Because coming up with lawyer gift ideas is notoriously difficult, and because everyone always tries to find something “legal” (don’t do that), Analog Attorney has hand-selected this year’s gift list through a painstaking year-long process we started yesterday. Scroll down (and keep scrolling), we’ve updated the keepers from past analog gift guides, too.
Analog Gift Guide for the Analogs in Your Life
It’s hard to find a gift for a lawyer because, you know, they already have a powdered wig and like 30 gavels, and you’re so close to your deadline you’re starting to seriously consider a Starbucks gift card. Relax. Did you think we were going to forget you during the holidays, just like your Aunt Carol who sent you a fruitcake last year with a card reading Darryll?
Scroll down through our latest analog gift guide for a list of pre-approved gifts, from the ridiculously cheap to impossibly expensive, that will have your boss/best client/frenemy-in-billing high-fiving you at the holiday/seasonal/pastafarian party.
OK, I said cheap to impossibly expensive, but we’re putting this little gadget up here at the top because the Remarkable Move is the Stanley Water Tumbler Bottle Quencher of 2025 lawyer gifts. Everyone wants one. It is a mark of status, of refinement, of portable purpose. If the attorney you’re buying a present for is even a little bit savvy, they’re probably already in love with this thing, much like your humble reporter. (Read my review here.)
The Move has all the cool ePaper stuff its dad had, but it’s pocket-sized, and there are so many cool templates that make it amazingly useful: You can easily organize all your files. You can collect signatures. You can doodle. It is the Swiss Army knife of eInk tablets, except no, it isn’t, because there’s one huge feature about the Remarkable. It’s designed to replicate the experience of using a legal pad or a journal. Not only does it feel like you’re writing on paper at the tip of your stylus, but it also feels like it in the way you have so few distractions. No hyperactive attention lozenges popping up. No browser. No music. It’s not an iPad. It’s better than an iPad. In fact, it’s remarkable. (SWIDT?)
Perfect Gifts for the Firm’s Biggest Brasshole
Brass desktop tools are wonderfully luxurious attorney gifts for 2025 without breaking your white elephant budget by half. Mini rulers, letter openers and French curves add a sense of applicable style to any lawyer’s desktop gallery of nice things.
Like the retro-futuristic Craighill brass desk knife ($75), which, as far as I can tell, is mostly used for opening boxes, but could also be used to stab someone in a morning meeting if you were really motivated.
Or, for the truly ambitious and possible Nick Offerman wanna-be in your office, nothing comes close to the bafflingly apparent usefulness of a Gentleman’s Saw from Crown Hand Tools. The best application of this gift, however, is so the guy (always a guy) in your firm who is a tireless dad-joker can say, “We have to build a solid defense!” then whip this out. One of the most cutting-edge attorney gifts for 2025, for about $40.
Also in the work of art you can use category: The vintage desktop magnifier from the House of Bruar wins for being functional (I mean, reading the fine print is part of your job) and gorgeous, for only $40. For something functional, gorgeous, and sleek and bit more expensive, there’s the Pallina Magnifying Glass designed by architect and artist Olivia Herms (around $200).
Finally, these brass hand paper clips look like a Victorian ghost is filing your briefs, which might be important if your client is a haunted bookstore like Scriptum in Oxford, where these hands float silently around the crowded aisles to smack people in the face when they use a plain, ordinary comma or a Cambridge semicolon. (Don’t; do that.) If Oxford isn’t your shopping destination, similar clips can be found in Etsy’s budget and antique shops.
Write This Down: A Fountain Pen is STILL the Go-To Gift for Attorneys
But look, I know you’re probably remembering all the incredible eye-wateringly dear writing instruments I’ve reviewed in this space (scroll down for a list of the best of the best), and thinking: “I have a $35 budget, and I don’t know squat about pens.” Lucky you’re reading this, because I would like to introduce you to two of the most affordable pen brands on the face of the internet: Fountain Pen Revolution and Jinhao pens
Fountain Pen Revolution is a joy of a store, selling writing instruments mostly made in India. Kevin Thieman started FPR with the simple idea that awesome pens shouldn’t be priced in the spare kidney spectrum. Instead, his store offers very good pens in the very, very low end of the dollar spectrum. Look at the Click Falcon. It’s gorgeous, rendered in acrylic, eye-dropper filled like your grandad’s pens, and only $9. Nine. Dollars.
