A Simple Plan: How to Stay out of Trouble

“Never fly in any airplane unless I say it’s an airplane, and only then if I’m the one flying it.”

--My father, Capt. Robert P. Littlefield, Jr., Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, World War II, upon seeing an “ultra-light” experimental aircraft flying over our house

“And he’s long gone/When he’s next to me/And I realize/The blame is on me/’Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in”

--Taylor Swift, “Trouble”

Because I’m 43, I’m always amused to get emails from the local bar association inviting me to their Young Lawyers Division events. It would be more accurate to say that I’m a lawyer with a young legal career. Although I’ve only been in practice for five years, I’ve noticed a certain trend. I hope I can describe this trend, because I believe my theory can save all of us a lot of heartache.

In addition to my full-time “real” law job and my law practice that I do on the side, I have donated legal services to more than one organization. Plus, I’ve taken notice of my own mistakes and those of my family and friends. This small amount of legal and life experience leaves me with this observation: Most legal problems don’t start out as legal problems—they are life management problems, and I believe they result from not one lapse in judgment but from a series of smaller errors.

Airplane crash investigators will tell you that airplane crashes are never the result of one catastrophic mistake. Instead, they are a series of small mistakes that lead the pilot down the wrong path until it’s no longer possible to pull the airplane out of the death spiral.

For example, when John F. Kennedy, Jr., crashed his Piper Saratoga off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in 1999 (killing himself, his wife, and her sister), the official cause of the crash was “pilot error.” That’s true, but it’s more accurate to say that the crash result from this series of errors: 1) The three passengers were running late, and 2) Kennedy chose to take off after sunset anyway, even though he was 3) tired, 4) stressed and distracted, 5) inexperienced with night flying, and 6) was not instrument-rated and therefore should not have been flying so close to dusk. Further, it was 7) hazy, 8) he had recently injured his foot, and 9) he failed to file a flight plan and ask for advice, and 10) he had selected incorrect radio frequencies. It’s easy to see how these smaller errors set him up to make the one large fatal error: He became disoriented while flying over the featureless, darkening Atlantic Ocean, which in turn caused him to crash the airplane into the ocean as he prepared to land.

Fine, but unless we’re pilots, what has that got to do with any of us?

Most of the legal problems that I’ve untangled during my brief career have followed the same path. It’s never one large mistake; it’s a series of lapses in judgment, growing ever larger until the person (now known as "the Defendant") is in serious (and expensive) trouble. Sometimes, this path resembles a rabbit hole, and we find ourselves making bigger and dumber mistakes to try to correct our course while we tumble ever-faster toward our fate.

The smart way to avoid this tumble, of course, is to avoid making the very first mistake. I made a list of the “first mistakes” I’ve observed (and made in one or two cases here), and I welcome additions to this list:

How to stay out of trouble:

1) Don’t do hard drugs or prescription drugs, go easy on the weed, and limit yourself to one or two drinks per outing. Don’t drive even then. (Helpful side note: You may also want to put your phone away during late-night party time.)

2) Stay away from criminals. Similarly, if you notice that a person no longer speaks to his close family members, former military colleagues, past business associates, or church members, proceed with extreme caution. No, in fact, do not proceed at all. Stay away.

3) Don’t date, befriend, hire, or work for people whose values are markedly different than yours. Avoid people who blame their problems on other people. If anyone describes himself as "misunderstood," run!

4) Don’t marry someone whose financial philosophy varies from yours. If you marry them anyway, keep your finances as separate as possible and try not to have children with that person.

5) Don’t marry someone with children unless the children’s other parent is out of the picture permanently OR has a Swiss-like diplomatic relationship with the person you’re dating.

6) Never buy anything or invest in anything when the person who is selling it cold-called you (over the phone, via email, through direct mail, etc.) Likewise, don’t rent-to-own anything at all. In fact, if a real bank or similar institution won’t give you a loan for it, it’s a bad investment and you should not buy it.

7) It’s often a bad idea to go into business with another person, but if you must, make sure everything’s in writing and everyone has equal exposure to loss. Never agree to anything called a “handshake deal” or a “gentlemen’s agreement.”

8) Surround yourself with honest, blunt people who have your best interests at heart and will tell you when you’re about to do something stupid.

9) Do not enter into a contract of any kind without walking away, thinking about it, and probably talking to an attorney. If you find yourself explaining to other people (often in an excited, rapid tone of voice) why it’s such a good idea, this is a sure sign that you’re trying to convince yourself.

