Jesse.
About forty feet down off Hawaii, at night, with Robin, watching manta rays come up out of the dark to feed.
Nothing about it was spontaneous. A night dive is a certification, then a plan, then the discipline to hold to the plan in conditions where improvising is how people get hurt. The good part only exists because of the boring part. Very little separates that from a trial.
- You
- Family?
- Jesse
-
Married to Robin for twenty-eight years. Four children. Three sons who each earned Eagle Scout, which was their work and belongs to them, not to anybody standing nearby.
The one that gets carried into work is Philmont, in 2018. Eleven days and roughly 110 miles on foot with the oldest, everything needed for those days on both backs. Nothing about it was difficult on any single afternoon. It was difficult on day seven, which is the only lesson worth taking from it. Most cases are lost on day seven, in a stretch where nothing dramatic is happening and the temptation is to stop reading carefully.
- You
- What do you do with a weekend?
- Jesse
-
Two basements finished and two decks built, by hand, over a good many weekends.
What that is actually good for is not the carpentry. It is that a conversation with the person framing a wall runs on exactly the same rules as a conversation with a board of directors. Say what you know. Say what you are guessing at. Say what it will cost and what would change that number. People in both rooms can tell instantly when somebody is performing expertise rather than holding it, and jurors can tell faster than either.
- You
- There is a divinity degree in here. When did that happen?
- Jesse
-
In 2015, a Master of Divinity in Christian Education from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, finished while practicing full time. Alongside it: leading a middle school ministry, teaching a church small group, substitute teaching at his children's school, and five years on the board of Northland Christian School.
A middle school ministry is a demanding room. Young teenagers did not choose to be there, will not pretend to follow something they do not follow, and will show you the exact second you lose them. There is no better practice for standing in front of a room of strangers and explaining what a claim limitation is.
He gives his full attention to what he is engaged with, whether it be a case he is working on or his role as substitute teacher at his children's school.
- You
- Does any of this have anything to do with my case?
- Jesse
- Not directly, no. It tells you what somebody does when nobody is paying them to do it, which is usually the more reliable signal of the two.