A Lawyer's Guide to Abundance

Praise For a Lawyer's Guide to Abundance "I wish this book existed 28 years ago when I began the practice of law." Gregg Horowitz "The advice in this book is worth it's weight in gold." -C. Ryan Violette, Esquire My legal career began in 1987. At that time, I was $54,000 in debt, I owned a bed, a TV, $500.00 worth of clothes, and a twelve-year old beat-up car. I had no connections. Twenty-seven years later, I was fully retired with over 5.1 million in assets consisting of CDs, stocks, 14 rental properties and my house, cars, boat, wave-runners, and motorcycles, which I owned free and clear. I was financially independent. I was also abundant in things that money cannot buy like good health and great relationships. I was happily married to my first and only wife of 25 years and had two terrific children. My health was excellent, I ran marathons and had developed an interest in high altitude climbing, so I had summated peaks in America, Europe, Africa, and South America. I accomplished this from humble beginnings: my dad died when I was 18 years old and left a widow, six children, $5,000.00 worth of life insurance, and $40,000.00 of debt and my mother never earned over $12,000.00 per year. I am no smarter than anyone reading this, but I did study wealth and wealthy people, so the suggestions that follow can make any lawyer (or any person, for that matter) rich. You will need to commit yourself to study money, investments, the stock market, and rental properties. You must avoid debt and learn how to legally minimize your taxes. You will also need to focus on getting rich, but not looking rich. I retired when I was 55 years old and in my city we had around 1,200 attorneys. I know of only one who voluntarily retired younger than me, and he was 50 years old when he retired. (Many attorneys retire involuntarily, because of poor physical or mental health and simply cannot work anymore.) I asked that 50-year-old retired lawyer how he retired so young and his favorite response was, "I had one wife, one house, and one kid." There is a lot of wisdom in that statement. As I got older, many of my colleagues, clients, and people I knew would say, "When I am 62 years old, I am going to retire and my wife and I are going to travel and live it up." Unfortunately, most of them would have a heart attack or some kind of health catastrophe and never be able to enjoy their retirement. If you follow these suggestions, you will retire young enough with enough wealth and health to enjoy the rest of your life.