Lit for Lawyers: The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl

There is a wonderful Ray Bradbury short story called The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl. It was first published almost 65 years ago, but it owes a huge debt to stories 100 years older than that, those of Edgar Allan Poe.

Every attorney interested in Legal Project Management should read it.¹ In 11 simple pages Bradbury describes the ultimate failure of an attorney who slaves all night to make sure each clause is just so, that everything is perfect, that each incipient doubt is fully researched, each thread followed to be sure it can’t possibly lead to trouble.

Okay, that’s not quite literally what it’s about; I’ve extrapolated a bit.

Still….

Maybe your library has a copy. No one checks Bradbury out anymore, so it’s probably on the shelf.

(Or maybe not. I just checked the Seattle Public Library, which has only three copies in the entire system, and my local Lopez Island Library, an award-winning small-town library, which no longer has it at all. I guess so few people read Bradbury these days that libraries have gotten rid of their copies to make room for newer books. There isn’t even a Kindle edition.)