On Being a “Senior” Government Contract Lawyer

 "The older I get, the better I used to be." 

 -- Lee Trevino

Around age 65 the American Bar Association (“ABA”) automatically enrolls you in the so-called Senior Law Section. They also send you a magazine with all kinds of articles with headings urging you to “Stop Practicing Law You Fool Before You Malpractice or Get Sick.” Lawyers are typical boomers, and some of us refuse to retire and get out of the way. That is me for sure.

I like practicing law, and I would consider doing as long as I can -- perhaps forever. But life has a way of deciding matters for you. One of my favorite stories involves Jerry Stiller who kept on working as an actor (he was George Constanza’s father in Seinfeld) well into his old age. When asked how long he would continue to work, he said something to the effect that he planned to work “as long as they keep calling.” Yes, hope springs eternal with every new client and project.

So, earlier this week, I settled my last pending litigation. It was a good settlement for both my client and the Government, but bittersweet for me. I am going to miss it. My deceased colleague and friend Brian Bannon once said to me he became a government contract lawyer because he could litigate while also having a subject matter expertise. He said real lawyers go to court, which is not true of many big firm lawyers. But now I am at the end of my last case pending at the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (“ASBCA”). If I am going to be involved in any further litigation, I think it will be only if supported by someone younger who can carry on if I cannot complete the job. That is the kind of thing that goes through a senior lawyer’s mind.

I cannot help but think about what happened to me as the executor of my mother-in law’s estate back in the 1990’s. She had a personal accountant who handled her taxes for several decades. He knew her affairs well. I hired him to be the estate accountant and help with the estate tax return. He was about 71 years old. Two months before the IRS filing deadline he suddenly and unexpectedly died. His wife had to send me his workpapers and I had to prepare the estate tax return on my own. It was stressful, but a learning experience I used to later do other albeit simple trust and estate work for family members. (Indeed, 27 years later, earlier this week, I used that knowledge to file the final 2025 tax returns for the trusts I set up for my children and have recently dissolved.) Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But I remain mindful that I do not want leave any of my clients in the lurch like that.

So, what do old government contracts lawyers do? There are always my twin hobbies of day trading stocks and stalking real estate bargains. But that is just a sideline. For me, when the practice of law ends, as it must for us all, I am thinking of writing a book as my final legacy. I am provisionally and egotistically calling it Abrahams on the Service Contract Act. The biggest selling book of the 19th century was Ulysses S. Grant’s autobiography. Mark Twain was the publisher. Grant, post presidency, had made some improvident investments and was broke. He also had terminal cancer. He wrote his autobiography to get funds to support his wife. And he died within days of its completion. Of course, no one is interested in my autobiography but me, as my colleague Kenneth Weckstein (a legitimate author in his own right) once explained to me, but I am thinking the definitive treatise on the SCA might outlive me, albeit it is a niche publication unlike Grant’s war memoir. It will never make me rich. When the time comes to hang it up, we will see if I have the interest and discipline to get it done.