About
About me
I’m a lawyer in private practice in Houston, Texas. (View my LinkedIn profile.) My last name is pronounced as if it were Tate (the original German spelling was apparently Tödt).
I spend a good deal of my time on my Drafter’s Choice model contract project, developing tools to reduce the time and expense of negotiating routine commercial contracts.
My non-work blog is The Questioning Christian.
Any views I might express on-line are my own and not those of my clients, my former employer, my former law firm, my parish, etc., etc.
Contacting me
My email address is dc //dahtt// toedt //attt // toedt //dahtt // commm. (I’ve spelled it out strangely to try to defeat “bot” software that spammers use to systematically troll through Web pages looking for email addresses.) CAUTION: DO NOT send me any confidential information without my prior agreement; if you do, you might lose any applicable attorney-client privilege in the information, because you and I will not have an attorney-client relationship unless we both expressly agree to that in advance. See also the Cautions page.
About the name of this blog
This blog’s name, 100 Feet Up, was inspired by an old lawyer joke: A hot-air balloonist gets lost. Hoping to learn where he is, he descends as low as he can, still staying at a safe altitude to be certain of avoiding power lines and the like. Continuing to sail along, he soon spies a passerby and shouts down to him.
Balloonist: “Where am I?”
Passerby: “You’re in a balloon, about 100 feet up.”
Balloonist, disgustedly: “You must be a lawyer.”
Passerby: “How did you know?”
Balloonist: “What you’ve told me is 100% accurate but not particularly helpful.”
In hindsight, I like the name for another reason: From 100 feet up (literally or metaphorically), you can often get a more complete picture of your situation, which can help you do a better job of planning your next moves and your future actions.