A very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all Senior Lawyer Section members!

Since we last talked, the Senior Lawyers Section Council, through it’s CLE & Technology committees, presented two excellent CLE programs targeting senior lawyers. Both were well received and, in fact, the Computer Workshop earned all 5 out of 5 evaluations on all speakers and the program. Recollecting back to my CLE committee days, I don’t remember any program so well accepted. That said, however, because of small attendance and the apparent computer knowledge of the attendees, the Technology Committee will begin work on a more advanced revision of the workshop for future presentations.

At our Mid-year meeting, the Council heard committee reports, reviewed and voted on ABA Model Rule 8.4, discussed newsletter articles for this and the remaining issue this year and heard more about a social event for the Council at the Annual Meeting. The next Council meeting is currently set for February 17, 2017, as a conference call only meeting. If you would like to “attend,” please let me know and I will make the call-in instructions available. We value your interest and input.

We hope you will enjoy, and find useful, the following articles in this issue: Gary Rafool’s review of “Lights Out” by Ted Koppel, Ed Schoenbaum’s review of “The Anxious Lawyer” by Jean Cho and Karen Gifford, Leonard Amari’s “Is there a “crisis” of law schools in America?” and Mike Maslanka’s “Settling Parties (with Attorneys) Beware!” If you have any suggestions/requests for future articles that would be of interest to you, please let us know.

Normally, I would/should stop here, but you will hopefully forgive a brief return to my Technology Committee days. If any of you have followed our newsletters for the past few years, you know that I have attempted to give an (admittedly biased) review of each new Apple product, which I invariably purchase, upon release. Fortunately, Apple has a buy-back program which allows acquisition of Apple Store Credits for future “must haves”! It also allows you to free up a lot of storage space in your office/home!

This time it’s the Apple Airpods. After a delayed release, I got my pair before Christmas but those ordering now have to wait for a few more weeks. The AirPods are bluetooth ear pods which fit comfortably in your ears with no wires—not even between them. They can be used one at a time (for phone calls or monaural recordings), or together for stereo. They come in a small case, about the size of an old cigarette lighter, which is also their charger. The batteries last about 5 hours on a charge. The case/charger holds up to 24 hours of charging for the AirPods, which can be done in as little as 15 minutes for a 3 hour charge. The case can be charged every few days, using the standard Apple charger cord.

The AirPods sync with one tap when you put them into your ears and can be used with your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and/or Mac (as well as other blue tooth devices). They “know” when they are in your ears and whether you are using one or both. Phone calls come in automatically with very good sound quality, along with music or any other recording. Siri (Apple’s “assistant”) is accessed on the pods by a simple double tap. Siri will then make calls, turn up/down volume, give map directions or play music, etc. Because it has it’s own (W1) chip, the AirPods know when you are talking or listening, and pause when you take them out to extend the battery life. And did I mention, they stay in your ears, even when running (or as I can attest, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, bike riding or taking your dog for a walk)?! I could go on about the true greatness of this technology, but you need to get on to the other (and more valuable) articles in this newsletter.

Resuming the chair role, be sure to avail yourselves of our ListServ. Please don’t feel limited to substantive inquiries or comments. We, as seasoned members of the Bar, are always happy to give you the benefit of our experiences in the Practice, or any other area of interest to our Section members. Enjoy the new year! 