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IAmALawyerIAmNeverFarFromEvil 5 - 11 Feb 2012 - Main.SkylarPolansky
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| | Robinson’s declaration reminded me of this scene from the television show The Wire. For those of you who have not seen the show, the witness, Omar Little, is testifying to the fact that he saw the defendant, “muscle” for a local drug operation, shoot and kill an innocent person. The attorney—a man whom Robinson would describe as a criminal lawyer in both senses—represents this particular drug outfit in all of their legal matters.
Omar’s words “I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase” are another articulation of one of the themes in Lawyerland: the attempt to sort people into “good” and “evil” can be an exercise in reductionism. The belief in such dichotomies undermines society’s ability to analyze the social forces at work within it. Recognizing this, The Wire tries to challenge conventional categorizations of good and evil surrounding crime. Watching the show you will empathize with the drug-dealing murderer, hate the commissioner of the police department and feel an overwhelming ambivalence towards most of the main characters. Each hero is, at times, an antihero. Each character is good, evil, both and neither. | | | (I realize I may have taken this somewhat off-topic, so I'll only end by saying that that episode of The Wire is the best ever.)
-- JaredMiller - 10 Feb 2012 | |
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> | I appreciate the point Jared makes about the fact that if top law school students successfully learn how to exploit situations to their advantage and how to be good lawyers, they will be doing so only to serve corporations. But what about the fact that law schools don't really teach us how to successfully manipulate situations and/or the law to our advantage, but rather, how to feel comfortable doing that solely on behalf of the rich? The learning we acquire in law school seems to me in no way related to how to successfully manipulate the law. We learn this skill in the jobs we will have after law school, regardless of whether that job is in BigLaw or in public interest. One of the biggest pieces of bullshit Columbia feeds us is that we will only get the right training if we work at a firm after school. I just don't think this is true. We will get training in how to manipulate the law regardless of where we work, the only difference is that a firm will teach us to be comfortable doing this magic on behalf of solely people with money, whereas a job elsewhere will teach us how to be comfortable doing this magic on behalf of some people with money and some people without. Why do top schools try and instill this level of comfort in us? Maybe because it's unnatural to feel comfortable working our butt off for corporations which are non-natural, non-entities. One doesn't have to convince herself of the goodness in helping an underprivileged person navigate our legal system - there is an emotional reward that comes naturally with such a deed. Convincing ourselves of the goodness in helping an extremely privileged person takes a lot. It takes about $150k in tuition.
Sidenote: I enjoyed Moglen's statement yesterday (2/9/12) that we are kind to the rich and just to the poor. I found this point beautifully poignant. It is concise (11 words) and highlights the way we manipulate our legal system disparately depending on the socioeconomic status of who we are helping, and then try to mask this disparity with language. Taken out of context being “kind” to a person, or “just” to a person are normally both good ways of treating people so we think it's good to treat a person either way. However when these words are inserted into the above sentence the negative aspect of treating somebody just “justly” becomes apparent. I love word-play - perhaps that's why I enjoyed this point.
Columbia trains its students how to man |
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