Category: News Feeds

For most folks, the NYC Marathon is a grueling endeavor that takes up their entire focus during the final lead up. For Quinn Emanuel’s Luke Nikas, it’s just a weekend project he’ll have to get to after heading to trial the rest of this week.

This is an appropriate juncture for you to feel shamed over your workout regimen.

Nikas started running in high school — maintaining the right weight class made running the best workout strategy. But, as the old joke goes, “running” and “running a marathon” are about as similar as shooting a bullet and throwing it. For Nikas, getting into the hardcore running world came only a couple of years ago when he lost his uncle to pancreatic cancer. That brought him to Project Purple and back into running. After getting back into it for a good cause, Nikas realized he could really make a go at this pastime.

His Project Purple running got him into the marathon world and a whole new level of training. Crack of dawn — or earlier — loops around the park racking up the miles and running races from 10Ks to half marathons throughout the year. Unfortunately it also brought him a pain in his shin that he was a bit too stubborn to address. “The doctor told me I had a shin splint that turned into a stress fracture and then turned into a fracture,” Nikas said. Medical orders forced him off of running for two months.

Undeterred, he bought a Peloton and kept swimming — workout methods that minimized stress on his shin — and managed to make the marathon and excel. Last year, he finished in 3 hours and 12 minutes. That’s about a 7:15 mile pace and good enough to finish 2,377 in the field of 52,706.

His reliance on swimming and biking during his recovery also opened up another opportunity to make all the rest of us look bad expand his competitive athletic career. “I thought, if I could do that well in the marathon having only had swimming and biking to train…” Oh no, I know where this is going. Yes, Nikas has entered an Ironman competition next year to show off his swimming and biking too.

Why not add Ninja Warrior to it, while you’re at it?

Good luck to Nikas in this weekend’s big event. The rest of the Quinn partnership is also rooting Nikas on and hoping he can improve on his already impressive time.

Mostly because all this time is unbillable.

Earlier: Quinn Emanuel Filed A Complaint To Save An Artist’s Life… Sadly, It Came Too Late

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

The right to use assisted reproductive technology to conceive a child is severely limited in much of the world, including most of Europe and Asia. But despite the fact that I write about such restrictions on a weekly basis, I was shocked to read Anna Louie Sussman’s recent New Yorker piece. Sussman details just how bad the situation in Poland has become.

Sussman describes the changes in the country relating to in vitro fertilization (IVF) over the last few years, including its complex political and religious underpinnings, and the stories of a number of women negatively impacted by the new laws. Prior to 2015, there were no laws in Poland regulating IVF. As a result, fertility clinics were flourishing. In addition to married couples struggling with infertility, single women were utilizing fertility services, as well as donor sperm, to become parents.

Then, on November 1, 2015, the situation changed drastically. A new law went into effect prohibiting medical professionals from forming embryos with any patient not in a heterosexual married or cohabiting relationship, or from transferring already-formed embryos to a woman without the consent of a man agreeing to assume paternity of any resulting child. Talk about paternalistic control of women! It also left potential single parents out in the cold.

Forced “Donation”

The new law did not stop at requiring consent of a man for a woman to use IVF to conceive. It went further. Existing embryos were prohibited from being destroyed. So single women who had formed embryos before the new law went into place were not permitted to use them for their own hoped-for family. Instead, they were required to donate their embryos to a heterosexual couple for that couple’s family. Any embryo that was not willingly donated to such a qualifying couple, would be force-“donated” (aka transferred to such a couple without consent) 20 years after the law went into effect!

A Grim Situation for “Non-Traditional” Families

I spoke with Warsaw-based Polish attorney Anna Mazurczak. Mazurczak specializes in anti-discrimination law, including the numerous family-building legal issues for hopeful parents. Mazurczak said that the current legal situation not only discriminates against single women, but heavily discriminates against the LGBTQ community. For single men and same-sex male couples, surrogacy is necessary to have a genetically related child. While there are no surrogacy laws on the books in Poland, surrogacy is still strongly disfavored throughout Europe, and Poland is no exception. Most individuals or couples turning to surrogacy must go to neighboring Ukraine, or places like the United States. But even without a legal prohibition, when families return to Poland with their child, the government has resisted recognizing the child’s Polish citizenship if the presenting parents are not a man and a woman together.

The legal situation for such families has been precarious. Mazurczak described how in two separate cases last year, the Polish Administrative Supreme Court (there are two separate Supreme Courts in Poland) found that it was the right of the child to have Polish citizenship, and required such recognition. Yay! However, despite these positive rulings, the Ministry of Interior has since continued to refuse to confirm citizenship for several children born via surrogacy abroad.

