Editor's Note: "A Lawyer's Life" is the collective name to submissions we are encouraging from Bar members about their personal reflections on their careers and their lives. This month's installment comes from retired attorney E. Paul Kelly, who hopes to encourage other retired attorneys to write in about their own experiences and reflections on "life after the law." This column was edited by Associate Editor Beverly Rorick from several emails submitted by attorney Kelly.

Former attorney E. Paul Kelly, a member of the NH Bar from 1960 to 2000, "bounced around" (his own words) a bit during his years as an active attorney; his practice centered mostly in Manchester, though, at Sheehan, Phinney, Bass + Green and Cullity & Kelley.

After retirement, Paul and his wife Jean moved to Fort Collins, Colo., to be near his youngest son and family. While there, he became in-house counsel for a company whose home office was in Lake Tahoe.

When the company was sold, Paul and Jean returned to their family home in Pine Point, Maine. They are frequent visitors to New Hampshire where two other sons live. Paul's deepest joy is the freedom of retirement-the freedom "to open the book of my own mind and look at the experiences within."

Before becoming a lawyer, Paul was a Jesuit for eight years; however, he left before ordination. Brief as that association was, it gave him a look at the Church from the inside. In 2002, he began a study of "the theology I never took.... Since then it's been the purpose of my life, the joining of the Jesuit years with the law years into what I hope is a professional unity in continuing what lawyers and Jesuits truly are: men for others." Paul writes from his home on Sea Rose Lane in Pine Point:

"The nicest thing about having been a lawyer is the ability to stand and speak truth to power to anyone who professes to be an official presenter of Catholic thought, learning, customs, or even of the 'official teachings of the Church' with that simple yet startling question Quo Warranto? My favorite one to any bishop is, 'Bishop, do you have any citations to authority, other than your own mind, or is this just another Ipse Dixit?' Law school taught me to question. The practice of law honed that teaching into a lifelong habit, our way of proceeding. That last phrase, by the way, is a favorite of the Jesuits, whether present or former. 'Our way of proceeding.' I found its most careful, most observed, most respected application in trial practice in New Hampshire, where dedicated fierce (or gentle) trial lawyers always followed the Rules of Court, the Rules of Evidence, and the Rules of Professional Conduct.

"The nicest thing about retirement is being able to meld the Jesuit way of proceeding with the lawyers' way of proceeding into one, simply by asking questions and leaving it to others to find the answers, usually the experts, or the jury, or the Court. This is our way of proceeding."

Paul frequently writes for a cyberjournal called Just Good Company.

Paul writes: "I would love to see whether the lawyers in my [age] group are as interested in matters legalistic or have developed an equal if not more compelling interest in literature, music, poetry, drama, the arts...[perhaps] sharing their know-how when neighbors have to deal with City Hall..." or in other pursuits, such as in volunteer work.

Paul's home email address is pkelly04@mainerr.com and he would enjoy hearing from Bar members, present and former.

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