Hi! I'm Bob from Brussels!
The 900 partners in my law firm are gathering as we speak in Orlando for our bi-annual Global Partners Conference. Careful readers will recall that the last time we did this was on a Royal Caribbean boat in Barcelona.
These events are always stunning because DLA Piper is such a bizarre kind of law firm. The Conference Karma begins at the airport. DLA Piper partners stream in observable numbers towards the departure gate for whatever flight in whichever airport is bound for wherever our global conference is. I started to see colleagues the moment I stepped into the terminal at Dulles -- everyone from the Baltimore, DC and Reston offices headed for the 12:30 flight to Orlando.
When we landed in Orlando we were met by the first in what would be a series of handlers. Handler a takes you from gate to baggage claim, then another handler takes you from baggage claim to a waiting area, then a third handler takes you from waiting area to the DLA Piper ground transportation vehicle. Then we arrive at the resort and a fourth handler directs us to registration, and just inside the door of the resort, a beefy suntanned blonde man in a lifeguard outfit stands around giving us candy as we go by.
Then everyone walks around for the entire conference with name tags, which are necessary considering we have 900 partners. In Barcelona the name tags hung a little, uh, low, shall we say. We are doing a little better here -- you no longer have to peer at your partners nether regions to figure out who they are. Instead, we are all peering at each other's chests. The men have declared this a vast improvement.
I spent the first night surrounded by Austrians. One of them, Sacha (nickname for Alexander) is someone who was in law school with me at Duke. He introduced me to his other Austrian colleagues and we all stood out in the beautiful Florida breeze under palm trees around the pool. They taught me what Austrians like to do for fun (nothing much, it seems, other than ski) and I taught them about the rules for foxhunting in America. A man from the Dubai office wandered into the conversation at one point, as well as a colleague in our Amsterdam office, Niels. I had spoken to Niels several times on the phone because we have a mutual client. But it was only upon meeting him that I realized that I went to law school with him as well. Niels? But Niels, you never told me you are the Niels that I know? You are THAT Niels? He said, "well, you never told me you were Kim Egan." Of course I'm Kim Egan. My law school was tiny and here were three of us from the same class who practice in three different countries reuniting under Florida palm trees because through accidents of fate we have all ended up at the same company. Huge firm; small world.
I spent most of the afternoon today with all my friends from Hong Kong. Gigi is here, of course, as well as Justin who I met at that amazing dinner at the China Club and Patti who I met there as well who was the one teaching me how to eat cashew nuts with slippery, silver chopsticks. Silver chopsticks are much more s
lippery than wooden ones.
Then tonight at dinner I sat next to Paul from Copenhagen and Bob from Brussels and Caroline from London. Next to Paul was a man from Norway who's name I didn't catch (his name tag was obscured). Paul from Copenhagen and the Norwegian argued bitterly about whether it had been a good idea for Denmark to give up control of Norway 200 hundred years ago. Paul said, "well, as your former colonial master, I think you should listen to me!" And the Norwegian spat venom at Paul about how Denmark could never really deal with Norway because Norway has more hills than Denmark and the Danes are "inexperienced with fjords." Then they argued about who was in the best position to develop Greenland. I point out demurely that no-one seemed to really have a plan for developing Greenland anyway, so wasn't it rather academic? They both looked at me and said, "Do you not consider the amazing things that can be done with salmon?"
Etc.
Meanwhile, Jim from London was trying desperately to introduce Caroline from London to Max from Brussels. He kept running back and forth between the two of them trying to broker a meeting that he was under the impression someone had asked him to do. Finally Caroline said, "okay fine -- now why do I need to meet Max again?" Jim was dumbfounded. "Why? I have no idea -- you asked me to introduce you, didn't you?" Caroline says no. I ask from my seat whether Max is cute, because if so, I would go as Caroline's emissary. Jim said that Max was not cute but that he was huge. "Huge?" Caroline and I ask. "Yes! A monster of a man!" Caroline concluded she did not really want to meet Max which was unfortunate because Jim had spent so much energy on the project during the evening.
