Everybody's in it for their own gain, you can't please them all.

Trying to juggle a group of people with shared yet slightly competing interests in putting together a deal is one of the joys of the lawyerly life.

Fact: These people need to settle this case. Fact: These people know that they need to settle this case. Fact: These people want those people to pay slightly more into the pot of money to go to the other side. Fact: Those people want these people to pay slightly more money into the pot. Fact: I'm losing track of the point I am trying to make. Fact: I am out of sweet vermouth, and so had some Bushmills neat instead of a Knob Creek Manhattan while watching the Mets game tonight.

Drinking Irish whiskey tends to put me into a contemplative and wistful mood. I thought about my Uncle Mike, who taught me that Irish whiskey is made for sipping while pondering life. So I sipped and I pondered life. I sipped some more. Sadly, nothing came to mind as to how to get the knuckleheads in the case to agree to a reasonable number. So, like David Geffen when he was straight and dating Joni Mitchell, if I had my way I'd just walk through these doors and wander down the Champs-Élysées. (Fact: I need to go to Paris.)