After the 2015 law took effect, the Commissioner for Human Rights Office in Poland (the Ombudsman) brought a case before a Constitutional Tribunal, arguing against that the constitutionally problematic effect of the law on single women — women who had been in progress with their fertility treatment and were now unable to use the embryos created in that process. While the Ombudsman argued that these women had a right to rely on the previous state of the law permitting such action, the Tribunal, in a split decision in 2018, determined to discontinue the hearings, finding that because there was no previous law on the subject, the lack of law could not have been relied on, and such a dispute was outside its role of interpreting existing law. Before discontinuing the hearings, the Tribunal frustratingly opined on the right of a child to have a mother and a father, outweighing a single woman’s right to procreate or have control of her genetically related embryos.

Mazurczak does not see the situation improving any time soon. This past year, there was a proposed law to further restrict IVF to only married couples, not just cohabiting ones. And, of course, in Poland, a married couple must be a married heterosexual couple. The country does not recognize same-sex marriage or even civil unions.

Mazurczak sees the best hope for equality to come through the courts, and hopes that through litigation certain key issues on equality and family building will reach the European Court of Human Rights. Mazurczak also believes that the current situation in Poland is especially ripe for a single woman with embryos to challenge the 2015 law before the European Court of Human Rights.

The situation in Poland reminds those of us in countries like the United States to be thankful for the freedom we enjoy and the recognition that healthy, loving families and parents come in many forms — including single parents and same-sex couples. As for Polish intended parents, at least they can maintain some hope knowing there are attorneys like Mazurczak fighting for their rights.

Ellen Trachman is the Managing Attorney of Trachman Law Center, LLC, a Denver-based law firm specializing in assisted reproductive technology law, and co-host of the podcast I Want To Put A Baby In You. You can reach her at babies@abovethelaw.com.

Imagine having your home invaded by an armed criminal, escaping with your nine-year-old child, having the police show up to apprehend the criminal, watching for 19 hours as the police systematically destroy your home, and having the state deny you just compensation for your troubles afterwards.

If doesn’t sound like something covered under the Fifth Amendment’s “Takings” clause, then the Fifth Amendment needs to be amended.

Maybe one day it will be, but for right now Colorado man Leo Lech is out of luck. The Tenth Circuit ruled that the police action which destroyed his home is not a Taking, and thus he’s not entitled to any remedy from the city or state. The Washington Post has the story:

The suspect, Robert Jonathan Seacat, had stolen a shirt and a couple of belts from a Walmart in neighboring Aurora, Colo., and then fled in a Lexus, according to a police affidavit. A police officer pursued him in a high-speed chase until Seacat parked his car near a light rail station, hopped a nearby fence leading to the interstate, and then crossed five lanes of traffic on foot. He climbed the fence on the other side — and then, shortly thereafter, came upon the Lech residence.

A 9-year-old boy, John Lech’s girlfriend’s son, was home alone at the time, waiting for his mom to return from the grocery store, Lech said. He told police he was watching YouTube videos in his room when he heard the alarm trip, according to the affidavit. He emerged to find a man walking up the stairs, holding a gun. “He said, ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to get away,’ ” Lech said. Minutes later, the boy walked out of the house unharmed…

Thus began the 19-hour standoff.

“They proceed to destroy the house — room by room, by room, by room,” Lech said. “This is one guy with a handgun. This guy was sleeping. This guy was eating. This guy was just hanging out in this house. I mean, they proceeded to blow up the entire house.”

I’ve watched action movies, I know how this goes. The cops have the criminal surrounded but the bad guy is well defended. Mel Gibson saunters in with a rocket launcher. The property owner, Shooter McGavin, shouts “CAREFUL! My Ming Dynasty vase is worth more than your entire family!” Mel Gibson fights his way through the house, destroying everything but the vase, finally cornering and arresting chief henchman Tony Todd. Just then, trainee Michael Cera comes busting through the fourth wall in a bulldozer. The vase topples over. Later, back at the station, police chief Jeffrey Wright — seen looking over a bill — chews out Gibson and Cera for the wanton destruction that is costing the city millions. Fellow officer Kiefer Sutherland, who is actually the mole and the real criminal mastermind, is seen consoling McGavin with a giant check.

