As has been this editor’s tradition in recent years, I managed to switch off my outlook over the last few days of the year and spend the winter holidays right: on a sunny, warm spot by the beach, getting my vitamin D fix. I paid my dues when I returned to cold Budapest, though, as the first signs of a flu appeared on my first evening back.
The good news, as I woke up the next morning, back and ready to kick off 2020 in style, was that I didn’t have the flu anymore. The bad news was that it had evolved into the plague.
So there I am, tucked in blanket and lying on my sofa at home, my warm, fluffy foot-huggers on, wearing a thick scarf around my neck to warm up my throat, alternating between chugging bucket-sized mugs of hot tea to try to breathe and hot coffee to stay semi-lucid, and address incoming emails – a few from staff writers, more from back office colleagues trying to address clients’ needs, and a flood of questions from panicky marketeers who had just received our reminder that our first deals submissions’ deadline was a week away – all while trying to wrap up the issue of the magazine now in your hands.
I gave up and decided I could no longer work after realizing that I’d been staring at the same email for over 30 minutes. I took a time out, closed my laptop, and stared at the ceiling, reflecting on 2019. Here’s my CEELM highlights for the year:
The Best Pro Tip
We learned of a marketeer who decided she would no longer rely on partners to inform her of closed deals so she could prepare her summaries of them, because it was always the last item on those partners’ to-do lists, so she made an arrangement with the receptionist to notify her whenever either of the conference rooms were booked for a closing.
The Best Presentation
Aaron Muhly, who took the graveyard shift and made one of the final presentations at this year’s CEELM Hungary GC Summit, made the whole room laugh when pointing out some of the common mistakes lawyers make in their business communications. We won’t even try to replicate his anecdotes here, but we’re happy we managed to corrupt him into a regular column for our magazine: “The Confident Counsel.”
The Most Random Requests
A close tie between a named partner writing to us after we reported on the dissolution of his firm claiming that the simple use of his name in the story – again, this is a named partner in the firm – constituted “a serious breach of personal data”; and a marketeer from a law firm writing to us to ask if we could generate a report for them showing how many deals they had worked on throughout the year.
The Most CEELM Fun
The annual bowling challenge for charity in Budapest was, as always, a blast. The third competition’s proceeds went to the Bator Tabor Foundation, which organizes special summer camps for cancer-afflicted and chronically ill children, making it a valuable evening – but I have to admit that seeing lawyers from 14 different Hungarian law firms battling out on the lanes with, ahem, significant amount of beer floating around, had its own special appeal.
Personal Highlights
Avengers Endgame was a blast and Harley – a comic-book-inspired-named rescue dog – came into my life. Not legal- or CEELM-related in any way at all – I’m just a nerd at heart and these had to make the list.
This Article was originally published in Issue 6.12 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