10) Let go of the idea that you’re special. I mean, we’re all special in a “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” way, but don’t let someone tell you that you can make a lot of money without hard work, sacrifice, and probably some education. I’m thinking here of multi-level marketing and similar scams.

11) Don’t enroll in any college that advertises on TV. Seriously, avoid any college that is not accredited or can be described as “College, Inc.” You’ll know these by their locations in charmless office parks near interstate exits. Your college should have at least one quad.

12) Don’t do anything “under the table.” This includes hiding money from the government in order to qualify for Medicaid or Food Stamps or to avoid paying taxes. These strategies rarely work and always end up costing more money than they save. Happily, the price of honesty is very small.

13) Get your affairs in order, and make sure your close family members have their affairs in order, too. This includes—but is not limited to—making a valid will. Avoid schemes that include transferring property or money into family members’ names unless you intend to make a gift outright.

14) If it matters to you, put it in writing.

Can anyone add to this list?

Adjust the facts, ma'am: Why are we constantly lying to ourselves?

Truth? I don’t know what that means. Just give me the facts.”

--My journalism professor, Conrad Fink

The problem with Internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy”

--Abraham Lincoln, 1864

Throughout the ages, all the great philosophers have asked, “What is truth?”

The past few weeks, the not-so-great philosophers (my friends and I) have been discussing truth, as well.

For some reason, we’ve found ourselves discussing the topic of honesty again and again. While this post is not directly related to a specific area of law, a lawyer’s life’s work is applying the facts of a case to the law. When you think about it, these fact-based judgments are a non-lawyer’s life’s work, too: Will this person be a good marriage partner? Is it safe for me to walk down this street? For which candidate should I vote? Am I saving enough for retirement? Etc.

To do this life’s work, then, and to make the best judgments, we need to start by finding as many facts as we reasonably can. I’ve been surprised by the repeated failures of myself and others to do just that. We’ve got access to more information than any other people in history, and we’re still ingesting a fact-free diet, both personally and globally. Why?

Liar, liar, pants… are really tight

In one of my recent discussions about honesty, I confessed to my closest friend that I have been dishonest for much of my life and plan to work hard to improve this personality flaw. While I am quite honest in the traditional way (I give back the change when the cashier gives me too much, report all income on my taxes, etc.), I tend to lie to myself in two key ways (and, as Shakespeare could tell you, it means I’m not being honest with others):

1) I have befriended and even dated people who did not share my values. I told myself that I was being accepting and forgiving, when in fact I was making an unholy bargain—I’ll turn a blind eye to your immoral or just plain mean behaviors that don’t square with my values of hard work and integrity, and you will reward me by loving me. (Yes, I’m aware of how pathetic this sounds and I’m uncomfortable writing it in a blog that is intertwined with my professional life, but… you know, honesty....) Predictably, I am devastated later when they turn their bad behavior on me, thereby failing to hold up their end of the flimsy bargain. Then, I’m angry and that “you knew I was a rattlesnake when you picked me up” fable is ringing in my head—but who was the more dishonest person here? 2) I tell myself that I’m doing everything I can to solve a problem (for example: running every day and eating right—ignoring the many days I didn’t run and the chocolate bar I just ate) and then—yep!—being frustrated when I discover that my jeans have magically become jeggings while folded up in my drawer overnight.

While these examples sound humorous, this self-deception has serious consequences and erodes my ability to control my own life and to take care of myself.

Truth is beauty?

In another honesty-related discussion, I was wondering with another friend (who is a professional actor) what makes a good performance. He noted that a good “performance” is not a performance at all. While the actor has never been in that character’s precise situation, he or she has felt those precise emotions, and the actor must convey that to the audience. It’s not “acting”—it’s honest communication. I added that I had read an article in which a philosopher (OK, so it was a post by a self-help guru on Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP blog) argued that bad acting performances are so painful to watch because they are so clearly untrue. In other words, humans are so hungry for truth that they instinctively reject anything that is false.

This is a wonderful comment on human nature, but I wonder if THIS can be true. If we humans desire truth so much, how do you explain, for example, the nonsense that people post on Facebook? How come well-educated, reasonable people are unable to spot an obvious falsehood and even defend it when someone else refutes it using several credible, fact-based sources?