Except in real life, there is no check. Shooter McGavin never gets paid. The Takings clause doesn’t cover property destruction caused by law enforcement as they are trying to enforce the law. The Tenth Circuit explains:

[T]he Lechs urge us to disregard the distinction between the police power and the power of eminent domain in resolving this appeal. In support, they point out that “the Takings Clause ‘was designed to bar [g]overnment from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.’” Aplt. Br. 13 (quoting Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49 (1960)). And they argue that upholding the district court’s summary-judgment ruling would do just that: it would force the Lechs to bear alone the cost of actions the defendants undertook in an effort to “apprehend[] a criminal suspect”—actions that were clearly “for the benefit of the public” as a whole. Id. at 13, 33.

We do not disagree that the defendants’ actions benefited the public. But as the Court explained in Mugler, when the state acts to preserve the “safety of the public,” the state “is not, and, consistent[] with the existence and safety of organized society, cannot be, burdened with the condition that the state must compensate [affected property owners] for pecuniary losses they may sustain” in the process. 123 U.S. at 669. Thus, “[a]s unfair as it may seem,” the Takings Clause simply “does not entitle all aggrieved owners to recompense.” AmeriSource Corp., 525 F.3d at 1152, 1154.

Accordingly, we reject the Lechs’ first broad challenge to the district court’s ruling and hold that when the state acts pursuant to its police power, rather than the power of eminent domain, its actions do not constitute a taking for purposes of the Takings Clause. And we further hold that this distinction remains dispositive in cases that, like this one, involve the direct physical appropriation or invasion of private property.

I do not think that just compensation for the destruction of property unduly burdens the police in their pursuit of enforcement. It’s not like the officers have to pay for the damage out of their own pockets. The taxpayers do. And you don’t have to shroud yourself too darkly behind the veil of ignorance to imagine that taxpayers should want to share the collective burden of destruction pursuant to an arrest, as opposed to localizing those cost on one unlucky individual. However, if local and state officials were kind of sick of paying the costs of police property destruction, and that filtered down to the point where police were a little more cautious before destroying an entire house to catch a shoplifter, that would also be a good thing.

The Tenth Circuit appears to be right on its interpretation of Fifth Amendment precedent, which means I’m going to need (gulp) progressives and conservatives to help change the law here. That should be possible, right? Progressives are woke to the fact that police have entirely too much power to harm innocents without accountability, conservatives allegedly care when “big government” does anything to “mah property.” Surely we can reach some kind of broad consensus that if the cops shoot up your house because it was invaded by a criminal, the state should pay you back for it.

We should fix this. I can’t imagine James Madison thought it was okay for the government to nuke your house from orbit because a petty thief commandeered your kitchen.

Police blew up an innocent man’s house in search of an armed shoplifter. Too bad, court rules. [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

I am sure that pretty much everyone reading this article has friends on Facebook who love to talk about policy matters and legal issues. In this day and age, it is very common for people to provide hot takes about legal matters, even if they have no experience or training with the legal issue that is being discussed. While it is fine for people to discuss policy matters online and talk about what the law should be, it is increasingly common to see nonlawyers assert some kind of comprehensive knowledge of legal issues in conversations and in their social media posts.

This happens at least a few times a week in my own life, and I’m often left scratching my head wondering why someone with no legal background would comment on complex legal matters. For instance, I recently saw one person I know discussing the Affordable Care Act, and the requirement to purchase health insurance. This individual suggested that if the government can force people to purchase health insurance, they could just as easily compel individuals to buy bibles. Needless to say, this person must’ve missed the class on the Establishment Clause at the law school they never attended, and there are a number of issues with this supposedly rational analogy.

In addition, every now and then, one of my friends posts one of those bogus legal notices about revoking any consent to have their pictures or content harvested by other companies, and suggest that others do the same. You know the notices I’m talking about, like the one that purports to cite to the Berne Convention, but most people just pasted the fake notice with a typo that reads “Bern Convention” (which shows that most people didn’t even Google what they were referencing!). In any case, editors on this website and others have already discussed how these notices have little legal effect, and this shows how nonlawyers oftentimes assert an understanding of legal issues without any prior training or experience.

Of course, practitioners of nearly every profession can gripe that individuals untrained in that field assert an understanding of matters without any basis for doing so. For instance, my doctor friends tell me all of the time how patients often look up symptoms on WebMD and think they understand more about their condition than their own doctors. In addition, accountants and financial planners also have to deal with untrained people searching for advice online and purporting to know more about a topic than a trained practitioner. However, you rarely see an untrained person making a hot take about medicine or finance on social media, and the legal profession is perhaps most subject to people purporting to know about issues related to our field.

