By: Martin Merritt, esq.
Past President, Texas Health Lawyers Association
Past Chair, DBA Health Law Section
martin@martinmerritt.com
“Please Tell Me you Didn’t. . . How to Keep Clients Out of the Jailhouse, Poorhouse and Lawyers Out of the Nuthouse” -Blog
As you can tell, I love talking about health law & litigation issues, and general wellbeing, if you have any health law questions or better yet, need to refer a case, just call or drop me an email and I will happily talk.
“A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations”
–Clint Eastwood, Magnum Force (1973)
What would happen if you invited a group of judges and lawyers to a remote resort in the middle of nowhere, Texas; for three days and two nights, with an open bar and no possibility of an arrest for driving under the influence?
The beauty of Horseshoe Bay lies in both the scenery and the fact there is absolutely nothing else to do at night but stay put and participate in the “Bar activities” that have been planned onsite. Which greatly reduces the chances of getting arrested while substantially increasing the chances of everyone having a good time.
And that’s were I came in. I am on the Entertainment Committee of the Dallas Bar Association and just dumb enough to volunteer to perform acoustic sets for the Bench Bar Conference both nights of the event.
That part is not hard for me, I perform for the DBA Happy Hour on the first and second Tuesday of each month at the Arts District Mansion (please come). I have also been singing in a church choir and performing other charity events for over 40 years in Dallas, on the off chance there might be a “Saint Peter” up in the clouds counting my good deeds at the end of all of this.
Once I got into a fender-bender heading to a children’s charity event on the invitation of Justice Charles McGarry. The claims adjuster interviewing me asked, “Where were you going?”
I answered, “to play a benefit for 500 kids with Down Syndrome.”
“Okay,” she then asked, “Was anyone with you?”
I said, “yes, the Chief Justice of the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas was in the passenger’s seat.” (I didn’t have any more trouble with the claims adjuster after that.)
Which is a little understood benefit of doing good deeds, it keeps you out of trouble.
These days, staying out of trouble is aided by the fact that I can’t drink alcohol like normal people. (I am not sure exactly which slice of pizza did it, circa five years ago, but one of them bumped me from “pre-diabetic” to full blown, “no more carbs for me.”)
Which is not usually a problem until I find myself sober, trapped in a resort with hundreds of revellers– judges and lawyers with the sales people from the vendor booths and an open bar and no place else to go. It is just a little hard to relate to this kind of “fun.”
The “strike count” for me goes something like this: “Strike one,” finding myself the only sober person in the bar, “Strike two” all my of colleagues have raised their glasses in unison, and “Strike three (and I am out),” all begin happily shouting in unison, some version of “Wooooooo!”
But at least I got to play and sing for the group on both nights, which they really appreciated, until it all ended abruptly on the second night of performing.
I was positioned with my guitar and PA system on a patio, performing the warm-up act for karaoke event that would follow inside in the ballroom. I was supposed to play an hour, and was doing my best rendition of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” (under an actual Texas Harvest Moon), when suddenly I lost the audience to something occurring inside the ballroom.
I walked over and peered inside, and knew I had been bested. There through the ballroom window, standing with a microphone, beaming from ear-to-ear in “sensible” shoes, was a bespectacled, diminutive in height (but never in stature), former Chief Judge of the Northern District of Texas, Barbara Lynn, singing karaoke to an adoring crowd, after an awards dinner in her honor as Jurist of the Year from the DBA.
I just smiled and said to the person standing next to me, “yeah, I can’t compete with that.” I believe it was Clint Eastwood’s character who said in the 1973 film, Magnum Force– “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
If you missed the Bench Bar Conference this year, I would highly recommend making plans for next year. People seem to have had a really great time. It is truly a unique opportunity to mingle with colleagues and the judiciary.