But for a truly baffling fountain pen, may I introduce you to the Jinhao Vanishing Point, a nearly perfect knockoff of the Pilot Vanishing Point at 90% of its $180 premium price. Is it somehow ethically suspicious to buy a knockoff pen? Like, what if you were looking for a Parker 51 but couldn’t find one because they are discontinued collectibles going for $300 online? Try a Hero 616 clone for only $14.
These are not fake pens — they are “homage” pens, and when you are in need of an impressive attorney gift, they are the best bang for your buck.
Luxurious Notecards (Oh, My!) and Paper Goods
Because we should send more cards and we should encourage others to send more cards. We should send a card to someone with a message reading “Happy Tuesday!” We should send a card when the Jets lose (expensive, I know, but those fans need reassurance).
Most great paper houses have a line of cards, some of which you know and love, like Crane and Clairefontaine. This year, my money is on Papier for these stunning “Italian Summer” notecards, double-thick stock with free personalization, 10 cards for $35, which I’m begging you to buy for me, please.
Another option is the Kartos Portfolio collection, which looks like it was designed in 1754, and can be found in fine stationery stores like Scriptum in Oxford (sigh) and Papier Plume in New Orleans.
For the Analog Taste-Maker
Or the Mark & Fold best-seller luxury gift box in navy, natural, mustard, lime, or English racing green (£140), which makes me drool (which is fine, because it includes blotter paper). For under $200 (£140), the conveniently boxed set includes the lay-flat journal, week-view planner pad, pencils, page darts, brass accessories, and more. Possibly the most tasteful of the attorney gifts for 2025 list.
For the Heavy Hitter: the Ultimate Travel Desk
Don’t skimp. Just take a deep breath, concentrate on your wallet chakra and click over to the Italian luxury gift site Pineider. I will spare you the prosaic soliloquy residing in my heart for the Pineider stationery, except to say, “O mio dio,” and also (please note) “Good Lord!” Because this is the stuff of Analog Attorney dreams.
But we’re not talking personalized notecards or letter openers here. We’re talking about a stand-out, game-over, mind-blowing gift so perfectly tuned to your senior partner or favored client’s palette that they will endorse you until the end of their days: Pineider’s Scrittoio da Viaggio, or travel desk.
Travel desks are retro all the way back to the Civil War. It’s the kind of thing a 19th-century president of a mining company might carry on a train to write letters to his wife back in Cleveland that sound like he swallowed the Oxford English Dictionary: “Dearest Alathea, today we crossed into the territories and I beheld in my limited vista the breathtaking majesty of the Grand Tetons.“
You may have looked at these bad boys from other brands. Here’s what you get from Pieneider for your €3,800: A leather-bound journal, 14 fountain pen nibs with straws, an inkwell of black ink, 14 black pencils, and a set of Water Jet stationery, including 9 cards, 25 A4 sheets, 25 A5 sheets, and matching envelopes, all of which you may customize. All this is inside the portable writing desk itself, in all its (metric) 43.5 x 18 x 35 glory.
Statues of Limitations
Because beauty matters, your budget will allow for a statue of a pair of field mice frolicking under a poppy by Scottish sculptor Michael Simpson. He has more, like otters playing in a stream, a rabbit on its hind legs, and more mice. The statues are the perfect size for a desk or small nook, or to hold down a stack of files listing in the corner. A bit easier on the pocketbook, bookends are like little statues for readers. The best of them may just be the Golden Octopus bookends from Scriptum in Oxford, (sigh) where I would voluntarily live until the end of my days. Look at them!
