Bring Me All Of Your Dreams You Dreamer: Languidly, the lion roams the jungle of his environment looking for prey. Awakened from his somnolence, hunger motivates his restlessness. To satisfy this basic need, he only wants to attack prey that he knows and feels that he can subdue, after all, he does not want to work but so hard.

The lion is most feared when he or she is hungry. Lions seldom attack elephants knowing that the outcome is uncertain for that can be life threatening and they might have to work too hard for the kill. But when in pursuit of prey bigger and larger than itself it has been known to win by appraising the most vulnerable weakness, in his prey’s defenses, and going for the jugular vein, attacking it in the first blow, the first thrust, as quickly as the fight will allow. Stealth is a key component of victory.

Wolves hunt in packs, knowing that there is strength in numbers, they plan their attacks. The wolf is a keen observer and yet at times can seem vulnerable even harmless enough to touch without feeling threatened, yet his humble and at times meek style is not to be trusted nor relied upon. Wolves have been known to wonder off on their own, lonely, disconsolate, pensive, melancholy, hence the cry of the lone wolf. Passive, at times, but dangerous to the touch, the wolf is a survivor.

The wolverine is a tenacious fighter and a ferocious carnivore, built to endure the harsh winters of its habitat, with few natural enemies, if any. The wolverine has been known to kill animals twice its size, with extraordinary strength disguised by its small size. Once in its gaze with the mindset to attack, you had better be able to out run this animal or confident that in the end, through you will be beaten and bloodied, that you can win the fight once begun.

Each of these meat eating mammals share common traits with the veteran practicing attorney be he or she on the civil side or the criminal side of the bar; Stealth, cunning, strong, ferocious, tenacious and at time aggressive. Lawyers are civil warriors, members of the VDW, veterans of domestic wars. I dreamed of becoming a lawyer. I didn’t get the idea in my head by seeing real lawyers do their thing during my youth in Charlottesville, Virginia for I did not know nor did I see any lawyers black or white. There were no black lawyers in Charlottesville during my entire educational experience there. Richmond had Black Lawyers but I was too young to even know that lawyers existed.

My aspiration to become a lawyer came from T.V., but not Perry Mason, a program that had little or no effect on me. No, it was a British movie that portrayed the lawyer as an aristocrat that excited my imagination. Years later I would lament that the closest thing to freedom a black man can attain is to be a lawyer and to acquire wealth. That was and is my view. Regardless of the times it seems that black lawyers of a certain ilk feel the same.

By now I had an exalted view of myself, and becoming a lawyer fit my self-image—what I expected of and from myself. But I had no idea what I had to do to make that dream a reality. Which of the characteristics of the four mammals described above were in my personality?, all of them would be required at one time or another over a thirty plus year career in private practice but, no one acts the same all the same, I surely do not. Perhaps the wolf in combination with the wolverine best epitomized my personality as a professional.