That’s right, if you can believe it, Ethicking.com launched one year ago, on October 24, 2019.

…so, what a year, huh?

Like anything that was launched a year ago with certain (any) expectations, this did not go as I’d planned. Sure, I did manage to keep up with the blog generally, updating every couple of weeks or so (and sometimes more often, though not quite at the weekly frequency I’d hoped). I thought I’d be writing about ABA opinions, nerd friends, and best practices, and I did that. And, sadly, I knew at this time last year, barring some very rapid advancement in medical science (or, as he called it, “a meteor crashing to Earth with the cure”) I would be posting a eulogy for my dear friend and mentor at some point.

And there have been some points of pride—my blog is syndicated or listed on WisLawNow, LexBlog, and Justia.  People have made a bad joke at me and I looked at them politely but confusedly and then they reminded me that the bad joke was  mine, from my blog. (Yay readership!) And, hey, “why do you call it Ethic King if you’re a girl?” and “you’re not a millennial, what’s with the neologism?” questions have stopped. And not specifically related to ethics, I’ve been admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court bar and am about to be admitted to Illinois. (I’ll have to change my tagline.) These are all unequivocally good things.

But boy howdy if you’d told me that a year from launch I would be writing about maintaining attorney-client privilege and reasonable diligence and mental health while working from home full-time while my spouse also worked from home full-time while trying to facilitate virtual schooling from home full-time in a house I bought to sleep in but not to work in, I would have asked if you’d been reading too much from the Time Cube guy’s archives or something. Remember my January predictions? About that.

A year ago, I’d used Zoom maybe twice for out-of-state depositions, and used Skype only for calls to overseas experts or clients. I looked forward to business travel, especially conferences where I could hang with my nerd friends and engage in high-level intellectual discussions about rule changes and responding to grievances (but also tell bawdy stories about “that case” at the hotel bar at 11 pm). If I had work to do on weekends or after hours that was more complex than sending an email, I’d go do it at the office.  

And here we are. I’m writing this from home and you’re probably reading this from home, as you’ve been doing for seven or eight months now. I’ll toast to a year,* from home. I won’t be making predictions today. I don’t know when we’re going to return to normal, or what “normal” will look like after this. But I’ll be here.

*Okay, I actually managed to launch this blog on my wedding anniversary so I will actually be toasting to 11 years. I am a nerd but even I’m not that big** of a nerd.

**no you shut up