By Stella Templo
Immigration Attorney, The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
I spent 16 hours in seminars over the weekend to fulfill my Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirements so that I can keep my license.
If not for my fellow S&B immigration attorney Bindhu Vijayan, who was my partner in suffering, and gallons of caffeine, my brain would have shut down completely.
We sat through lectures on Elder Law, Insider Trading, Reverse Mortgages, etc., given by experts. For much of the time, it felt like the lecturers were speaking in foreign languages.
The state of New York does not allow attorneys to call themselves “specialists” and, if an attorney or a firm wishes to concentrate practice in a specific area and advertise as such, the bar association has some very strict rules about it. In the state of New York, an attorney is supposed to have base competence in all legal matters.
Despite the bar association’s confidence, I know better than to try to give advice on ILITs (irrevocable life insurance trusts) as part of someone’s estate plan or Monday morning quarterback another attorney’s compliance calls as he or she navigates the Securities Acts of ’33, ’34 and ’35.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe their information to be so inaccessible as to be impossible to learn with time and diligence. I am merely acknowledging that these experts’ spheres of knowledge are light years away from my day-to-day work.
Each lecturer had been practicing law in his or her specific area for years and years. The code words of their work jumped off their tongues with ease and confidence.
It was an impressive parade of knowledge that, under different circumstances, would have been intimidating.
The great equalizer is that these experts in their fields know as much about my field as I know about theirs.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to correct an immigration-related misconception, I wouldn’t have to work for a living anymore. What may be surprising is that some of the questions have been posed by very intelligent persons, experts in their fields, captains of industry.
The take-away lesson is that we live in an age of specialization and interdependence.
We all have to walk out of our areas of specialty and, when we do, we’d do well to find persons who can help us navigate the rest.
