Throughout the day, while session is in, we start our day reviewing legislative calendars and numerous newly drafted amendments in order to give us a small fraction of what the day could hold. Although a day during session is never a successfully planned or predicted day.
Once we have fully updated ourselves on any actions that have taken place over night, we are in the capitol as the sun comes up in order to arrive early to committee hearings and ensure that our clients and ourselves have seats. During the hearings; which typically last for numerous hours; we testify if it is necessary, prepare clients to testify if necessary, answer questions, track legislation, listen to testimony, read committee members reactions to testimony and compile reports ensuring that all members of our firm and clients are well informed of the actions that took place.
Upon adjournment of committees, we move to the Senate and House galleries in order to monitor all debate and on the floor from start to finish, which amounts to endless hours of vetting. During this time, we are consistently traveling up and down the marble staircases between floors speaking with key members of the Legislature, either in their office or pulling them off the floor, in efforts to cut off hostile amendments or build support for legislation that would benefit our clients.
Between recesses and upon adjournment of session, members of our firm are back in committee hearings, many of which last late into the night and early morning hours. During this time, we again monitor and watch tracked legislation to ensure that our client’s needs are represented.
During our entirety of our workday, many times before and after, we take every opportunity and spare moment we have meeting with members of the Legislature to discuss legislation and our client’s important issues, while compiling reports on all happenings. This typically means leisurely meals rarely happen and most meals are eaten on the run, assuming there is time for even that.
We take our role in legislation very seriously. We are there every moment that the Legislature is there, taking no breaks, no down time. We are required to be informed of every entity of the legislative process, track every step of every bill and be aggressive and strategic in our actions in order to guarantee that nothing slips through the cracks and gets passed us.
One single session amounts to hours of grueling work, reading of countless bills and amendments, little food, little sleep and massive amounts of stress and moments of panic. The legislative session is a hard and long road but the rewards, the success we witness, in the end are worth the journey.