Lawyers a.k.a BlackBerry addicts

I don't know what it is about lawyers and their Blackberries, but all the ones I know would rather cut off their left pinky-finger than part with their precious "Crackberries".

This past summer I spent a weekend at the beach with four of my girlfriends, who all happen to be lawyers. I was amazed that between dips in the ocean and reapplying sunscreen, they managed to fire off a series of emails from their beach chairs. One of my friends hardly missed a beat in an intense discussion about the break-up of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt while thumbing away on her BlackBerry.

Another person I know said that her husband, a litigator, was actually sending and receiving emails via his BlackBerry while they were on vacation at Disney World. She reported that you can, in fact, get service while riding "It's a small world".

So it's a bit surprising that a partner at the law firm of Burns & Levinson in Boston would actually have to remind the lawyers at his firm to keep their Blackberries turned on during the weekends and after hours. From my experience, I assumed that lawyers would go into cardiac arrest if their Blackberries were turned off.

Anyway, the story appeared in the Boston Globe on Thursday after an email, written by Brian D. Bixby, cochairman of the firm's private clients group, was anonymously sent to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

When asked about the memo by a Globe reporter, Bixby commented "while you are awake and breathing and not entirely engrossed in something else, there is no harm in having the BlackBerry on."

Man, I'm glad I went to J-school instead of law school.