A family affair.

I got to spend another lovely holiday with my entire family this past weekend. It's a good thing Labor Day falls where it does since we had been approaching a world record lapse in family bonding time. Our last family function was on the 4th of July, and any time we deprive ourselves of being confined to a room with all our cousins and aunts and uncles is too long indeed.

The one potential benefit of seeing my family so frequently should be that I have to answer the dreaded "how's law school?" question less often. Only my family didn't get the memo. Instead, I have to answer that question, paired with the ever present "how many years do you have left?" on a regular basis.

Usually these conversations are followed by one or two family members telling me that I need to hurry up and graduate because they need my help in a legal matter now. My family members all have lawyers who they apparently plan on dropping the day I pass the bar. After years of hearing this, I finally laid down the law and quite abruptly informed them that I refuse to handle any legal matters involving family members. This may seem a bit rude, but it's something I will be firm on. When you have 60+ relatives that you see on a semi-regular basis, there is so much potential for conflict if something goes wrong.

My aunt, who is the most frequent offender in the "you're going to be my lawyer" category took a little offense to my declaration. However, she got over it quickly, and in what she thought was a great explanation told me that she didn't mean she wanted to hire me, she just needed me to advise her on something. Apparently I should be relieved that she doesn't intend to employ me as her lawyer, but was simply asking that I give her free legal advise in my spare time. Glad we cleared that up.