Although we often choose to disregard the fact, no one lives forever. This fundamental truth is as applicable to lawyers as anyone else. Some recent deaths have been announced in obituaries extolling the role the lawyer played in helping clients, in addition to the impact of the lawyer’s life on family members and friends. The stories reflect the nature of the person — some people are described in terms seemingly larger than life, while others concentrate on quieter activities.

Obituaries are a fine way to remember deceased lawyers, but one has to wonder whether a lifetime in the law will be much remembered five minutes after the burial. Or whether it should be. Lawyers are like other people; there is good, and there is bad, and most of us have a bit of both. The lives of lawyers are no more valuable than those of other people, but because of our training and position, lawyers often have an outsized opportunity to make an impact. Some of those impacts, and the persons associated with them, are better forgotten. Other lawyers seem uninterested in leaving much of a trace; those individuals do their jobs, but never reach for, let alone achieve, anything memorable. Still others achieve a legal legacy that endures.

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