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. Recognizing how personal relationships affect the law allows one to craft more innovative legal solutions by providing an additional thread on which to tug. A lawyer who understands the complex organic processes that influence the law is a lawyer who has the ability to more creatively approach his work.

Personal Relationships: Factories of the Law

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. This was where public defenders would line up to exchange pleasantries and talk shop with my boss. By maintaining a relationship with the prosecutor, these attorneys could broker deals and influence the law in a way that might prove impossible during actual court proceedings. Often, these discussions determined the defendant's fate alone; court proceedings were only allusions, the usual transcendental nonsense. Whatever was said outside the courtroom between the attorneys determined how the defendant was prosecuted.

An example of how striking the importance of personal relationships to the enforcement of the law can be seen when these relationships break down. Once, when the prosecutor was especially angry with a public defender 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.

Manipulation and Exploitation: The Lawyer's Tools

Robinson tells a young federal defender to delay her drug case to gain an advantage for her client. This advice shows another way in which personal relationships and the law interact. By delaying her case, the federal defender can exploit the informant witness' relationship with other individuals. These relationships can influence the witness to act in a favorable way - namely, by not testifying. Though Robinson considers it “profoundly fucked-up”, a creative lawyer will recognize that using the law to affect an individual's relationship with others can be an effective tool.

Thus, personal relationships affect the law, and the law can be used to affect personal relationships. If the law is what it does and not what it is called, then personal relationships can be understood to be one of the organic, social functions that largely affects what the law does. A creative lawyer recognizes the value of relationships between individuals, and will manipulate these relationships to manufacture favorable outcomes. Thus, one of the realities for a lawyer practicing any type of law, is that he must be prepared to use his relationships as well as the relationships between others to affect change in the law. In my opinion, law school doesn't sufficiently help us realize this unpleasant truth, let alone educate us in how to effectively, legally and morally utilize these personal relationships. And setting aside the question of law school efficacy for now, how should we individually limit the way we exploit our relationships with others?

How Should We View Personal Relationships as Law Students?

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.