Updated: More Great Gifts for Analog Attorneys
In a digital-forward gadget universe, finding something cool that doesn’t need batteries or a software update is maddening for most people. But for the elves at Attorney at Work, researching the web’s sparkly recesses for the perfect gift is pure delight. We update our gift list annually, adding new gift ideas like the ones above, and ensuring past favorites are up to date — resulting in an excessively long guide to the best analog gifts for the analog attorneys in your life.
So, consider one of these gifts for your retro-tech friend. They’ll say thanks for such a remarkably thoughtful present—probably with a handwritten card in perfect cursive.
Fair warning: Some of these gifts are ferociously opulent. And, OK, perhaps one or two are here for shock value. Or because your writer is obsessed with handmade globes.
A Fountain Pen Is the Perfect Attorney Gift for Any Budget
Fountain pens are kind of my jam, so, of course, I’m recommending more reasonable options. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting one for your nephew who just got accepted into Princeton or your niece who made partner. A nice pen is a really, really good gift. To the new collegiate, it implies a future of beautifully written words full of sincerity and promise. It is a token of maturity — you’re not gonna doodle emojis with this instrument. To the new partner, it signifies a milestone. It is a badge of experience and an emblem of new status. It is the perfect attorney gift.
The following represents a selection of pens Analog Attorney has written about over the past few years, from affordable everyday options to holy cow.
The Pilot Metropolitan
Japanese mega stationer Pilot introduced this workhorse pen in 2012. As much as I love expensive collectible fountain pens, I don’t carry any of them around with me. I carry a Pilot. Fountain pens are touchy and for the newbie scribbler, poor pen usage can lead to stained fingers, stained pockets, and generally ink everywhere. Worse, if you buy a $300 fountain pen and lose it, you might start crying, which doesn’t play well in a meeting. Lose a Pilot fountain and you’ll be irritated but only out $20.
We’ve discussed Pilot’s brilliant introductory pen in past posts. The Metropolitan is a perfect pen. Every aspect, from its balance to the nib to the very heft of this writing instrument is flawless. Pilot could easily ask for more than a Jackson for them, but somehow they keep this pen in the easily affordable range. Yet, because of its design and craftsmanship, it remains an elegant gift. The fountain pen newbie will be rendered speechless. Hopefully, they can scribble a shaky, emotional “thank you” on a piece of paper.
You can get one from the Goulet Pen store and support small businesses, or you can succumb to the borg and get one from Amazon. Price: $18 to $28, depending on finish.
Waterman Hemisphere Deluxe Fountain Pen
This beautiful pen is the next level for the enthusiast. It’s a great gift for a new partner, or for that person in your circle who just accomplished something worthy. Where the Metropolitan is a stripped-down perfect representation of a fountain pen, the Waterman Hemisphere Deluxe exhibits sophistication. It comes in several finishes as shown above, including one trimmed in chrome and gold. No one needs this adornment. It doesn’t affect the writing experience. But it definitely enhances the pointless luxury experience, which is what such a gift should do. Price: $80.
Pilot Vanishing Point With a Gold Nib
It’s hard to describe the difference between a regular nib (usually stainless steel) and this pen’s black-coated gold point. There’s a lushness to the way it lays ink on the paper, to the way it presses into the surface, and its flex. The Vanishing Point’s already a masterpiece of a fountain pen (my everyday carry for four years running), but the gold nib pops it up to a new level of fountain penmanship. Price: $168 upwards to $400, depending on finish.
The Lamy 2000 With a Gold Nib
Lamy’s been manufacturing their German fountain pens since 1966 and they are perfect. German students receive a Lamy fountain pen in second grade and use it every day until they eventually get a license. A license. Lamy pens are iconic and the 2000 is their flagship instrument. It’s been in continuous production for more than 50 years. It uses piston filling, has a fiberglass and brushed aluminum barrel, and a gold nib. It isn’t the most expensive pen out there, but it is a legend. Price: $219 from Pen Chalet.
