o’clock; I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about these essays.
I would write three or four stories in 45 minutes. Then I would give them to my wife and she would say, “Yes, I remember this” and add her comments. I kept writing and writing. I thought I was done, but then I would go out for a walk, and I’d think about things.
And, so, I decided to self-publish this book. The first edition came out in October 2020; it was 93 pages and I thought I was finished, but I wasn’t. In January 2021 I put out another edition, and that was 114 pages. Then I did a third edition [in] August 2021, and now I’m up to 132 pages and am still thinking about essays. There must be at least 80 essays in this book.
How do you select a story to include in your collection?
Well, there is no selection. There’s just whatever popped into my head that I remembered at the time, and sometimes one story reminded me of another story . . . not often, but the process was to try to make each essay interesting. If it had a legal issue to explain, how [did] it fit into the story, and how did it come out?
Some stories are funny, some stories are informative, some stories I just wrote for myself. There are some essays in this book that just relate to my life experiences, and people who read the book also found that very interesting.
I like stories that involve something unusual. Something of human interest about how people react in different situations. I try to ensure that each essay makes the reader want to read on. There’s an introductory paragraph about what it’s about, and then tell the story with some sort of conclusion, maybe with a grabber, some kind of surprise ending. There are several of those in the book.
One example from the book is the story “Stop While You’re Ahead,” where a lawyer asks one question too many for his case. I thought that was interesting and semi-humorous, but one of the most humorous was the one involving my law partner when we were practicing law in a very small law office. We had a telephone number that was very close to a sandwich shop around the corner. [One Saturday morning] I heard him pick up the phone and say, “uh huh, uh huh, uh huh …” and then, “Do you want fries with that?” and I realized he was taking orders.
I guess there are still people waiting years later for that order.
Not all of the essays tell stories; some list chiasmus and idioms. Why are these included in the collection?
I’ve always been interested in wordplay and language. A [chiasmus] is an idea that is presented and then repeated in a reverse order. It’s like a mirror image to impart an idea. I’ll give an example: “Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.”
Those are very interesting. I went to a party recently and someone asked me to read some of those, and I really got a lot of laughs, but others are really very powerful. One of my favorites [is] “The feeling of health can only be found in illness.” I thought that was very insightful.
At several points in the book, you encourage attorneys to practice law defensively. What do you mean by that?
Unfortunately, as I practiced law over the years, I really had some very bad experiences with other lawyers, some of which I put in the book. But a lot of clients have become very treacherous.
I have several recent experiences. One client told me what a great job I did on the case, and when I pressed him on the bill, he told me what a lousy job I did on the case, and that’s why he wouldn’t pay me.
Also, there were instances very early in my practice when a client agreed to a settlement to make a payment and there was an order entered. He said I could sign his name to the order, and I did, and when he couldn’t pay, he said I had no authority to sign his name. So, there are instances like that.
I never did that again. I always had the client sign, and with clients who you think may be [a] problem you need to protect yourself. You need to get everything in writing. If the client tells you to do something, you need to write the client a letter and explain, otherwise you’re going to be hit with a malpractice claim. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the practice of law right now.
Where can readers find your work?
If anybody wants the book, they can contact me through my email, [email protected], and I will charge $12 to mail it. I figure that at $15 some may balk, but $12? Someone may say, [that’s] what I spend for a cup of coffee and a doughnut … it might be worth it.
