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How To Be A Good Lawyer, Pt. 2 | | | Tharaud meets Marshall’s standards and Marshall meets Tharaud’s, but Tharaud falls far short of her own standards while Marshall far exceeds his. The results are anomalous only in that the lawyer surpassing the higher bar set the lower (only in the context of providing a measurement of a lawyer—certainly not in his personal life). Since I know less than I have already asserted about Marshall, I will elaborate upon Tharaud. | |
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< | I am willing to accept that Tharaud is a victim of circumstance—more precisely, that she is more of a victim of circumstance than the rest of us or that her circumstances are more victimizing than ours. But whether that means that I hope to avoid her circumstances or that I hope to be less influenced (i.e., victimized) by similar circumstances, the bottom line is that I hope not to become a lawyer like her. Pardon the possible verbosity (especially given the word limit), but nothing short of the previous can justify the following: the countless indignities Tharaud suffered forever relocated the focus of her passion and her career from redefining the American employment relationship/system to vindictively and opportunistically exacting revenge and seeking protection for herself and for herself through others similarly situated. It would be an understatement indeed to assert merely that Tharaud has not forgotten the indignities she suffered; more than rooting themselves in her memory, they have become part of her person. In each and every lawsuit in which Tharaud takes part, one can see her seeking reparations for the transgressions she endured. The transferal of blame from one corporation or institution to another is a natural enough move, considering that each is a faceless entity largely constructed by and consisting of the same type of white males that dominated the industries while Tharaud’s suffering was at its peak; likewise, as marginalized individuals having been subjected to the evils of the American employment system, each plaintiff in the discrimination claims represents Tharaud just as much as Tharaud represents them. Whether or not any amount of money can heal Tharaud’s wounds, it is the only language her assailants understand (or it is the way in which her assailants bleed). Consequently, it is the form her revenge takes, and taking as much of it as she can becomes her goal. This explains why the same vindictiveness and opportunism that keep Tharaud from being a good lawyer such as Harris do not disqualify her from meeting Marshall’s standard. For, after failing to get what she wanted, Tharaud fundamentally changed the object of her desire. Rather than drastically alter the American conception of the employment relationship that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, Tharaud has resigned herself to being satisfied with making a few of the rich slightly less rich, a few of the poor slightly less poor, and—most of all—herself tremendously wealthier. | >
> | I am willing to accept that Tharaud is a victim of circumstance—more precisely, that she is more of a victim of circumstance than the rest of us or that her circumstances are more victimizing than ours. But whether that means that I hope to avoid her circumstances or that I hope to be less influenced (i.e., victimized) by similar circumstances, the bottom line is that I hope not to become a lawyer like her. Pardon the possible verbosity (especially given the word limit), but nothing short of the previous can justify the following: the countless indignities Tharaud suffered forever relocated the focus of her passion and her career from redefining the American employment relationship/system to vindictively and opportunistically exacting revenge and seeking protection for herself and for herself through others similarly situated. It would be an understatement indeed to assert merely that Tharaud has not forgotten the indignities she suffered; more than rooting themselves in her memory, they have become part of her person. In each and every lawsuit in which Tharaud takes part, one can see her seeking reparations for the transgressions she endured. The transferal of blame from one corporation or institution to another is a natural enough move, considering that each is a faceless entity largely constructed by and consisting of the same type of white males that dominated the industries while Tharaud’s suffering was at its peak; likewise, as marginalized individuals having been subjected to the evils of the American employment system, each plaintiff in the discrimination claims represents Tharaud just as much as Tharaud represents her. Whether or not any amount of money can heal Tharaud’s wounds, it is the only language her assailants understand (or it is the way in which her assailants bleed). Consequently, it is the form her revenge takes, and taking as much of it as she can becomes her goal. This explains why the same vindictiveness and opportunism that keep Tharaud from being a good lawyer such as Harris do not disqualify her from meeting Marshall’s standard. For, after failing to get what she wanted, Tharaud fundamentally changed the object of her desire. Rather than drastically alter the American conception of the employment relationship that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, Tharaud has resigned herself to being satisfied with making a few of the rich slightly less rich, a few of the poor slightly less poor, and—most of all—herself tremendously wealthier. | | | There might be a tendency to excuse Tharaud on account of the extreme difficulty of the pursuit of her original goal. But even if the task is virtually impossible, that does not exculpate Tharaud after she chooses an easier, more self-serving, more lucrative cause. And before we declare the original pursuit futile, remember that Tharaud is aware of bona fide sweatshops a few blocks away from the chic SoHo restaurants she frequents but neglects to use the incredible amount of power she has (of which Cerriere informs us) to do anything about them. Besides being depraved and evil, the perverts are insolvent, and thus are not worth Tharaud’s or Tharaud Tineman & Conway’s time. | | | While I'm also not sure I'd read in all of that vindictiveness, I (as expected) would like to reiterate that you need people like her. Not everyone can go run for Congress or donate huge sums of money or run awareness campaigns. Someone has to do the nitty gritty work, too. I'm not sure I like the normative judgment that that work isn't worth doing or is being done for the wrong reasons. There's a reason why Tharaud is a lawyer and not a politician.
-- KateVershov - 14 Apr 2008 | |
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Admittedly, the evidence supporting my statements is scant, but we are working with a selective sampling of information. Far less sufficient, I think, is textual evidence negating any of my claims--clearly not the best measure of solid reasoning, but I would like to know what portions of the text stand in opposition to my assertions. I find none, and none have been provided in the responses. I also admit that I am operating under the assumptions that having vengeance as one's motivation is necessarily a bad thing (or is at least worse than not having vengeance as one's motivation, which also does not imply that much good in the way of results cannot come from bad motivations) and that we would look less favorably on an MLK who was motivated by sticking it to the racist whites than on another MLK.
Kate, I'm not sure that I understand fully either the distinction you are drawing between lawyers and politicians or the reason why Tharaud is one and not the other. But I don't think that I would (or did) go so far as to say that Tharaud's work is worthless; I only suggested (declared, perhaps) that it could be more worthwhile. I apologize if I did so dramatically and thereby made the call for (normative) improvement seem like a complete (normative) condemnation.
-- PietroSignoracci - 14 Apr 2008 | | | |
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