The Steam Writer
A luthier by trade, Spencer Hamann spends his days in his workshop creating timeless and bespoke masterpieces from exotic materials and restoring fine instruments and antique tools. He also makes really, really gorgeous pens. Full disclosure, I know Harmann in real life, and let me tell you, this man is obsessed with antique tools. I can tell you his pens were turned using a 1946 Logan machine lathe he bought from a retired airplane mechanic, and on his grandfather’s Austrian Unimat lathe from the 1970s. His craftsmanship is the kind of old-world ‘I’ve never even seen a cellphone’ meticulous zen millimeter-by-millimeter work we all dream about in our handcrafted fountain pens.
Visconti Opera Master Polynesia ($973)
In the same way, the Vanishing Point takes the fountain pen enthusiast to the middle-ground of price points, the Visconti Opera Master series takes them to the first level of holy crap, seriously? price points. The Opera Masters are hand-milled in Florence by (I’m guessing here) time-traveling Italian craftsmen trained by Michelangelo. It’s hand-polished inside and out, has a double reservoir system, a hook safe lock, a white gold nib and … just look at it. It looks like the ocean in Seychelles. As a proud owner of a luxury Visconti, I can tell you the writing experience is as deeply gratifying as the design. These are world-class pens — collectibles — and will knock a pen freak to their knees in gratitude. Price: $995 at the Fountain Pen Hospital.
A less expensive, yet still insanely opulent lawyer gift, the “Wheatfield with Crows” Van Gogh series ballpoint pen from Visconti is beautiful, well-crafted and has a soft, buttery flow. Your humble report owns a Visconti Van Gogh fountain pen and can assure your lawyer of a splendid writing experience.
Sailor Kirikane Fountain Pen
Now we’re talking corporate gifts for name partners, and Sailor’s Kirikane fills that slot perfectly. It’s more than a pen; it is a literal work of art. Kirikane is a technique developed for decorating Buddhist statues and artifacts. Each pen is handcrafted by Kasen Otsuka, a venerated Japanese Kirikane artist. No two are the same, and each one embodies this centuries-old art form in a gift that cannot be duplicated. Such a gift speaks to remarkable skill and craftsmanship but, above all, to a status in one’s profession that is unimpeachable. Giving a Sailor Kirikame recognizes a partner’s immeasurable value in the firm and the profession. Price: $2,200 at Goulet Pens.
Bonus “We Won the Lottery” Peggy Guggenheim Fountain Pen
I just want to point out, right here at the top, that when you buy a Mont Blanc Peggy Guggenheim Pen, shipping is complimentary. So, savings. This pen is designed with art deco elements drawn from the collection at the famous Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art in Venice, Italy. It has a strong Art Deco symmetry in the straight barrel and the decoration. The cap ring is decorated with lions emblematic of Guggenheim’s estate, and if you look closely at the nib, it has paw prints reminiscent of those from Guggenheim’s 14 Lhasa Apsos, to which she was devoted.
The pattern on the barrel is rendered in a rare transitional metal, Ruthenium. The metal elements and the nib are all rose gold. The familiar Mont Blanc emblem on the cap is made from white marble. This pen is deeply luxurious, rare, and way over the top. Price: $10,300.
The Ultimate High-Ticket Utterly Over-the-Top Fountain Pen
I saw this pen at Atlas Stationers in Chicago and immediately planned to sell a kidney so I could get it. Montegrappa is known for its over-the-top fountain pens. They’ve been in business since 1912, making the kinds of high-end pens that are no-brainer presents for a lawyer. If you can afford them.
The Odyssey Chapter 1 is over $11,000, but you get so much for your money. The craftsmanship goes beyond the mere human into the realm of elven smithing. The barrel is decorated with 12 friezes depicting the major scenes from Homer’s Odyssey in stunning detail. The scenes are rendered in vermeil, which sounds like something from a Tolkien novel but is actually silver gilded with gold. The cap re-creates a Corinthian plinth decorated with acanthus leaves and a tiny silver figurine atop a miniature column. The flat top of the plinth is filled in with mother of pearl, and I’m just gonna stop right there because I’m having an emotional experience just typing this.
