By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

"I intend to retire two months after I die."

With those words Buffalo attorney Richard Griffin of the law firm Kavinoky Cook LLP summed up the feelings of a number of local attorneys. At 76 years old, with 51 of those years spent as a trial lawyer, Griffin says he loves what he does and gets "a great deal of satisfaction from practicing private law and helping people with their problems."

Unlike many careers where longtime employees watch the calendar and count the years, then months and finally days until they can escape into the world of the retired, something in the DNA of lawyers seems to drive many of them to work well past the traditional retirement age - and lures many more back even after they do retire.

What is it that motivates these men and women to trek to the office, log in the hours and, for some, hammer out cases in a courtroom at a time in their lives when many of their peers are on a golf course or traveling the world?

The majority say they simply love what they do. They see no need to turn in their legal pad. While some we spoke to said they have cut back on their hours - especially in comparison to what they logged as young lawyers - none has given any serious consideration to retiring.

"Beyond the satisfaction," Griffin said, "there is the fact that every time that phone rings, you feel very important because people are relying on you for advice."

Having shifted his caseload in recent years to focus his practice primarily on mediation, Griffin says he sees no reason to retire "as long as my skills are sharp, the phone keeps ringing and my gray matter is still working."

He says while he enjoys the time he spends away from work, including his work with the Olmsted Parks Conservancy and the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, the thought of those activities being his sole purpose has no appeal to him.

"Some people can get satisfaction out of a life of total leisure," he said. "That doesn't give me anywhere near as much satisfaction as practicing law."

Like Griffin, attorney Nelson Cosgrove has resisted the lure of retirement, even when it may have seemed inevitable.

After completing a 14-year term as a New York State Supreme Court justice for the 8th Judicial District in 2004, it would have been easy for the veteran attorney to hang up his robe and transition to a life of leisure. Instead, Nelson headed straight from behind the bench to behind a desk at Harris Beach.

"Your phone keeps ringing, you still have people calling you and you just don't want to let it go entirely," Cosgrove says of his decision to return to private practice after his tenure on the bench. He says that although he considered various options before moving to Harris Beach, retirement was never one of them.

"I've been working since I was 16 years old and I'm not that good at golf," he said, "so what else would I do?"

James Wadsworth doesn't worry at all about how he will fill his calendar. In addition to his work as a partner with Hodgson Russ LLP, he keeps active in the community as the chairman of the Oishei Foundation, an endeavor to which he commits a considerable percentage of his practice. As he closes in on his 70th birthday, Wadsworth says he hasn't thought about retiring.

"I enjoy what I'm doing, I want to stay active, and it's not that I'm sitting in an office grinding out briefs," he said. "I'm out in the community."

He says there is a certain level of flexibility that his current practice affords him, and that contributes to his longevity as well.

"There are not a lot of harsh deadlines requiring midnight work, and although I did a lot of that when I was younger, now I don't have to do it," he said. "That makes it more appealing."

Wadsworth says he continues to bring in new clients, and that too helps keep him driven to practice.

"Nothing gets stale-," he said. "There are always new things going on, new challenges."

The veteran lawyer shared a final aspect of what motivates him after nearly 45 years spent practicing law in Buffalo.

"I think a senior partner in a firm such as this should work to pass on client work and responsibility to the younger lawyers," Wadsworth said. "Mentoring these young lawyers is something that is a very important part of what I do."