Paper Title

-- By JoshuaHochman - 16 Apr 2010

On the threshold of adulthood, just about every career appears to have a set of protocols that governs success and failure. This makes growing into a career an extremely intimidating process. Law is the quintessential example: centuries of tradition meet contemporary ideas about justice and are played out in courtrooms or boardrooms or Dean & Deluca's across the world.

The weight of tradition that underlies 1L is extremely taxing to somebody who doesn't know what kind of lawyer they want to be just yet. The attorneys depicted in the excerpted chapters of Lawrence Joseph's Lawyerland provide a refreshing breath of blunt clarity to a profession that is too often shrouded in formalities. I argue here that this type of honesty is extremely helpful to future attorneys, despite any friction with the formalities of being a law student.

Advocacy

When Robinson is called "vulgar" by the federal prosecutor, his defense incorporates enough dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system to reframe the term. Though this is a secondhand account, the book's description here is largely depictive of misappropriated attention. Why is maintaining the appearance of justice and civility more important than talking about what is really going on?

Robinson Breaks Through the Charade

A good advocate's path is a fine line to walk. If Robinson had dropped ... 'the f-word' ... in front of a judge, he would most certainly have been held in contempt, regardless of his clear conscience and righteous intentions. Meanwhile, keeping all aspects of an uphill legal battle bottled up to comply with empty formalities is likely to stifle creative legal thinking. Consider, for example, that Robinson lacked any perspective on the Department of Justice's practice of protecting informants or that the manner in which the cards had been stacked against his 'definitely dumb, not really bad' client. He would be less cynical, perhaps, and certainly less prone to resorting to expletives. However, he would have traded away his effectiveness and livelihood. His bite comes across as essential to the career path he has chosen. Which Robinson would you want defending you?

From this question I thus gather that the issues facing clients might, and probably should, affect their advocates in a powerful way. It would be hard to imagine an oblivious Robinson using the same language as the Robinson in Lawyerland, just as it would be hard to imagine him turning down clients that he believed to be dishonest. I read Robinson's vulgar language as a manifestation of a stronger personal connection with his casework.

Adversary

The snarky banter flying across the table at Dean & Deluca in "Cerriere's Answer" provides another redefinition of lawyerly conduct. Tharaud and Cerriere, two attorneys on opposite ends of labor and employment law disputes, provoke one another in an exchange of legal perspectives that follows a settlement of their case.

Getting Under One's Skin

The discussion between Tharaud and Cerriere represents two different career paths that are linked by not so dissimilar world views. It is clear that these two attorneys work and thrive in the same legal perspective (in contrast to Robinson and the prosecutor offended by his language). They both seem to know the repercussions of their clients' behavior and have chosen their sides accordingly.

These realities come to light through language that many would describe as 'unprofessional.' In reading their discussion, I am reminded of the subtle ways in which adolescents tease one another by revealing and exploiting sensitive subjects (like Cerriere's wife's job among the types of men he defends or Tharaud's lucrative paydays omitted from her history of advocating for the working class). This exchange humanizes the attorneys in a way that no school-sponsored Q & A or cocktail hour could. The fact that they become genuinely angry reveals that some truth underlies the criticisms put forth by their adversaries-that there is some semblance of self-doubt and ambivalence that may endure despite great commitments and successes.

Conclusion

In playing lawyer, I recently purchased a suit. It is a pretty nice suit, not that I could really tell that it was of a higher quality than my old suit, or any different from it, but thanks to a savvy friend, I supposedly got a good deal. This was my law school suit—my lawyer suit. I wore it to some interviews, and my moot court arguments, and I got some compliments on it, which really just ended up making me feel self-conscious. This is because I am not a suit person. I'm not a haircut person. Most days of the week, I'm not even a 'I should probably shave today' person. How am I going to ever be a lawyer?

I can work on the outside stuff, like suits and facial hair and not slouching, but it's the propriety of the job that bothers me. I'm not sure if all law students experience the self-suffocation that accompanies playing the part of an industrious (ha!) law student, but when I read more colorful accounts of lawyer-speak (as opposed to 'law-talk'), I feel like a little bit of weight has been lifted off my back. This is about much more than saying whatever I want-distinguished colleagues often deserve the respect they are customarily afforded by the sheer fact that they are my fellow men and women. However, it sure makes my future look a lot brighter to know that if I have a client in a shitty situation, I won't have to act numb to it because I'm being paid to.

Joshua, I have some general comments that I want preserved in the wiki before I post my revised copy of your paper. I tried to refine your thesis. I felt that you had a lot of ideas that got a bit scrambled in the discussion of the Lawyerland passages. I tried to refocus the essay to magnify what I believe to be your core thought: Learning law talk is different that learning how a lawyer talks. The conversations you cited involve lawyers speaking about law in an emotional and raw manner that law school seems to want to stifle. I have tried to edit the paper in a way that emphasizes that aspect. Your strongest restatement of your point comes in your concluding two paragraphs. These paragraphs are more personal and are more powerful than the preceding parts of the essay. Therefore, I tried to weave your experiences as a law student throughout the essay. This has involved writing from what I perceive to be your perspective, so I apologize if I have made any assertions about how you feel that you would disagree with.

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