One reason for this phenomenon might be that people oftentimes confuse law and policy, as the two are interrelated in a number of contexts. It is fine for people to assert how they think the law should be. For instance, it is perfectly acceptable for anyone to opine about whether an act should or shouldn’t be protected by the First Amendment.

However, a line is definitely crossed when untrained people express an opinion about whether something is illegal or legal, or is protected by the Constitution or not. Sometimes, individuals without legal training will assert that they understand that free speech is protected or that searches and seizures can be prohibited, and apply a given situation to this broad understanding. However, every lawyer knows there are numerous tests, standards, and other rules that govern assessments about Constitutional law and other legal matters. As a result, it is frustrating when untrained people make these shaky determinations based on nothing more than a broad understanding of the law.

Another reason why nonlawyers often think they are legal experts is because it is easy to analogize one set of facts to a situation in their own lives or a legal matter that is in the news. For instance, I once had a friend who tried to explain to me how streaming pirated content online could not make you liable under the law. He had this long-winded explanation about how he could stand outside a TV store and look at the programs on the TVs through the window with impunity. Somehow, my friend was trying to analogize this situation to streaming content, since you are not quite downloading the material, so there could be no copyright issue or other legal problem.

Of course, there are a number of flaws to this brilliant legal theory, and even a basic understanding of copyright law and other legal subjects would have informed my friend about how his reasoning was flawed. However, it is easy enough to just make an argument from a broad understanding of concepts and life experience. Few people stop to think about how their reasoning might be changed by legal standards that govern a given legal issue.

All told, with the rise of social media and the increased availability of information about the law, more and more nonlawyers seem to be feigning an understanding of legal matters. This is not unlike the phenomenon experienced in other professions where people untrained in those fields claim knowledge about certain matters. However, the legal industry is perhaps most prone to untrained individuals claiming knowledge about our field, and people should recognize that certain opinions can only soundly be made by legal professionals.

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Overview:

Among the most vital examples of the application of business discipline and strong process to the legal function is the burgeoning field of IP operations.  The capacity to carefully manage and extract maximum value from intellectual property assets can be the difference between a thriving company and a fading also-ran.  In this free webinar, you will:

• hear industry thought leaders elucidate the four pillars of IP Operations—people, processes, technology, data—that define the field
• benchmark your organization through an exploration of the IP Ops “maturity spectrum.”
• learn firsthand from an IP Ops leader at one of the U.S.’s largest privately-held corporations about their implementation of a successful IP Ops function

The program will also feature analysis of the first-ever demographic study of the professionals developing the IP Ops field. Our webinar’s moderator, leading industry consultant Brad Blickstein, will be joined by  Annya Dushine of CPA Global and Amy Gagich of Koch Industries.

Date:                           Thursday, October 31st, 1 p.m. ET

Duration:                   60 Minutes

[I]t’s coming — and there’s a lot of work to be done.

The demand for restructuring and bankruptcy partners is as dynamic as it’s been in the last 25 years. Firms in the past waited until a wave hit to look for a lifeboat. Now, the sense that they need to have people in place before the storm hits is much more acute.

— Jon Lindsey, founder of legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, commenting on the fact that law firms have cited growing their bankruptcy practices as their greatest priority, and that lateral movement in this area has reached a fever pitch that’s likely to peak in the next year.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Last night is a blur. The bars, the booze, the blow. No memory of last-call or the journey home. I hope I cabbed. Mental note to check the garage later.

My fingers feel swollen and clunky as I try to open the cellophane bag on the nightstand, ultimately tearing it, sending Xanax bars flying across the bed. I scoop one off of the down comforter like a shovel before my beagle takes an interest. I spy a half-full glass of shitty “Brian Cuban” label red wine I had made at someplace downtown. After an eight-ball of cocaine and the need for sleep, it’s not a matter of taste; it’s a matter of necessity. It washes down for dream time. There will be no dreams. The phone. Why, oh why, do I answer it?

Mr. Cuban? It’s is the court clerk of the **** District. We have a plaintiff down here on case number ****.  A petition for a Temporary Restraining Order. He says he did not try to contact you first, so we want to make sure you are aware. Can you come down for a hearing?

The words have the effect of stepping into a cold shower to sober up (as if that works). I am instantaneously more alert than 10 seconds ago, even with the Xanax bar starting to work its magic.  My mind searches its fragmented hard drive for the case.

