My mother probably was a bit surprised by my decision to become a lawyer. According to her, as a little boy, I was fascinated by the sanitation workers who would come rumbling down the street in their garbage trucks on collection days. Little did she know that years later, one of my first product liability cases involved an allegedly defective side-loading trash collection truck.

Let’s face it—it’s important for lawyers not to lose touch with what gave them joy as children. For some of us, that may mean passing down to our own children the beloved games or movies that we cherished in our younger days. Then again, for lawyers, behaving like children will sometimes result in the judge treating you like a child. In a 2006 case, Avista Management v. Wausau Underwriters, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell of Florida’s Middle District was fed up with both sides in the case before him behaving immaturely. The counsel couldn’t even agree on the location for an upcoming deposition—a court reporter’s office down the street, or the building where both lawyers worked (a mere four floors apart). So Presnell responded to this “latest in a series of Gordian knots that the parties have been unable to untangle without enlisting the assistance of the federal courts” with an unusual form of dispute resolution. He ordered both counsel to convene at a neutral site (or on the front steps of the federal courthouse) and “engage in one game of ‘rock, paper, scissors,’” the winner of which would be entitled to select the location of the deposition. Fortunately, the lawyers reverted back to their adult selves and came to an agreement before having to resort to a playground form of dispute resolution.