Knowing you'll never know enough

As someone who keeps an eye an Illinois blawgs -- or tries to -- I'm impressed by the consistently high quality of Peter Olson's Solo in Chicago.  Peter's a skillful writer with a flair for storytelling and an appealing confessional style. He admits his blunders, in other words, and give voice to his doubts. You have to like a guy like that. And he posts frequently. In short, he makes his blawg a place you want to visit. But I told you that to tell you this: he has a fresh post about his first criminal trial. It's interesting on several levels, but what stayed with me was his observation that part of maturing as a lawyer is growing comfortable with a lack of mastery: "The reality is you’re constantly dealing with changing statutes, court rules, and different fact patterns and being all-knowing isn’t possible. I was nervous heading into my first criminal court case but in knowing the case backwards and forwards, doing the legal research, and talking with a few colleagues I was as ready as I possibly could be. And that’s usually all you can do." This is true in spades for a sole practitioner. But it's true for all lawyers, really. Once you've done all you can to prepare -- once you're "as ready as [you] can possibly be" -- why not relax and enjoy the ride?