Many of us start each New Year with resolutions, and for the past several years, I promised to start a blog. To date, I have not made good on that promise, not surprising since I am a technologically challenged. With any luck, the voyage starts here and the promise is kept.
So why a blog? I have been a lawyer for 32 years, and 27 years ago this week, we started our firm. I never really focused on the impact of our work until my daughter asked me what I do every day when I go to work. There was no sense boring her with the list of my trials, appeals, or oral arguments in court, nor would she understand it. Leave it a six year old to make you sit down and focus on why it is that God put me here on this earth.
After a quick reflection, as kids can be impatient, I replied “People come to me with their problems, and I fix them. Some problems are small, some quite large. Some can be easily fixed, some are very hard to fix, and some cannot be fixed at all. But each and every day when I leave the house, I do my best and try my hardest to help people. So if anyone asks you what I do, you tell them, ‘My dad helps people by fixing their problems.'”
My daughter thought about it for a minute, and then asked another question. Once again, with the clarity and insight that only a six year old possesses, she asked “Is it fun?”
Surprisingly, in the many years leading up to that question, I hardly thought about whether my work was fun. Like everyone else, there are good and bad days at work. There are wonderful clients and not-so-wonderful clients. It took my daughter’s question, however, for me to realize how fortunate I am and how much I love what I do. I answered my daughter saying “I get to spend every day helping other people, and often that help changes a person’s life. Sometimes we make other people change the way they do business so that our clients and many other people are safe. What could be more fun than that?”
I have been blessed in both my personal and professional life with God-given talents and a deep desire to help other people. Our firm is filled with people who feel the same way. My goal with this blog is to impart thoughts and suggestions that may help other people and hopefully make their world safer. Some of those thoughts will warn about or discuss products that are unsafe and/or have been recalled. Some thoughts will educate on steps people can take to protect themselves, whether purchasing a home, entering into a contract, determining your BAC (blood alcohol content) when you have been out and are driving home from a party, or informing you on recent cases that can affect your life. Some thoughts will hopefully protect your children from harm, such as discussing the criminal implications of sexually suggestive emails or texts as well as cyber bullying. Lastly, I hope to write some blogs that are just fun facts as well as ones relating to legal stories that are socially relevant and topical, to which I hope you reply with your thoughts.
Thank you for taking the time to read this initial blog. I look forward to this voyage, and I hope you will get as much reading it as I do writing it.
Sincerely,
Michael K. Gillis, Esq.
GILLIS & BIKOFSKY, P.C.
1150 Walnut Street
Newton, MA 02461
Phone: 617-244-4300
Fax: 617-964-0862
E-mail: mgillis@gillisandbikofsky.com