The pen comes in a gorgeous crimson box illustrated with an image of Odysseus. Inside the box, the pen rests inside a Trojan horse. Look, it’s too magnificently decadent to explain. Just look at the picture below. If you are thinking about the perfect gift for a name partner, this is it. (Or, keep scrolling for a few recommendations that won’t melt your credit card.)
Analog Accessory Ideas Overload
A penwell for their favorite fountain pen. A penwell is a small wood or metal object that holds your favorite pen when you’re not writing. It sits on your desk, affixed by a micro suction pad, and its aperture is filled with a custom foam insert. You slide your pen into it cap-first, and the foam insert grips your pen by its cap. When you want to write, you just snatch your pen out of its cap and scribe your heart out. When you’re done, stick it back in. It may not sound like much to those who are not pen freaks, but for lawyers who write a lot, a penwell is a godsend because you don’t have to constantly remove and replace the cap of your pen. This penwell is available from Good Made Better in walnut, cherry, aluminum or brass. They’re so cute.
Not all luxury gifts are expensive. The scissors from Tools to Live By are just scissors, and they are tiny scissors — only three inches of blade. Besides, they’re brass, which is not normally associated with luxury. But the reason they make great gifts is owed to the luxury of their design. They’re either hip and cool or totally adorable, depending on who you give them to, and they’re under $20. Tools to Live By is a stationer from Tapei. Their calling card is offering ordinary desktop items and stationery elevated to priceless, heirloom-quality status. Fortunately, you can also find their products online at JetPens and Boston General Store.
Book darts are the most analog gift ever. Some analog tools send me over the brink of nerdsmanship and into the abyss of pure analog joy. Book darts are at least three of them. I first learned about book darts when I was but a boy, reading high-falutin’ literature and taking notes. Someone gave me a little round tin of paper-thin brass clips to mark my pages, and I’ve had a tin of them in my briefcase ever since. Some of my books have so many book darts they weigh three pounds. If you’re new to the club, book darts are small brass clips that slide onto a page, providing the merest sliver of a metallic marker on the edge of a book so you can find that awesome passage that really knocked you out. And you don’t have to use them for books. Pull them a little bit out from the page of a brief so they act as classy signature markers. Price: $15.95 for a tin of 100 from Book Darts or Amazon.
Give Them the Whole World
This is a ridiculous gift idea and I feel ever so slightly ridiculous adding it here, but the 50-inch Traditional Churchill Floor Standing Globe from Bellerby & Co. is one of those bespoke gifts that will impress for decades. Each globe is painstakingly handcrafted, colors are applied by hand via watercolor washes, and cartographic details are added individually. The whole thing takes forever to make. Customers are encouraged to purchase a gift card and get in line. But the product is unsurpassed.
Bellerby & Co. is one of those companies that does something nobody else will or can do because it’s insane. They start by crafting a perfect resin sphere. Then, the map — developed according to the customer’s preferences — is printed and painted, cut and finished, and applied to the globe. Months or even years later, the globe is fitted into a brass meridian on a wooden base and shipped to the lucky recipient — all for the cost of a Lexus.
Less expensive but still crazy, the Explora in Honey Brown by Zoffoli is a gorgeous globe hiding a lovely bar. It is a 40cm globe of an 18th-century map with an antique appearance. Its gnarled legs and wooden meridian maintain the vintage appearance. Keep your most expensive whiskey in it.
An Excellent Type of Gift: The Querkywriter
As an analog writer, I have a weakness for typewriters. I own a 1944 Smith Corona that could anchor an oil tanker. I regularly troll Marketplace for vintage machines. However, typing is impractical because of its charming analog qualities. You can type out a full page in 12pt Courier and it looks amazing. It feels amazing. Hell, it smells amazing. But you’ll have to type it again to get it into your laptop.
Unless you use the Querkywriter mechanical keyboard. It Bluetooths to Macs and PCs. It looks incredible. And it delivers that vintage clunky performance — while loading everything right into Word (or whatever).