“Can you tell me who the plaintiff is?” Shit, that guy, I mutter to myself as bytes of information coalesce. “What time do you need me there?”

“The judge would like to hear this at 10 a.m.”

Two hours.  My brain strains to its reduced limits. Need a good lie.   I wasn’t given notice. Just tell the truth. I can’t make it. Reschedule.

 “Yes, I will be there. I will call my client.”

My stomach churns with a mixture of panic and nausea. I stagger to the shower with a quick veer to the toilet. I drop to my knees and using the skills of a longtime bulimic, wretch the remnants of stale wine and cold pizza.  I will never make it to the hearing. The only reasonable option to counteract the Xanax is more blow. The baggie with less than a gram sits on the marble bathroom counter amidst toothpaste stains and mold fragments.

Two lines and a shave instill confidence that I can bluff my way through the hearing with a pro-se plaintiff.  A pressed custom suit, shined, $1,000 shoes, and a gargle of Scope close out the routine of masks. Masks for the courtroom. Masks for the clients. Masks for relationships.  Brian is nowhere to be found. I can’t remember when I last saw him. Maybe it was years ago before the bullies beat me up and stripped me almost naked a mile from my house. What I see in the mirror is artificial, temporary, and necessary for the next few hours.  Except these hours need to be functional on a different level — a very different mask of the high-functioning lawyer.  This morning. I will settle for surviving.

The walk through the metal detector with cocaine is something I’ve done before.   The difference this morning is that I’m sweating like Niagara Falls.  Projection becomes a reality. They know. They can see it in my eyes. I’m done.

“You forgot your belt, sir.” I made it.

It’s 9:30 — plenty of time for a bathroom stall stop.  I need to up my confidence and further offset the Xanax, which mercifully has not incapacitated me.  A high tolerance, maybe?

Check the nose and the grid for residue; head to the courtroom. I see my client and the plaintiff seated, chatting as if there is no animosity between them.  Why are we here?  I am the last hearing before lunch. What case is this? I didn’t check my fax for a copy of the pleading before I left. My client gives me his. I am naked before the bench.  The judicial gods take mercy once more.

Her Honor scans the pleading and asks the plaintiff why he needs this type of relief. His answer is as incoherent as my drug-addled response would be.  I don’t have to say a word.

Motion denied.

My client shakes my hand for a job well done. The plaintiff is still arguing his case as I thank the judge and beeline out the double wooden door, wondering when the last time these nights were actually fun. I can’t remember.

Brian Cuban (@bcuban) is The Addicted Lawyer. Brian is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer: Tales Of The Bar, Booze, Blow & Redemption (affiliate link). A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, he somehow made it through as an alcoholic then added cocaine to his résumé as a practicing attorney. He went into recovery April 8, 2007. He left the practice of law and now writes and speaks on recovery topics, not only for the legal profession, but on recovery in general. He can be reached at brian@addictedlawyer.com.

A few weeks ago, I read the story about Daniel, a 36-year-old lawyer who was living a very, very frugal lifestyle. He eats only rice and beans, lives in a small apartment in New Jersey, and buys his clothes from thrift shops. His goal was to retire early and he has saved up a six-figure retirement account and $400,000 in cash.

Daniel is a believer in the FIRE philosophy which is short for Financial Independence Retire Early. This goes beyond the sensible basic financial advice of spending less than you earn. The idea is to work like crazy and save  as much money as possible. FIRE also recommends diversifying income sources, generating passive income, and monetizing everything you do. Once you save enough money, you can then quit your job in your 30s or 40s. You can then spend the best years and the rest of your life living happily ever after doing whatever you want to do.

I can relate to Daniel in some ways as I prefer being a minimalist. When I am not with clients or friends, I don’t like to spend a lot of money eating out. And when I do eat out, it usually coincides with a restaurant’s special discount promotions like Taco Tuesdays. I make my own coffee, which I concede tastes slightly better than sewage. At the moment, I have no desire to live in a McMansion. And I generally do not like having a lot of stuff which ends up gathering dust or gets thrown away unused.

But after learning more about the FIRE lifestyle, I don’t think I am crazy or disciplined enough for it. There are drawbacks to the FIRE lifestyle that make me wonder whether it is worth the sacrifice. Now I understand people have different priorities in life so you can take my thoughts below with a grain of salt.

You will pay more taxes. Unfortunately, the tax laws do not give incentives to save. Before you can legitimately claim an income deduction or a tax credit, you have to spend money on certain things. So if you save, a big chunk of those savings will go to the government.

