"PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY"...

Um, what?? yeah, ok. I have been lawyering for about 14 years now. I hesitate to say "practice", because you know what I feel that implies. After all, would you want someone to represent you that needed to practice?? In any event, I have seen and heard a lot of things over those 14 some-odd years. I have learned a few things too. And sometimes, things make me laugh, or make me just sit back and go, hmmmm. Like the time I dealt with an attorney in Israel, and found out that in Israel, they call attorneys "Dr. so and so". I like that one. When I am feeling all self-important, I refer to myself as Dr., and then I laugh.

So, a few days ago, a person-who-might-become-a-client showed me a rather threatening letter from an attorney in Florida. The last line of the letter said, (just like this, by the way), PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY. Well, call me the gal who just crawled out from under a rock, but I have never heard that before. How pompous! And who, exactly, is this lawyer, telling someone to "govern themselves accordingly"?? And, what exactly, does it mean to govern oneself accordingly?? Is this guy Stalin? God incarnate?

Really, I had to laugh. Lawyers get a bad rap as it is, but boy, does that statement, or command add highly powerful explosives to the fire. What unmitigated gall! What chutzpah! I wanted to call him out of principal and ask, hey buddy, do YOU govern yourself accordingly??

Incidentally, on my way home from work today, some dopey-head cut me off. And, instead of my customary rude, digital gesture, guess what he got? "yo, can't you govern yourself accordingly???!!!???" no wonder he looked at me like I had three heads...