Airstream – An Adventure!

Traveling the country has always been an exciting adventure. Most folks do so either by car or plane and stay in hotels/motels, see the sites and move on.

At this time in our life, my wife has decided we need to see the USA, not in a Chevrolet as I did earlier in life, but in an Airstream vintage trailer. After my wife’s “due diligence,” (I knew there would be an analogy to law practice! :-)), we bought a 1969 Airstream. And now comes the fun part: Doing all the things we need to do in order to start our new journey, part by part.

Let’s see, we arranged to get the trailer here from Arizona; found a storage facility; and attended allegedly the largest RV show in the country to learn what else we needed to get started. And we did. We enrolled in a driving program; learned more about a brake controller that has to be installed in my truck to stop the trailer (after all, we don’t want the trailer to push the truck off the road when I try to stop the truck with only the truck’s brakes); and bought a flag that we’ll color as we go through each State in our travels.

We’ve now bought the brake controller and will get it installed the end of the week. When the truck is ready, I’ll hitch it up to the trailer and drive to the shop for inspection and refurbishing. Oh, almost forgot, the Department of Vehicles requires that we get a certified weight certificate and then register the trailer.

Phew, I’m exhausted already and we haven’t even started.

It would have been far easier to buy a new trailer but doing so would also involve some big negatives. The cost would have been significantly higher. The worry of the first ding would have been ever present …until the first ding, and then I would have been very unhappy.  Does this kind of plus/minus calculation  sound like the considerations of hiring a lateral lawyer or a recent law school graduate whom you train in your system? There is much to be said for each. The lateral hire is a known quantity (for better or worse), involving less near-term risk but also perhaps needing more effort to maintain. The new graduate requires lots of time and expense to train, but theoretically should be with you for the long haul. Which option is better? Every firm’s answer will be different — just as a 1969 Airstream is not (!) ideal for every couple.

I’ll keep you posted as we move on.

Peek preview:  Conflict of goals between me and my wife on what to do and how to do it.  Does this sound familiar to those in law firms who want to grow as contrasted to those who want to keep the status quo?

Categorized in: Personal Thoughts