The biggest topic among the women so far has been clothes, of course. "Oh, I LOVE your dress! Is that turquoise Pucci? Orange flats are a GENIUS idea for Orlando! You look amazing!" Etc. Women lawyers so rarely get to wear "dressy resort" and it turns out that virtually every last one of us had purchased special "dressy resort" just for this event. In fact, most emails sent and received by blackberry during this conference say one of two things: 1) where are you? and 2) should I wear the cream DVF or the blue denim sheath (and variations thereof). The best dressed women here so far happen to be all my closest friends. Lisa Haile from San Diego, Gigi from Hong Kong, Jayne Risk from Philly, Tina Martini from Chicago, and Caroline Stockwell from London (see above re Max). We all sat together during a break out session today and agreed that we looked absolutely smashing! (For those of you who care, Lisa was in the turquoise Pucci, I was in white skinny pants and a white top with big thick belt with the orange flats, Tina was in a mesmerizing little dress, Gigi was the height of chic in her Hong Kong clothes, Jayne was in a floating gauzy peach and white number, and Caroline was in a teal blue get-up that matched her teal-blue glasses almost perfectly).
The most exciting thing that happened to us here in the Florida flats today was that we saw the space shuttle take off. It's very weird to see that thing cruising through the sky. Also, some sort of enormous crane flew over us at dinner tonight -- we were eating out on the golf course and this appeared to annoy the fauna. I thought it was strange that the hotel set up tables for 900 people on the golf course -- don't resorts usually try to keep women in high heels OFF of things like golf courses?
Lastly, I am reminded of how beautiful Florida can be. Our resort has a fabulously lush tropical garden with jacarandas, frangipani, and jasmine plants. There are fountains and gurgling streams everywhere. I can see out my room window across the golf course to a dense, impenetrable forest of swamps and moss and alligators. I learned that there are more alligators than people in Florida (which I learned from Sacha from Vienna, oddly). The land here, if you can call it land with all the swamps, is flat as a pancake and all I can see is green swampy forest meeting beautiful blue, cloudless sky.
These events are always stunning because DLA Piper is such a bizarre kind of law firm. The Conference Karma begins at the airport. DLA Piper partners stream in observable numbers towards the departure gate for whatever flight in whichever airport is bound for wherever our global conference is. I started to see colleagues the moment I stepped into the terminal at Dulles -- everyone from the Baltimore, DC and Reston offices headed for the 12:30 flight to Orlando.
When we landed in Orlando we were met by the first in what would be a series of handlers. Handler a takes you from gate to baggage claim, then another handler takes you from baggage claim to a waiting area, then a third handler takes you from waiting area to the DLA Piper ground transportation vehicle. Then we arrive at the resort and a fourth handler directs us to registration, and just inside the door of the resort, a beefy suntanned blonde man in a lifeguard outfit stands around giving us candy as we go by.
Then everyone walks around for the entire conference with name tags, which are necessary considering we have 900 partners. In Barcelona the name tags hung a little, uh, low, shall we say. We are doing a little better here -- you no longer have to peer at your partners nether regions to figure out who they are. Instead, we are all peering at each other's chests. The men have declared this a vast improvement.
I spent the first night surrounded by Austrians. One of them, Sacha (nickname for Alexander) is someone who was in law school with me at Duke. He introduced me to his other Austrian colleagues and we all stood out in the beautiful Florida breeze under palm trees around the pool. They taught me what Austrians like to do for fun (nothing much, it seems, other than ski) and I taught them about the rules for foxhunting in America. A man from the Dubai office wandered into the conversation at one point, as well as a colleague in our Amsterdam office, Niels. I had spoken to Niels several times on the phone because we have a mutual client. But it was only upon meeting him that I realized that I went to law school with him as well. Niels? But Niels, you never told me you are the Niels that I know? You are THAT Niels? He said, "well, you never told me you were Kim Egan." Of course I'm Kim Egan. My law school was tiny and here were three of us from the same class who practice in three different countries reuniting under Florida palm trees because through accidents of fate we have all ended up at the same company. Huge firm; small world.
