My advice to practicing lawyers—especially those of you in your 40s or older is to start planning the second, third or fourth acts of your careers.

I want to tell you the story of Jerry Doyle, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in this District and partner of my old firm Cahill Gordon. He was slight of build, thinning hair, with sharp blue eyes and, as you will see, quite courageous and irreverent. After years of handling antitrust suits, internal investigations and commercial disputes at age 65 he decided he had enough. His wife Gertrude had passed and his children had grown. He decided to take his firm pension and purchase a cottage in Osterville on beautiful Cape Cod.