That early retirement savings cannot be touched for a long time. So you have a sizeable retirement account because you maxed out your IRA or 401K contributions for many years? That’s super. But you cannot withdraw from it until you reach the age of 59 1/2 or you will have to pay a 10 percent early withdrawal penalty and possibly income taxes on the withdrawn amount. The tax laws did not have FIRE in mind.

You will give up a lot of things. Many personal finance gurus advise delayed gratification where you hold off on enjoyment now in exchange for greater enjoyment later or avoiding unnecessary debt. But the FIRE lifestyle goes beyond simple fiscal discipline. They advocate making substantial and permanent lifestyle changes.

For example, it is not enough to buy a used car to save a few thousand dollars. Some FIRE blogs tell you to learn how to fix and maintain your car by yourself. If you buy a house or rent, you are encouraged to get roommates to save costs. A few even tell you what to eat and where to buy the ingredients in order to save on grocery costs.

I can rent rooms in my house but that means I am giving up privacy and I run the risk of having bad roommates. Today’s cars have so many electrical and computer controlled components that it is nearly impossible to fix them on your own. And some of the foods recommended I just don’t care for.

I appreciate what they are trying to do, but I personally cannot live a life that is so micromanaged and requires me to do so many things on my own.

Your family life could be a difficult one. You might embrace the hyper-frugal FIRE lifestyle but good luck finding a significant other who shares the same philosophy while you are together. Even if you do, at some point, you and your significant other might end up being frugal about different and incompatible things. Or one of you might get sick and tired of the FIRE lifestyle altogether.

And of course, it costs money to raise children properly. Especially for the unexpected expenses that comes with parenthood such as preschool, after school activities, weekend golf lessons, or in some cases, bail money.

From the stories I read, the FIRE lifestyle is best for single people since there is no one to argue with and no one to take care of.

I won’t name any names but one of the most prominent voices of the FIRE movement recently got divorced. He stated that the FIRE lifestyle was not the cause and I want to believe him. But considering that most married couples split due to finances (or lack of it), I am inclined to believe that finances played at least a part in the separation.

You might not be able to deal with financial catastrophes or opportunities. Many of the FIRE supporters assume that once people retire at some obscenely young age, they will not have major financial problems in the future. Instead, they think that everyone will live happily ever after and they will have money to pay a doctor for a checkup.

Before you quit your day job, you will need to save a substantial amount of money for a major financial catastrophe. You or a family member could suffer from a serious medical condition. Or you might be sued.

Or it may not be catastrophe but instead a potentially lucrative but expensive investment opportunity that interests you.

And if you retire at young age, it can be more problematic because there will be more time for potential catastrophes. Especially if you plan to spend your free time pursuing hobbies such as parkour, rock climbing, or whatever these people are doing.

You might be unemployable. Finally, let’s just say that at some point, the FIRE lifestyle does not work out and you want to (or need to) go back to work. Well, your absence from the job market could make that difficult. How are you going to spin your early retirement in an interview? It is very likely you won’t be welcomed back to your old senior management position. Instead, you may end up starting in the bottom in a different field.

The FIRE lifestyle sounds very appealing, especially to the significant number of people who hate their current jobs. For some people, like Daniel above, if it means living like an ascetic monk for a few years, in exchange for freedom, then that’s what he will do. But with the money he has saved so far, Daniel will not live lavishly. He will live a barely middle class lifestyle in a low cost-of-living area.

But I just don’t see it working for me. It means I will have to live a lower quality of life during my prime years while a chuck of the money I save goes towards taxes. If I put the money into a tax-advantaged retirement account, I won’t see that money for another 17 years. Not only that, I will have to save another nest egg for potential financial catastrophes or something else.

Whenever I hear testimonials about those who followed the FIRE lifestyle and achieved significant financial freedom, I think most of them are not telling us everything. Some of these people might have cashed out large stock options after leaving their firm. Or they may have a spouse who is still working. Or they have a secret golden goose that they won’t share with others. Or they may live a life that is much poorer than what people think.

It is generally a good idea to spend less than you make if you want to save money to retire. But if you want to play with FIRE, be careful because you could get burned.

Steven Chung is a tax attorney in Los Angeles, California. He helps people with basic tax planning and resolve tax disputes. He is also sympathetic to people with large student loans. He can be reached via email at sachimalbe@excite.com. Or you can connect with him on Twitter (@stevenchung) and connect with him on LinkedIn.