After college, I moved back into my parents' house. The closest thing  I had to a job was eating my parents' food, sitting on my parents'  couch, and watching The Price is Right. An amateur magician, I spent the rest of my time practicing card tricks and rope tricks. And though I could tie four different slipknots, the necktie posed some  difficulties.

 My father, a successful Michigan attorney, told me it was time to move  out and enter the real world. I certainly wasn't going to get a job,  so I went to law school instead.

 This is the story of my journey from childhood to lawyerhood, the  story of how I used the skills I developed as a magician to succeed in class, and the story of how I learned that I could become a lawyer  without becoming my father.