I WANT TO BELIEVE — A CRY FROM OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

And I thought all the decent chaps had left the building...


5. MAZYAR HEDAYAT, WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS AND TECHNOLOGY IS OUR FRIEND

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I WANT TO BELIEVE — A CRY FROM OUT OF THE WILDERNESS

Brothers and sisters. I am one of you. I have broken bread with lawyers, clerks, paralegals, court reporters, sheriffs, politicians, and judges. I have won my share of cases and lost my share (probably more than my share, but who's counting?). But this year was a special time for me. It was the year I turned 40. Please, no applause. And hold your jeers until the end of our program. This is serious. On this momentous occasion I found that my routine had varied not a bit. That I was very much the same as I had been before my 40th year, and still in the middle of many things (c

ases, client disputes, you name it).

So in the midst of all this activity I did what any normal person would do. I cloistered myself away to think about our industry. Our calling. Our collective responsibility. It was either that or face reality ... and so it was that after much soul searching and self-actualization-style conferences in various exotic locales followed by cocktails and sashimi with sesame-wasabi puree on pumpkin-seed whole grain noodles over organic rice balls (but I digress), it's all come down to this: I want to believe.

I want to believe technology can save the profession from becoming an anachronism.

I want to believe we can embrace what's new, novel, and good for clients and the public.

I want to believe that the long tail reaches all the way to the courthouse.

I want to believe that we are not afraid.

I want to believe that I want to believe.

Why? Because the alternative is not acceptable. Because if we lawyers, lawmakers, judges, paralegals, and clerks cannot (or will not) meet the public half-way by using technology to share what we know then society has been right all along in thinking that we are a bunch of information-hording, do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do, profiteering impediments to progress.

Well I'm not going out like that. Are you?

I didn't defy my parents, thumb my nose at the odds, put myself through law school working full time at a firm where I was considered lower than dirt, stagger in exhausted to take my exams, compete against a class full of over-fed-financed-by-mommy-and-daddy-grade-grubbers, graduate to a stagnant job market, pass the bar, and labor under a mountain of debt that makes Argentina look economically solvent, to be humiliated now that I am a lawyer. In case anyone cares, while I was struggling to keep my head above water the med students across campus were busy congratulating themselves with their all-night parties and drinking games ("really baby I can prescribe anything you want, I'm a doctor") because they're the good guys.

So let me throw down this gauntlet right now. If you think you've got the stones, then let's make a difference. Let's use technology to create a friction-free legal marketplace that will blow away the establishment that wants to keep law as its little secret instead of society's tool for better living, and let's remind ourselves one more time that we ... are ... the ... good ... guys. Because we are.

Well that's my rant. Thank you for playing along at home. For those of you inclined to take up the challenge my e-mail address is mmhedayat@hotmail.com and I'm not afraid of a little criticism.

Mazyar M. Hedayat, Esq.
M. HEDAYAT & ASSOCIATES, P.C.
425 Quadrangle Drive, Ste. 101
Bolingbrook, Illinois 60440
PH (630) 378-2200
FX (630) 578-2878
mmhedayat1@gmail.com
www.mha-law.com