On February 16, 2015, Gerard Haubrich lost a many-year battle with cancer. He fought with a bravery, tenacity and humor that inspire us, even as we wrestle with the pain of loss.
I had the privilege and pleasure to work with Gerard for more than fourteen years. We began as vendor and customer. In 2001 I joined his staff, and became one of his Practice and Project Service Directors. Without undermining formal titles or authority, we worked as colleagues, with deep respect for each other’s skills, experience and insights. I have had no colleague easier to talk to, whether about work or about life.
Gerard recognized and championed the people who make technology work. He understood that lawyers need technology to serve their practice of law, not to win a beauty contest for the flashiest tool or solution. He called technology a fragile ecology, a truth that continues. We struggled to deliver both simplicity and capability. Sometimes it was hard to achieve a winning combination.
When we first met, I sought to win the engagement with Drinker Biddle by answering his questions, as directly as I could. He said that doing just that won the work. I never forgot that and continue to try to teach it.
Gerard gave me an extraordinary chance to develop a new technology curriculum as part of the expanded training for arriving lawyers in 2008. Sooner or later, I may publish the book we wrote in those classes.
May we achieve and sustain relationships as strong as those Gerard created and cultivated. May our memories of Gerard keep his soul flourishing in our lives.