The company offers limited editions, and the sage is one of the prettiest. Like all the Qwerkywriter keyboards and accessories, it is beautifully designed and meticulously crafted. Just look at those glass-topped keys. I don’t like to gender-tag gifts, but seriously, if you have an attorney in your life and she likes vintage typewriters, this is a solid choice.
The Write Gift for Your Most Stylish Attorneys
Crane Stationery is a world-class outfit. Their ecru-colored Skyler notecards are beautifully engraved and you can choose from several typefaces and motifs. But the frog motif in moss green (shown at left below) or clover make for a collection of 25 whimsical, yet distinctly classy note cards. For less whimsy, more sophistication, the Vintage Starlight notecards come in gray paper with your monogram engraved in charcoal, front and center. Gray, but not boring. (I prefer Skyler’s portrait layout because I think it provides a better experience for the recipient.) These are not cheap. They’re nearly $6 each, so a single box of 25 will set you back more than $500. Unless you want a custom return address printed on the reverse, which pushes the cost clost to $700. However, sending someone a card that was made by hand in London and costs seven bucks makes a hell of an impression.
Best Pencil in the World …
The Blackwing 602 is arguably the most famous pencil in pencildom. John Steinbeck burned through 60 a day. Chuck Jones drew Bugs Bunny with a 602. Quincy Jones composed with them. A vintage 602 can go for over $100 on eBay, but you can get one for less. Palamino Pencils resurrected the Blackwing with obsessive (and poetic) attention to detail in craftsmanship and lead composition. They are not cheap: A set of 12 runs around $28, but they are worth every penny and come in black, gray and pearly white. Go for the can’t miss gift: The Essentials Set places four pencils in different colors (black, white, gray and natural) with metal caps and the patented Blackwing two-stage sharpener in a handsome black box. Price: $50 Blackwing. Gift options are also available in the Blackwing Amazon store.
And the Best Pencil Sharpener in the World
You don’t normally think of a pencil sharpener as a luxury gift but I assure you, handing your favorite analog attorney a Mobius & Ruppert Pollux will make them cry. The Pollux is the best hand-held pencil sharpener in the world. Instead of a perfectly conical point, the Pollux shaves a slight curvature into the tip of your pencil so it’s just barely concave. This gives a longer point so you can write more between sharpenings. Other sharpeners do the same thing but the 18.5-degree curve of the Pollux is unquestionably superior. Solid brass German craftsmanship. Heavy. Will survive a nuclear blast. Around $35 on Amazon.
The Perfect Practical Gift: the Perfect Legal Pad
I searched a long time for the perfect legal pad and these brilliant yellow pads from Levenger are among the very best. Designed for busy, organized professionals who appreciate quality, they represent all the best design someone could find in a legal pad: perforated pages, quarter-inch ruled lines in gray so they’re easy on the eyes, a stiff heavy back so they won’t bend, and heavy acid-free paper that archives well. Each page’s preprinted layout emulates the classic Cornell note-taking style, though it is missing the summary box. I’ve reviewed a number of notebooks and legal pads in this space, and they are almost all very good, but my everyday carry includes one of these in my briefcase and one on my desk because they are simply outstanding artifacts of useful design. Level up for the perfect gift by adding Levenger’s leather freeleaf leather pad backer.
The Ideal Desk Pad and Sticky Notes
In the daily life of scribbling analogs, jotting is serious business. A notebook is vital on the go, but at your desk, its efficacy is eclipsed by a blotter pad. Think of it as an open-faced notebook. Where the notepad has two, maybe three steps to recording a thought, the desk pad has zilch. It’s already there, already open, waiting for you to scrawl “Anne needs the dep!” or “Court at 3?” But the great, wide classic calendar blotter is overkill — and no fun. A better bet is Baron Fig’s Mastermind, a truly utile pad with a dot grid matrix and archival-quality paper. For the obsessive sticky-noter and blotter jottist, there is no better gift. Unless you pair the Mastermind with some serious sticky notes. Price: $16 for the standard size (12″x8″), $8 for the mini (6″x8″).
