Another one for the planners out there....

Actually, the date for the Illinois Judicial Council's 44th Annual Installation and Scholarship Reception is only about 60 days hence.

For me, now, no longer engaged in the hurly-burly of a litigation practice, 60 days seems like a fairly spacious interval of time -- and it is: A whole lot of things can happen in 60 days' time. Germany invaded France on May 10, 1940; France surrendered on June 22. That was only 43 days -- 46 if you count all the way to June 25, when the surrender went into effect.

On a more positive note, the gestation period for a litter of puppies or a litter of kittens is also about 60 days, give or take, depending on the breed.

But I am not so far removed from the active practice of law that I no longer recall that, for a lot of lawyers, 60 days is pretty much equivalent to 'tomorrow' for persons in other walks of life. Jones is unavailable for her deposition in the Smith v. Jones case? Get another date... and, by the time everyone compares calendars, the new date is at least 60 days out.

Actually, there was one time... I was on the phone with opposing counsel and she was pressing for the deposition of my client. I don't remember why the client was never available, whether it was a chronic problem, or just a string of unhappy coincidences that he was always unavailable on any of the various dates set for him to be deposed. We were talking about still another date, but now I had a problem: "My wife is expecting, and the date you're proposing is right around her due date."

Opposing counsel was not buying. "No chance I'm falling for that one," she fumed, "you've used this excuse on me before. Last year. Same case. Same deponent."

"Yes," I admitted -- counsel had not misremebered our prior discussions -- "but this is a different baby."

As it happens, my oldest two kids are 15 months' apart.

(In any event, counsel gave in on a longer date and, eventually, we settled the case. I don't remember if we ever did produce the client for his deposition.)

And, of course, such conversations could never, ever happen now -- I'm here recalling events that took place in the 1980s -- which to my ear sounds less terrible than saying that this phone conversation occurred more than 40 years ago -- and certainly the pace of litigation drastically increased in the intervening years.

But even at the modern, increased tempo, 60 days for lawyers isn't that long at all. I'll try and remember to be less snarky about 'planners' going forward....

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Basket of puppies photo by Chathura Anuradha Subasinghe (@chathuraanuradha)