A Relationship with the Law

When you get a case, what is the first thing a lawyer should do? If you are a criminal lawyer, Eben suggests that you might march down to either the public defender's or the D.A.'s office. A lawyer's relationship with his or her adversary is one of their most important tools. It can serve as the channel by which they affect change in the entire legal system. But how much of our personal relationship should invade how we will practice the law? Is it cheating? And how much are we bullshitting ourselves about what the enforcement of the law is really about?

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

Robinson, the veteran lawyer that he is, has relationships with all the lawyers he works with. A relationship with the prosecutor, the judge and the “higher-ups” is all he needs to save a young man from a little over-zealousness resulting in a life sentence or worse. When Robinson opens his big mouth when meeting with a colleague, he isn't doing any legal work in the traditional sense. He isn't proposing a theory or fact to exonerate his client. Nevertheless, Robinson's relationships make all the difference in the legal process.

When I worked in the San Francisco D.A.'s office, these meetings used to happen in the hallway outside Courtroom 9, five minutes before court resumed for the afternoon. Public defenders would line up to exchange pleasantries and talk shop with my boss. None of the talk concerned legal specifics, but before everyone was even seated, she was telling me what the outcomes of each defendant's case would be. There were no allusions, no transcendental nonsense. Whatever was said outside the courtroom had an impact on how she prosecuted the defendant. Once, when she was especially angry with a P.D. for not answering her phone calls, she pushed the court to delay his clients' next hearing to inconvenience his schedule. I remember stealing glances at the defendant who had no idea he was gonna sit in jail for an extra week because his lawyer pissed off my boss.

Personal Relationships and the Law

Personal relationships affect the application of the law in many different arenas, not just in highly adversarial criminal cases. Sometimes, the Supreme Court waits to grant cert so they get certain lawyers to argue an important issue. Even at the highest, most respected level of the law-making, personal relationships carry significant weight. Its perfectly likely and probably the case that the court chooses these attorney's for their intellect and prowess. But there must be some level of personal relations between them all, and the mere fact that the court would choose these counselors suggests that these relations have a real effect on how the law is decided. Even in the temple of transcendental nonsense, pissing off a justice might still have an appreciable effect on the path of the law.

Robinson tells a young A.D.A. to delay her case. When Eben asked me why, I suggested so that the informant might get murdered (which earned some snickers from the class). I might as easily have said, “to piss off opposing counsel”. As much as I might be uncomfortable with the idea, the reality is that these types of legal processes are greatly influenced by the counselors' relationship. I think as a lawyer-to-be, the question for me is to what degree will I allow my personal relationships to affect how I practice law.

I was a second-year undergrad when I was first introduced to some of the realities of the law at the SFDA's office. It obviously did not discourage me from going to law school, but it did scare me away from criminal law. If a man's freedom could depend on a whim, I knew I would feel guilty whether or not he was guilty as well. One of the realities I'm certain to face once I leave law school is that a lawyer practicing any type of law must be prepared to use his personal relationships as a tool to affect change in the law. Choosing to do otherwise would be like choosing to be a carpenter who does not use his hammer.

Law School = Make Relationships???

One of the thoughts that invariably comes to mind is the relationship I am developing with all my fellow future lawyers. I consider my classmates my friends, and I would gladly grant a favor to help a friend out. But as some of these personal relationships develop into professional relationships, how much of that friendliness can remain? While collegiality is always appreciated, there is a line that should not be crossed. Would it be right to half-ass my case because I wanted to give [you] a break while you were going through a rough time? Law school is meant to teach us to think like lawyers who objectively apply the law. But law school will also make us friends and enemies and even lovers, and to think that these relationships won't have an effect on how we practice the law is to ignore the legal realities.

It's not enough to say that personal relationship affect the way lawyers practice. In some cases, elements of these personal relationships are the legal elements. A defendant is acquitted because any evidence against him is thrown out due to an illegal search and seizure. A defendant is acquitted because his particularly attractive lawyer makes a compelling, seductive motion that the judge can't help but grant despite shaky legal grounds. Wherever we draw the line on what the law is, we better be prepared to deal with the things that lie on both sides of that line. As lawyers, the relationships we build with each other are as essential to our practice as the laws of any jurisdiction are. Without making any ground-breaking conclusions, its possible that building strong relationships with each other might actually make us better lawyers than single-mindedly pursuing an A in contracts.