Bad news

I think we’re being fooled by Internet sources that are not as trustworthy as they appear to be.

Just twenty years ago, it took a lot of time and money to print a newspaper or to produce and air a television show.

Now, one need only have an available internet connection. It’s cheap and easy to write a blog or to post a video to YouTube. Even though we know it’s just that easy, we still trust these homemade efforts as if they were the fact-checked and edited newspapers and magazines of the past.

Further, the quality of the content of newspapers, magazines, and newscasts used to be guarded by a gatekeeper—an editor or producer—who ideally ensured that the limited space or airtime was used for its highest good. Now, countless bloggers can write whatever they want and no one questions it. Then, these blog posts are picked up by legitimate-looking aggregator sites such as salon.com, slate.com, or huffingtonpost.com, and the “articles” start to look like news.

Forget the gatekeeper: The aggregator sites appear to be loosely edited if they’re edited at all. Not only is no one fact-checking the “articles”—no one is separating the wheat from the chaff. After all, now there’s unlimited space and therefore no limit to how many pieces can be published. We get everyone’s report on everything—some fact-based and some not, some based on credible sources and some not—and it all looks equally legitimate and relevant. (I mean, how many times can you deconstruct an episode of “Mad Men” or “Girls”?)

I recently became painfully aware of this process when I was arguing with two high school friends about whether a report of an African-American family (25 people in all) being refused service due to their race at a Wild Wings Café in North Charleston, S.C., was true. (I have little doubt that the party was asked to leave. I am arguing that it is almost certainly not as simple as: “We don’t like black people! Don’t serve them!” The restaurant is a chain restaurant in a populated, diverse community, and it apparently serves and employs people of all races on a daily basis without incident. This is not a 1960s Woolworth’s lunch counter, so I am highly skeptical of a claim of such blatant racism. Eventually, Wild Wings Café placed its manager on administrative leave and launched an investigation. They apologized to the party, asked them to come in and meet with management so they could apologize in person and discuss the incident, and offered a free meal to all 25 people.)

The first report of the incident came from one of the family’s members’ Facebook post. Someone blogged about it, and this was parroted by other blogs until it appeared on huffingtonpost.com. It then appeared in a London tabloid, in USA Today, and on a local TV news station. Incredibly, no one interviewed the man himself, any other member of the dining party, or any other restaurant patrons or staff. It was all single-source and unverified, and still they ran with it.

One of my two “opponents” in the debate said, “Well, we were right. It looks like it happened just as we thought!” When I asked how he knew this, I was directed to “all of the news reports”—blog after blog, simply reposting the original post word-for-word (or re-stating it with no new reporting and no new information), no questions asked.

Why are we so willing to believe such an awful tale before we know it’s true? Racism is a serious accusation, and now, because we’ve published this story far and wide, we’ve accused the wait staff and the restaurant manager of a terrible thing, and we’ve jeopardized their jobs. Plus, we’ve told African-Americans they still can’t eat at certain restaurants in the South, further damaging race relations in this country—all based on a story with very little basis in fact.

Why are we willing to take such a specious tale and accept it as fact? What makes the implausible plausible to us?

Confirmation bias

We don’t gather facts and then form our opinions based on them. Instead, we form our opinions, and then we select facts to support our beliefs. We give more weight to facts that support our beliefs and downplay those that don’t. This cherry-picking effort is called “confirmation bias.”

If we can’t accept that we’ve got an incurable disease, we’re likely to downplay the scientific opinions of trusted doctors and go to Mexico for nonsensical oxygen therapy. If we don’t support the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), those outlandish Facebook memes start to appear reasonable to us. We’ll start “sharing” preposterous stories that the federal government can now implant every man, woman, and child with electronic tracking chips or that death panels will now refuse treatment to costly senior citizens.

The harm here is clear. On a personal level, we waste money, endanger our health, stay in bad relationships, etc. With politics, we don’t debate the real strengths and weaknesses of our political candidates and their proposed legislation, instead squabbling about whether our new mandatory RFID chips will make it easier for us to be rounded up into FEMA camps. We miss every opportunity to effect real change.

What’s the answer?

Beats me! It seems we’ve been lying to ourselves and others since the dawn of humanity, so it looks like dishonesty is here to stay. As for me, I’ve joined a running club for accountability and I’m going to start speaking up when I’m not comfortable with someone else’s deception. At least I can be honest with myself, and then I can fit into my jeans.