7 Analog Attorney Gift Ideas Too Amazing to Miss

This gift-giving season, reward the attorney in your life with one of these seven luxurious gifts. Because coming up with lawyer gift ideas is notoriously difficult, and because everyone always tries to find something “legal” (don’t do that), we’ve hand-selected the following through a painstaking yearlong process that I started yesterday. So, let’s get into it.

1. The Ultimate High-Ticket Utterly Over-the-Top Fountain Pen

I saw this pen at Atlas Stationers in Chicago and immediately planned to sell a kidney so I could get it. Montegrappa is known for its over-the-top fountain pens. Just take a moment to scroll through their page of insane writing instruments for proof. They’ve been in business since 1912, making the kinds of high-end pens that are no-brainer presents for a lawyer. If you can afford them.

The Odyssey Chapter 1 is over $11,000 (eleven thousand bucks), but you get so much for your money. The craftsmanship goes beyond the mere human into the realm of elven smithing. The barrel is decorated with 12 friezes depicting the major scenes from Homer’s Odyssey in stunning detail. The scenes are rendered in vermeil, which sounds like something from a Tolkien novel but is actually silver gilded with gold. The cap re-creates a Corinthian plinth decorated with acanthus leaves and a tiny silver figurine atop a miniature column. The flat top of the plinth is filled in with mother of pearl and I’m just gonna stop right there because I’m having an emotional experience just typing this.

2. Further Fountain Pen Accessory Overload

This is one of the best lawyer gift ideas for the attorney in your life who uses a fountain pen every day. A penwell is a small wood or metal object that holds your favorite pen when you’re not writing. It sits on your desk, affixed by a micro suction pad, and its aperture is filled with a custom foam insert. You slide your pen into it cap-first, and the foam insert grips your pen by its cap. When you want to write, you just snatch your pen out of its cap and scribe your heart out. When you’re done, stick it back in. It may not sound like much to those who are not pen freaks, but for lawyers who write a lot, it is a godsend because you don’t have to constantly remove and replace the cap of your pen.

3. Not All Luxury Lawyer Gift Ideas Are Expensive

They’re just scissors. And they are tiny scissors — only 3 inches of blade. They’re brass, which is not normally associated with luxury. But the reason they are a great lawyer gift idea is owed to the luxury of their design. They’re either hip and cool or totally adorable, depending on who you give them to. Tools to Live By is a stationer from Tapei. Their calling card is offering ordinary desktop items and stationery elevated to priceless, heirloom-quality status. The company also curates top-quality stationery from established brands like Dux (Germany) or Authentic Models (Netherlands).

4. Give Them the Whole World

This is a ridiculous gift idea and I feel ever so slightly ridiculous adding it here, but the Churchill Floor Standing Globe from Bellerby & Co. is one of those bespoke gifts that will impress for decades. Each globe is painstakingly handcrafted, colors are applied by hand via watercolor washes, and cartographic details are added individually. The whole thing takes forever to make. Customers are encouraged to purchase a gift card and get in line. But the product is unsurpassed.

5. A Portfolio Cover Worth the Money

After the $60,000 globe, maybe we should dial it back a little with something from Galen Leather in the $120 range ($14 more for monogramming). Buying gifts for the analog-leaning attorney in your life might seem like an impossible task. In a digital-forward gadget universe, finding something cool that doesn’t need batteries or a software update is kind of maddening. Get one of these gifts for your retro-tech friends and they’ll say thanks for such a remarkably thoughtful present. Probably with a handwritten card in perfect cursive.

6. An Excellent Type of Gift

As an analog writer, I have a weakness for typewriters. I own a 1944 Smith Corona that could anchor an oil tanker. I regularly troll Marketplace for vintage machines. However, typing is impractical because of its charming analog qualities. You can type out a full page in 12pt Courier and it looks amazing. It feels amazing. Hell, it smells amazing. But you’ll have to type it again to get it into your laptop.

7. The Write Gift for Your Most Stylish Attorneys

Crane Stationery is a world-class outfit. These notecards are beautifully engraved ecru-colored cotton paper cards. You can choose from several typefaces and motifs. But the frog motif in moss green (shown at left below) or clover makes for a collection of 25 whimsical, yet distinctly classy note cards. I prefer the portrait layout because I think it provides a better experience for the recipient. These are not cheap. They’re nearly $6 each so a single box will set you back more than $400. Unless you want a custom return address printed on the reverse, which pushes the cost to $661. However, sending someone a card that was made by hand in London and costs seven bucks makes a hell of an impression.