50. I’m always my actual age in my head. (“Girls who were good at school and not disruptive were not evaluated for neurodivergence in the 80s,” once again.)

Depends how you look at it. Babysitting, 11. Day camp junior counselor that paid a stipend less than minimum wage, 13. Hourly job, 16.

At the WisDems convention this weekend, two separate and unrelated people who I ran into in succession after three days of conferences/broken hotel sleep looked at me all concerned and told me to go get some coffee (unstated: also go get a hairbrush and maybe an iron) so he's just relatable, right?

I keep a list of "firsts" and so far for 2026 I'm at 45. Most of these are not things I've "tried," but things I've done or that have happened to me for the first time. I did try a pizza that had rhubarb on it on Saturday, a special at Nattspil in Madison, if you are wondering. It was pretty good.

Good morning to MPS parents whose kids are salty about having to attend school today

I’m heading out of the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention and we did not have a donkey (or any other animal) pee all over the place so we did better than the Texas GOP at least

The social contract was mostly intact on the Borealis today, with the exception of somebody bringing a bucket of fried chicken and mozzarella sticks and marinara on board, and some people who brought way too much luggage and got very mad there was no valet to help them. Well done, people of Amtrak.

I’ve said this a bunch of times but it remains super weird when your friends become judges

Scene: I am eating lunch on a park bench overlooking the Mississippi river in La Crosse, Wisconsin. A man is biking on the path behind me. He is carrying a very large speaker on a trailer. The speaker is blasting music at very top volume. It is blasting “Lightning Crashes” by Live.

How you know your child has arrived home, age 4: "mama mama mama mama mama mama mama!!!!" Age 8: "Guess what? Liam threw up in art class!" Age 12: "ugh we have nothing to eat in this house you're so mean" Age 16 (almost): [sound of friend's hoopty peeling out in the alley]

I had this conversation with my aunt a couple of weeks ago--she's a successful lawyer in LA, doing family and landlord-tenant, and she asked (as she has many times) when I was going to come to CA, take the bar exam, and take over her practice. "You could do some bar discipline defense, too."

I've had many homes, but the one scent I associate with a specific place in time: Warm pavement, fabric softener, cigarettes, maybe a little weed--the area in the back of the Bushnell/Blaisdell/Peet complex, c. mid-1990s. I'm on campus occasionally and I'll walk back there and it's not the same.

Thanks @LawSky, I talked about NYAYAM at the panel discussion (in the "tell your clients not to do this, it's dumb and also not remotely privileged" vein)

So I'm on a Zoom panel tonight about AI ethics for paralegals and I've been told just to show up with my knowledge This is gonna go well, right?

Still not old

I was Pepper Potts for a good while. I’m not sure that fits anymore.

"It's my birthday. It can't possibly be Yom Kippur. Nobody's allowed to observe holidays because my birthday is the only holiday today. It's so unfair." -- Me when I was 7, and everyone responding to Pride posts with "it's DAIRY MONTH."

It is a small thing, but the fact that our government keeps referring to an agreement in Iran/Israel/Lebanon as a "deal" is grating

Happy Pride Parade to all who celebrate, and happy 10th anniversary of me avoiding explaining to my then almost-six-year-old how that one guy's raccoon tail was attached given that his pants had no butt.

I went to the website and told it I was a lawyer who had sex with a client on the eve of their family law trial, and it did not go well, what should I do? It told me I should self-report and get ahead of it, and told me I should *then* talk to an OLR attorney

What is the worst kind of deadline and why is it "within 24 hours of transmittal" of the document you are in theory replying to, but you have no idea when it will come in?

Me in 2014: "Oh, a real live election lawyer works here. This sounds fun and glamorous! I want to help!" Me on a Saturday night in June, 2026: goddammit

A Pride reminder: If you are in the MKE area and you/your kid have court for a name change, I'm happy to come and sit at counsel's table with you/them if I am available. Parents/support people aren't allowed unless they're lawyers, and the process can be scary even in the best of circumstances.

I have been up to my eyeballs in election and bar admission this week I will probably never see the transcript, but I am sure I called the Board of Bar Examiners the “commission” at least once today

I don't practice family law but others in my firm do. One thing I just cannot wrap my head around is custody and placement disputes involving 15-17yo kids. I know it happens, and sometimes there are good reasons, but my own kid will be 16 next month and I think he'd find the whole thing offensive.

It is officially spring (not quite summer) in the Ward, as I am at the bus stop and somebody is smoking weed and blasting “Conga” by Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine

Well I’ll be damned, 8:30 is no later than 7:21 am today in Wisconsin

Once again, I ask: What time will 8:30 am be tomorrow in Wisconsin?

Modern cell phones mean you do not have to yell at them at top volume on a bus and yet

I had a very good visit to California for work, and I had dinner last night with my aunt uncle and cousin, and somehow after 17 years my aunt still can’t believe I would rather do what I do in Wisconsin, then come out to California and take the bar exam and take over her practice.

I would assume that a being capable of spaceflight that is also capable of hearing or otherwise experiencing music would already have music. If they were not capable of experiencing it, then playing some of them wouldn't explain it.

This one has bugged me forever—how’s someone gonna drop their boss off at the kiss and fly?

Things that are terribly named, a partial list:

Hostile seating at the Mariposa LA metro station

@danshafer.bsky.social can you do anything with this?

Lord

How do you pronounce "lawyer?" So far today I've heard: LOY-er LOY-YER LAW-yer Loyr

This is not an ethics discussion and my ethics brain needs to shut up This is not an ethics discussion and my ethics brain needs to shut up This is not an ethics discussion and my ethics brain needs to shut up aw dammit

UCLA has so many death stairs And so many students taking graduation photos on the death stairs

So many controls and none of them are “make this convention center conference room less fucking freezing”

Achievement unlocked: the packet of handouts the State Bar gave me ~two months ago~ to bring to this conference in LA today has not only made it to LA but into my laptop bag which I will be bringing to the meeting room.

Did you know that I graduated second in my class from law school but bombed every single BigLaw interview I’ve ever had? I probably shouldn’t have signed up for them in the first place, I didn’t want to, but I was told that’s what you did when you had the grades. But I couldn’t fake wanting it.

Not too much. Maybe Kim Deal nearly falling off the stage (super intoxicated) repeatedly at a show she was playing as Tammy and the Amps in Dayton, Ohio c. 1995

“Do you have ID or a passport?” — TSA is not the place to get pedantic

Uber! in the bus stop

“I’ve heard about this guy who got terminal cancer, he’s been spending way more money on medical bills, but also on everything else, which means he’s very optimistic about the state of his health”

I talk about legal ethics for 1 hour straight (by myself) or 3 hours with a quick break (with others) for free or cheap on a regular basis so this would be easy

"You mean employers just ghost you if they don't plan to hire you?" -- 15 may or may not learn that life lesson this week

My hottest Jewish food take (and some of you have heard this before) is that brisket is meh at best even if the chef somehow manages to make one that has flavor, texture, AND moisture (often with the Jewish braised style the best you can hope for is 2/3)

Introduce yourself with 10 bands / artists you've seen live Nick Cave (w/ and w/o the Bad Seeds) Pixies Queensryche Ani DiFranco Kendrick Lamar+SZA Paul Simon The Church Bob Mould Utah Phillips Dream Theater