My office has a conference room and we�re very proud of it. It took us years to get a small conference room. Before that, we crowded around a small desk in a small kitchen area whenever we had meetings or held practices for oral arguments. Now we sit around a gray table that looks something like your kitchen table although the snacks are strictly bring-your-own. It was brought in as pieces and braced together. We sit around that table in molded plastic chairs and wax poetic about the ability to close the door. Yes, it�s true that the venting causes our voices to carry into the director�s office but at least we know that. But yesterday I got a taste of how the other half lives.

Yesterday I sat in on an oral argument practice panel for an attorney who works for a very hoidy-toidy law firm in town. She has taken on a criminal case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court pro bono. In other words, she volunteers her time and resources and, in return, she gets experience of her own without having to let a partner get the glory. She�s a nice person and I was glad to help her out.

But the locale was amazing. We were up above the penthouse floor. The building, like mine, is close to the river but at that height you see clear to the deep blue of Lake Michigan. The lake shimmered below. Snacks were set out: brownies, cookies, fruit with delicate little napkins.

And the mock courtroom!!! Many of the courtrooms in town are not as well appointed as this mock courtroom. Polished wood was everywhere. Tables converted into desks with shelves. Podiums appeared and disappeared. There were more spectator seats than many courtrooms in this state. Sitting up at the front of the room, playing a judge, I almost felt like one. It was a far cry from the new attorneys standing at one end of a gray table and several more experienced ones sitting at the other end of it as they play judge.

But I know the cost of such rooms. I know the personal and career costs of such rooms. I spent a summer working at such a firm. In those days, promising young law students were courted in the summers with tickets, with attention, and with money. I kept my eyes open. I looked at how the associates themselves lived. They had no lives. They had no autonomy. I looked and I turned my back. I opted for less money and more control over my destiny�and I haven�t regretted it for a moment.

So I�ll dress up and I�ll enjoy the castle for a day and then I�ll return to my plain little office with my plain little conference table where the snacks are plain but the cases are interesting, complex�and all mine.

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