Lawyer Olympics

Everywhere I turn I’m hearing about the London Olympics, and it’s getting me very excited. Of course I don’t have to face the tourists or the traffic, and it’s all going to be streamed live on the internet so by next week I’ll be fully immersed in the glory with none of the headaches.  I love the Olympics and have nothing but admiration and respect for the athletes who sacrifice so much to be there.  It must be an amazing experience for them, one I’m instantly proud and jealous of.   Anyone who knows me knows that I have zero athletic ability; I’ve actually sent myself to urgent care by tripping over my own two feet.  So I know that the closest I’d ever come to being in the Olympics is if I could convince someone to make me their official water girl – although I’m probably not qualified for that either.  So it got me thinking, what if they had “Lawyer Olympics”?  Now, I don’t claim to be elite amongst lawyers in anyway, but I might be able to train hard enough to get a wildcard seat on the US team – depending on what the “games” looked like. 

There could be the Marathon Contract Review event, one must review, redline and negotiate final drafts of 3 contracts of no less than 70 pages each in less than 4 hours when the project needs to begin. 

Another event could be “Discovery Hurdles”, where one must navigate through eDiscovery rules to narrow down the responsive production with no more than 5 objections all the while keeping under budget.

Or how about “Fencing with the EEOC”, where a participant is expected to ethically and respectfully parry, advance, lunge and engage with the EEOC over unfounded employee complaints.

For in house counsel specifically there could be “Board Room Gymnastics”, where one must gracefully contort, walk the line on a balance beam of competing and sometimes conflicting goals, and perform high flying routines perfectly without the use of a safety net.  The ability to literally bend over backwards my clinch a gold in this event.

What other events might we have in our Lawyer Olympics?