The Singing Lawyer

🪵 Lumber King 👑 here—There are many GOLDEN NUGGETS in these hills.💰 I am PUMPED to help AX some TAXES!

These pictures are from an epic Date Night with my queen last fall, where she scored with several “woodies”—now that’s talent!

We’ll be there THIS Tuesday for our new concept….Axes & Taxes: a Business Strategy & Tax Planning Workshop, which is free to Attend.

I had a great conversation with my fellow AXES & TAXES guide, Timothy Freese, CPA, yesterday while we were trading notes & putting our presentation together.

We are going to share some business & tax planning strategies that can have a HUGE impact on your bottom line.

When implemented proactively, these business strategies can reduce your tax bill by thousands (even millions) of dollars. 💵

We’re definitely going to make it worth the price of admission: your time & resources to venture to Texas Axe Throwing (off I-45 N in Spring).

Don’t wait for tax time think about tax planning…You’ll be a bit too late when the bill comes due.

Advanced Seat (& 🪓 Axe) Reservation Required.
RSVP at: axtaxes.com

As it was pouring sheets of water earlier this week, I had a flashback to a recent observation of another natural phenomenon—Niagara Falls.

While it’s been a bumpy ride over the past couple of weeks & months on the business side, the practice of law has actually been an exhilarating ride.

Taking a ride over these iconic falls…
hands straight up in the air…
is probably the best way to describe what it has felt like…(assuming we take ALL the physical injuries out of the equation).

Thinking through what’s occurred on this wild ride, ushered in a wave of gratitude for my supportive wife & my more than capable staff who have helped make all these great things happen in short measure.

1. We had the honor of saving two different business clients obtain favorable outcomes—avoiding the onslaught of litigation prospectively. ⚖️ I’m slightly disappointed I didn’t have the opportunity to get my BIG guns out. No, but in all seriousness I was very impressed with the professionalism displayed by both sets of opposing counsel. Neither of them put their ego/paycheck over their client’s interest. 💪🏻

2. We blazed our way through a couple weeks with back to back Estate Planning Wisdom Sessions (Education & Setup) & Signing Ceremonies 🖋without incident.🔖 I’m proud to say our drafting team is energized & firing on all cylinders. Bring it on! ⌨️

3. We are gearing up to provide our Trusted Advisor Services for our Business & Estate Planning clients (in a couple ☀️iconic locations OUTSIDE of TX), which might require some pretty neat🏖business trips⛰–hopefully in the near future. Our clients couldn’t wait for the optimal weather to come to fruition so we went ahead and established a fruitful relationship with competent local counsel to help us carry out our mission directives.

If it gets any better than this, I doubt I’ll ever “retire” from the practice of law, even if the majority of my income comes from other sources in the future. Cheers to many decades of helping keep you, your family and business in tune with what you care about!

- the Singing Lawyer

My pilgrimage to Gibbs street this past week was long overdue. While it certainly was a blast from the past, I am especially grateful that my brain could still recall so many of those important memories. It’s amazing how many of my life lessons are attributed to experiences acquired & accumulated only within a few city blocks.

It felt great to reconnect with & take part in the celebration of a man that has impacted my life so positively—Prof. Steven Daigle.

However, I do regret not taking a good portrait of him this weekend so my glorious image of the Eastman Theater will have to do. We spent quite a bit of time together there back during our production of Manon (Spring 2011).

The following excerpt from Candide certainly embraces what he made happen as a director and mentor:

“Let dreamers dream…we’ll do the best we know…and make our garden grow.”

for the full excerpt from his retirement statement, the litany of productions he directed, and a couple of fun images from Notes. It’s crazy to think it has been over a decade since I’ve had to glue on a beard.

I remember he had a subtle way of pushing me to the edge, and essentially gave me a free license to go as far with my portrayal & embodiment of characters as I felt comfortable.

His supportive leash was quite long because I don’t remember very many times being reeled me back into the traditional fold. Most of the time when I thought I had gone too far he would say something like, “that was good.” Or “Do like that again.” His supportive counsel & advice often comes to mind, even to this day, when I’m crafting my singing commercials for or working on creative projects. While he is stepping away from the academic realm and seizing the opportunity to retire, I’m confident (based on what I heard and saw this weekend) that his impact on the transformation of Eastman’s Opera & Theater Department will continue for decades to come.

—the Singing Lawyer

LEW is NINETY-TWO–there are some people that sear such a positive impressions on your life, even though only in your life for a mere fraction of its entirety.

Lew is one of those members of the Rochester community I have truly missed.

I had the pleasure of singing with this man at a local synagogue for a special concert, then at their high holiday services. While I’d like to think my performance & work ethic alone gave me the opportunity to return year after year, but I believe Lew had some sort of pull with the powers that be.

He was generous & supportive enough to push me to audition for what I can only describe as the best church job in the city. Somehow I landed the position. Come to find out he was the musical anchor of that ensemble and we had great fun singing in harmony together. Sometimes I was the only tenor, him the only bass—balancing out a flock of women. It was always a pleasure to sing with & for him. He always had the most fascinating stories to tell during breaks.

Over the past decade I’ve occasionally thought of him, wondering how he’s doing. . . wondering if he’s still kicking it. Well, by golly he’s jolly as ever! As we were leaving I was thrilled to see him loitering in tails with his wife and daughters. Come to find out he was actually on stage singing with the .school chorus & philharmonia! When I’m 92, I can only hope to be like Lew.