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LawyerlandDeepEnd 4 - 16 Feb 2010 - Main.RonMazor
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| | After class on Thursday, I decided I'd track down a copy of Lawyerland for the weekend (as it turns out, there's only one copy). It's a short read. In any event, I thought I'd share my reactions.
The book makes you hate lawyers. And pity them. Numerous snapshots of lawyers flit by: egotistical, insensitive, insecure, angry, troubled, and unhappy. There's a debate between three attorneys over whose paycheck is bigger. There's a lawyer who decides a conversation consists of two things: his opinion, and everyone listening to it-- rebuking anyone who tries to chime in with a contribution. There's the federal judge who regrets dedicating her life to achieve a position that has so little power; as she puts it: | | | In watching, I've realized something mildly troubling--it is pleasurable to watch unhappy lawyers. Chalk it up to schadenfreude, I guess. | |
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< | One thing the show had in its pilot, and which it stepped away from, was forcing the new lawyers to make morally ambiguous choices and sublimate themselves to partners' demands. I guess the writers figured it wouldn't be fun for people to watch a constant parade of lawyers making ugly choices. | >
> | One thing the show had in its pilot, and which it stepped away from, was forcing the new lawyers to make morally ambiguous choices and sublimate themselves to partners' demands. I guess the writers figured it wouldn't be fun for people to watch a constant parade of lawyers making ugly decisions. | | | Additionally, it seems to take some liberties on the realism front. Example: A court certifies a class in a product liabilities case. The case continues. In Civ Pro, we spoke a bit about how class certification is often the trigger for settlement, because no company wants to risk losing. | | | http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/01/abcs_the_deep_end_because_tele.html | |
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> | -- RonMazor - 13 Feb 2010 | | | I've been watching the Deep End as well. I would say it is nothing more than "good" television. I think the article about the television show from The New York Times was right when it said it features the "old school" pre-Recession days of firms when young attorneys were living a more leisurely social life while getting paid big bucks. I have a few friends who have actually said -- in response to the show--"maybe I should go to law school". I always laugh and let them know that it is just tv.
The Deep End is interesting to me because it really does work overtime to set up the different archetypes of lawyers: Dylan: the young idealistic, ivy league graduate who says "Justice. That's why I went to law school", but then works at the big firm, or the partner Cliff who battles with the managing partner Hart about doing too much pro bono work. (See http://abc.go.com/shows/the-deep-end/bio for more). It is quite entertaining but unrealistic. I also think the NPR quote is interesting because the show seems to put feature social issues every episode and show how young lawyers are doing substantive work that is changing "everyday people's" lives. I wonder how real this is at big prestigious firms. I doubt it's as present as it is on the show. | | | Just my thoughts on the show.
p.s.- the acting is pretty horrible. | |
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> | -- KrystalCommons - 16 Feb 2010
After today's discussion about Robinson, I'd like to add a different interpretation of his "Lawyers and Greed" speech.
Robinson hates that his fellow lawyers get caught up in a meaningless pursuit of money. He doesn't understand why they have become so lost. And he probably can't, because his experience is not that of his fellow lawyers. It serves as a good introduction, because like Robinson, the only perspective the reader has regarding the multitude of "greedy" lawyers is that of an outsider peering in.
It's not the full story. And as the book progresses, the reader gets an inside glimpse of the lawyers that Robinson eviscerates in his opening oration.
Through further vignettes, what emerges is that the greed is often an escape. Many lawyers are dissociative, but the culprit is their own uneasiness at the realities of their life. Deep down, their jobs make them uncomfortable. They hate their own skin, so they throw themselves into materialism and routine. They drink and they marry and they splurge and they jetset and they cheat and they divorce and they repeat. In short, they do everything in their power to keep their inner world distracted and quiet.
In the context of the larger book, Robinson has mistaken a symptom for a cause.
-- RonMazor - 16 Feb 2010 |
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