Evans “Buddy” King
The page my column appears on occasionally contains pieces written by my old Christiansburg friend Mike Abraham.
Mike writes informative, technical pieces, thought provoking and topical. Like pieces on smart cars and other technology. Stuff like that.
The quality is no less than I would expect from someone as smart as Mike (Mike, I always said you were the smartest of the three brothers, not that I’m trying to start anything here!).
My columns, on the other hand, range from nostalgic to maudlin depending on my mood and the time of the day. Dilly, dilly. I could not write what Mike writes. My knowledge of technology is limited.
I could write about what I do at work, but I doubt discussions of reverse triangular mergers or equitable subordination would hold the attention of my readers. The difference between Mike’s columns and mine go back to my college selection.
Most of my gang from CHS days went to Virginia Tech, choosing engineering or similar applied science degrees or accounting. I chose UVA because I wanted to be a poet, of sorts at least.
I wanted to read the great books and to learn to write, in anticipation of a career in law. At that time, more so than now, Tech was best known as an engineering school, UVA the school for future lawyers and doctors.
So this column comes as a surprise to me. It’s about technology (sort of), my history with “modern technology.”
My legal career began in the time of “mag cards” (don’t ask me what they were) and curly paper faxes (if no one was in the mail room to play defense when one of these came in, you could spend half of your day trying to get the pages in order).
My first secretary, who knew a thousand times more about the law (and life) than I did when I started, was the “Queen of Whiteout.”
For those under 50, whiteout was a little bottle of white stuff that could cover up mistakes and typos on a piece of paper and save you from starting all over. My secretary could change “Patty, the first tart” into “party of the first part” faster than anyone in history.
She saved many a 20 page brief and 40 page contracts from the shredder. Alas, whiteout had a short shelf life, not as long even as pay phones or blackberries. I always thought that Bill Gates owed the whiteout folks a small royalty at least.
We soon moved into the era of word processors and overnight delivery services and straight paper faxes. The mad rush at “Fed Ex time” was a daily occurrence. It wasn’t just the women rushing to see the guys in the brown shorts either.
There were deadlines! “We can’t miss this guy.” “Hold him up.” “It’s due today.” Not infrequently, one of our runners would have to hop in a car and race off to Charleston to meet a filing deadline, lawyers being constitutionally incapable of doing anything before the last hour.
Electronic filing has saved our firm much fuel and many speeding tickets over the last several years. The firm record from Clarksburg to Charleston—a distance of 125 miles—is one hour and twenty minutes—record holder’s name withheld to protect the guilty.
This brings us to today. No longer do I sit at my desk, awaiting the morning mail delivery with a letter opener in one hand, a highlighter in the other, looking like a starving man holding utensils, waiting for a meal to be placed in front of him.
No longer do I go into the office on Saturday mornings and sort through the mail with the mailroom people. Emails and scans have replaced snail mail (trendy term that personally I think is disrespectful to those who deliver it) and fed ex deliveries.
I now send out and receive 75 page contracts in the blink of an eye, or more precisely the click of a finger. I send out advice at 3 a.m. wearing my workout shorts and a sweatshirt.
I no longer open paper files. I store my work somewhere in the clouds. I arrange conference calls for eight in a matter of seconds, I participate in video-conferences with folks all over the country (silly technology in my opinion, everyone checking themselves out, making sure they look good).
So in some ways I have embraced technology. Or maybe it has engulfed me. When I travel now, whether business or pleasure, the duffel bag carrying my devices, chargers, adapters and charging cords is substantially bigger than the one carrying my clothes.
I travel with an iPhone, an iPad, an Apple Watch, multiple speakers, a Fitbit, several sets of wireless headphones and a running watch. I am sure I am slighting some poor device by leaving it out.
When I arrive wherever I am going, it takes me an hour to untangle the charging cords and another hour to figure out what goes with what.
Wherever I am staying they ask for a deposit to cover the electric bill. I leave behind other devices like my iMac and my Apple TV.
So Michael, while I may not know what all this stuff is, or how to use it, I’ve at least surrounded myself with it. Hope you’re proud of me.
Evans “Buddy” King grew up in Christiansburg and graduated from CHS in 1971. He lives in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where he practices law with the firm of Steptoe and Johnson PLLC. He can be reached at Evans.King@steptoe-johnson.com
