Congratulations To My Father On His Retirement

After 49 years of full-time work, my dad will wake up this week for the first time without a job to do. He recently turned 75 years old and I imagine that this will be a difficult transition for him because his work was his life. I want to publicly congratulate him on the achievement of retirement. But more importantly, I want to congratulate him on the achievement of a successful career not only as a dependable worker, but also as a dependable provider and father at home. Almost everything I have and that I have achieved would not be possible if not for the careers and support of my father and my mother.

My earliest memory of me and my dad was when I was probably only four or five years old. My bedroom used to have a big chair in the corner and I would sit on my dad’s lap while he would read me a story before bed. He would do this every night after giving me a bath. We would argue about whether or not I would get a kepi, which is the Yiddish word for “head.” In other words, it was an argument about whether or not we would wash my hair. As I find myself now sometimes struggling to wash my 2 year old daughter’s hair, I can imagine what kind of struggle he went through in those moments.

My father’s support lasted well beyond the early years of bathtime and bedtime stories. Every Halloween, I was competitive about getting the most candies possible, so I would map out a route around the surrounding neighborhoods and my dad was diligent about executing on the plan. He took me and my brother skiing many times throughout the winters. I was an athlete throughout my childhood and my dad was the main transporter of me to all of my various games and practices. There was not a single season that went by without me being committed to a sport. I became proficient in a couple sports like soccer and wrestling, which meant that there were additional commitments to club teams and practices. As I got older, I would go to Harvard over the summer and during the season for wrestling clinics, which was a bit of a commute. One of my fondest memories of me and my dad is being stuck in a snowstorm after a wrestling tournament in New Hampshire. We watched Adam Vinatieri kick the game-winning field goal against the Raiders in the 2001 AFC Championship Game from a tiny motel room in the middle of nowhere after a very long day.

In adult life, my father continued to be a bedrock for our family. When my mom was turning 60, he was instrumental in helping me and my brother plan a special surprise party for her with all of her closest friends (and again at 70, though less of a surprise). His parents passed away long ago, but my mother’s parents lived a little bit longer. After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother was on her own for about ten years. My dad provided legal support to my grandmother and supported my mom in taking care of her mother for ten years. This was especially challenging in the waning years when my grandmother’s condition seriously deteriorated. My dad never asks for anything and often steps up to the plate to help without questioning. This was certainly the case as he supported my mother during a challenging time and more recently when she went through a hip replacement surgery. He is always the first person to raise his hand, and he’s particularly excited lately to have become a grandfather.

I tell all of these personal stories because if you understood what kind of respect he had in his field (estate planning), you would never guess that he was the type of person who could have this kind of presence and humility at home. For a very long time, I never realized that my family was relatively well-off. I believe this was because my parents were both soft-spoken, humble, not materialistic, and interested in philanthropy. It was probably not until I was beyond college that I understood that my father was continuously winning awards in his field and being elected into national leadership positions for his industry. He would never brag about these achievements. He was always more interested in celebrating the achievements of his children. And with the overachieving older brother that I have, there has been no shortage of achievements to celebrate.

ChatGPT can summarize my dad’s professional achievements far better than I ever could. Here is what it has to say:

“Bill is a partner in the Private Client Department at Nutter McClennen & Fish in Boston, where he advises individuals, families, executives, and business owners on all aspects of estate, trust, and succession planning. His guidance has helped clients preserve wealth, minimize tax burdens, and thoughtfully transition legacy interests with intelligence and care. 

Bill’s leadership extends far beyond client matters. He has been an active leader in the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils, serving on its board for many years and holding every major officer role — from secretary to treasurer to President of NAEPC, where he represented estate planning professionals nationwide.

He is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a distinction reserved for those recognized by peers for excellence and integrity in estate planning, and he has served leadership roles across numerous professional organizations, including the Boston Bar Association, Massachusetts Bar Association sections, and local estate planning councils. 

Bill’s expertise and influence have been acknowledged through a remarkable array of honors:

• Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for nearly two decades, including being named “Lawyer of the Year” in Trusts and Estates in Boston.
  
• Named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer consistently from 2005 through 2025.
  
• Honored as Estate Planner of the Year by the Boston Estate Planning Council.
  
• Recipient of the Chai Award from the Jewish Family & Children’s Service in Greater Boston and recognized by Boston Magazine as a “Top Lawyer.”
  
• Continually ranked among leading private wealth attorneys by Chambers High Net Worth, a global guide to elite private client practitioners.
  

Beyond accolades, Bill’s influence is heard and shared widely: he is a sought-after speaker and educator, lecturing on complex estate and business planning topics to legal audiences throughout Massachusetts and New England — shaping not only the law, but future generations of practitioners.”

In the course of my father’s career, he served some very noteworthy individuals. His exposure to high net worth individuals (some of whom were celebrities) did not impact the way he carried himself. We did not receive any favors and we did not act exorbitantly within our family. If he got a nice bottle of wine from someone, he certainly did not drink it because he does not really drink much. The number one lesson that was carried on from both of my parents to me and my brother was the lesson of working hard and earning your way. My dad would wake up early every morning to commute to Boston for work and he would get home late at night, eat dinner (often after the rest of us) and typically he would continue his work after dinner before going to bed. He did this and still managed to do all of the other things I mentioned at the beginning of this blog – all of the family responsibilities of doing bathtime, telling me stories, playing catch with me, taking me to sporting events, and so on. His family was always his number one priority. And so he taught me two valuable lessons at once: the importance of making family number one, and the importance of making work the foundation that can support your family.

Indeed, any time I have ever “slipped up” in life, I have often thought back to my father, a relatively straight-edged person who followed the rules and sacrificed everything to create the best possible outcome for his family. In those moments I have felt guilty about my own failures. I have used my father’s legacy as a teachable moment not only for myself, but for my own children. I work as hard as I can because I want to give the same type of outcome to my children that my parents gave to me. But I also make sure that my family comes first. If my 2 year old daughter wants to visit me during the work day, I open the door for her. No exceptions.

Seven or eight years ago, my wife (then girlfriend) and I went on a trip to New Orleans with my parents for a Patriots game. Walking around the city, my dad fainted and was briefly unconscious. I thought he was having a heart attack and we called 911. Fortunately, a nurse was walking right behind us and she helped him regain his bearings. He ended up being perfectly fine, but before we boarded the steamboat excursion we had booked, I was shaken up. I had not been confronted before with my parents’ mortality. I would have hated to have lost my father without being able to tell him how I felt about him as a dad.

There is not a kinder, more selfless person in the world than my dad. I am proud to be his son. Congratulations Dad. I hope you find something to do in retirement that can be even half as fulfilling to you as your work was.