Sticky notes are a thing. You use them. Your entire office uses them. Future archeologists will use them to label the boxes and boxes of Post-it notes they will unearth when they discover our ancient office supply stores. But the arduous effort of writing on them, the strain of being legible, oh, the horror of writing your ninth draft of “PLEASE DON’T LEAVE USED YOGURT CUPS IN THE MICROWAVE (STEVE).” Well, not anymore. With the Cubinote, you can print perfectly crafted custom sticky notes from your desk or your phone. And just look at it! Price: $150 for the printer, and $11 for the paper.
Books and Planners for Serious Analogs
Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner
Balancing your job and your life can seem like a distant fantasy for many attorneys. Maybe most attorneys. Your job requires laserlike focus sustained for days, sometimes weeks, as you grind through a case. Finding time to do all those things you want to do and see those people who live in your house who look vaguely like you in miniature (who are they?) is tough. Finding time to sleep is nearly impossible. Unless you draw a line in the Berber and tell your work, you shall not pass! Carving out personal time is the only way you’ll ever have any. Using Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner makes that a lot easier. It is a comprehensive, science-based, experience-based tool for busy professionals to give their life order and balance. I used one for much of this year and was most impressed by the importance this planner places on sleep.
Price: $125 for the Classic (annual subscription). Budget alternative: Leuchtturm 1917 Daily Planner for 2020, $19.95. Check Attorney at Work’s “Ultimate Gift Guide for Lawyers” for more journal options.
Spencer Handwriting Workbook
Sure, it takes longer to write “Get me those briefs now or I will kill you” on a sticky note than it does to type them into your computer — but there is value in that time. Writing in cursive engages more of your executive mind than typing. You can’t write without looking at the words you’re laying down, and you have to make a lot of microdecisions as you go about shape and clarity and word choice. Beautiful penmanship is merely icing on the cake of writing by hand: Practicing and mastering this skill not only rewards you with a gorgeous script, the actual practice — which you can perform in these incredible Spencerian Method Handwriting Manuals — delivers the same reward as meditation.
The Obstacle Is the Way
I am a fan of Stoicism. I practice it daily to the chagrin of my neighbors, who are constantly asking why I’m in the yard wearing a toga. It’s a useful daily philosophy easily nutshelled by Ryan Holiday’s bestselling title, “The Obstacle Is the Way,” and an emerging trendy mindset, which is funny since it’s more than 2,000 years old. Marcus Aurelius, Zeno of Citium, Seneca and Epictetus were Stoics, as are Bill Clinton, Anna Kendricks and T-Pain. The philosophy seems ready-made for busy professionals who are highly competitive, the kind of people who meet their challenges teeth first. I’m not one of those people. I’m a wishy and rather washy book nerd and the only thing I meet teeth first is a sandwich. Yet I find enormous comfort and strength in Stoicism. It manages to keep me grounded and as humble as I’ll ever be. Stoicism has taught me to treat adversities as fortunate lessons.
Price: Between $12 and $15 (used) at Alibris or about $18 new on Amazon.
Can’t Decide? Stuck in a Sucky Secret Santa Simulacrum? Or Just Hate Camels?
Have we got the gift for you! For less than $20 you can bring a smile to any attorney’s face by gifting them the greatest book ever written by a guy named Bull from Chicago: “Fat in Paris!” is mostly funny and at least 80% spelled correctly.
Attorney at Work’s Analog gift guide is updated annually.
More Gift Guidance from Attorney at Work
You’ll find gift ideas for analog attorneys in our hand-picked ultimate gift guide for lawyers, and gifts for the new law school graduate in this guide, both updated annually. Check the Attorney at Work bookstore as well for updated ideas, including a wearables section.
Note that neither the author nor the publishers receive compensation for recommending these items. In some instances, when you use a retail link to purchase something, Attorney at Work may earn a small affiliate commission.
Illustration ©iStockPhoto.com