I spent most of the afternoon today with all my friends from Hong Kong. Gigi is here, of course, as well as Justin who I met at that amazing dinner at the China Club and Patti who I met there as well who was the one teaching me how to eat cashew nuts with slippery, silver chopsticks. Silver chopsticks are much more s
lippery than wooden ones.Then tonight at dinner I sat next to Paul from Copenhagen and Bob from Brussels and Caroline from London. Next to Paul was a man from Norway who's name I didn't catch (his name tag was obscured). Paul from Copenhagen and the Norwegian argued bitterly about whether it had been a good idea for Denmark to give up control of Norway 200 hundred years ago. Paul said, "well, as your former colonial master, I think you should listen to me!" And the Norwegian spat venom at Paul about how Denmark could never really deal with Norway because Norway has more hills than Denmark and the Danes are "inexperienced with fjords." Then they argued about who was in the best position to develop Greenland. I point out demurely that no-one seemed to really have a plan for developing Greenland anyway, so wasn't it rather academic? They both looked at me and said, "Do you not consider the amazing things that can be done with salmon?"
Etc.
Meanwhile, Jim from London was trying desperately to introduce Caroline from London to Max from Brussels. He kept running back and forth between the two of them trying to broker a meeting that he was under the impression someone had asked him to do. Finally Caroline said, "okay fine -- now why do I need to meet Max again?" Jim was dumbfounded. "Why? I have no idea -- you asked me to introduce you, didn't you?" Caroline says no. I ask from my seat whether Max is cute, because if so, I would go as Caroline's emissary. Jim said that Max was not cute but that he was huge. "Huge?" Caroline and I ask. "Yes! A monster of a man!" Caroline concluded she did not really want to meet Max which was unfortunate because Jim had spent so much energy on the project during the evening.
The biggest topic among the women so far has been clothes, of course. "Oh, I LOVE your dress! Is that turquoise Pucci? Orange flats are a GENIUS idea for Orlando! You look amazing!" Etc. Women lawyers so rarely get to wear "dressy resort" and it turns out that virtually every last one of us had purchased special "dressy resort" just for this event. In fact, most emails sent and received by blackberry during this conference say one of two things: 1) where are you? and 2) should I wear the cream DVF or the blue denim sheath (and variations thereof). The best dressed women here so far happen to be all my closest friends. Lisa Haile from San Diego, Gigi from Hong Kong, Jayne Risk from Philly, Tina Martini from Chicago, and Caroline Stockwell from London (see above re Max). We all sat together during a break out session today and agreed that we looked absolutely smashing! (For those of you who care, Lisa was in the turquoise Pucci, I was in white skinny pants and a white top with big thick belt with the orange flats, Tina was in a mesmerizing little dress, Gigi was the height of chic in her Hong Kong clothes, Jayne was in a floating gauzy peach and white number, and Caroline was in a teal blue get-up that matched her teal-blue glasses almost perfectly).
The most exciting thing that happened to us here in the Florida flats today was that we saw the space shuttle take off. It's very weird to see that thing cruising through the sky. Also, some sort of enormous crane flew over us at dinner tonight -- we were eating out on the golf course and this appeared to annoy the fauna. I thought it was strange that the hotel set up tables for 900 people on the golf course -- don't resorts usually try to keep women in high heels OFF of things like golf courses?
Lastly, I am reminded of how beautiful Florida can be. Our resort has a fabulously lush tropical garden with jacarandas, frangipani, and jasmine plants. There are fountains and gurgling streams everywhere. I can see out my room window across the golf course to a dense, impenetrable forest of swamps and moss and alligators. I learned that there are more alligators than people in Florida (which I learned from Sacha from Vienna, oddly). The land here, if you can call it land with all the swamps, is flat as a pancake and all I can see is green swampy forest meeting beautiful blue, cloudless sky.
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