Coming on three years ago, I wrote about toxic productivity. Among my pithy comments were the following nuggets:
Category: The Mentality and Attitudes of Lawyers
Back when I was attending Vanier College in Montreal, I met a girl named Marta who was quite beautiful. I could see myself dating someone like Marta, so I tried to get to know her. I was very happy when Marta told me that she thought that I was a nice guy, she liked me a whole bunch, and she cared very deeply about me.
Back in law school, my criminal law professor told us that our job would be to use every bit of our intelligence, ingenuity, and strength, and to work tirelessly, to deliver the best possible outcome for our client. “But,” he told us, “if at the end of the day, someone has to go to jail, make sure that it is your client.” He was warning us not to become so zealous in our representation of our client that we crossed over the ethical or legal lines.
I got into a bit of a dust-up with a lawyer on LinkedIn the other day. She wrote something that I did not agree with, which was clothed in reverence for human rights, so I countered with my usual intelligent and incisive commentary, informed by my long history in the legal profession.
You, who are on the road; must have a code you try to live by; and so become yourself; because the past is just a goodbye; teach your children well.
~ Graham Nash
Parents teach their children about success by reference to how things were during their productive years. To my grandparents, success was a job in the front office at the factory, rather than on the production floor. My parents hoped that their children would become professionals. I wanted my children to achieve some work/life balance.
Out here in the country where I now live, it is a good thing if your septic tank is located on a lower elevation than your house. If it is not, you need something called a macerator to grind up the poop so that it can be pumped up to your septic tank, because as we all know, shit rolls downhill.
To put this in the context of a law firm, one might note that the most senior partners are usually on the highest floor of the office building.
Dictionary[dot]com defines a “Citiot” as follows:
“a city dweller who, when visiting or vacationing in the country, is perceived as being condescending to the locals and generally ill-equipped to be in a suburban or rural setting: applied especially in upstate New York to a tourist from New York City.”
“It is an ill wind that blows no good.”
~ John Heywood
I recently wrote what I thought was a rather nifty article about the ills in the legal profession, and concluded, as I often do, that many of them can be traced to a culture of greed in Big Law. I got that part past my editors without a problem.
“Lead, follow, or get out of the way” is an expression which some attribute to Thomas Payne. Tommy died in 1809, so this is hardly a new turn of speech.
And yet, back in my law firm (and I suspect in many others), there were partners who never came to terms with it.
It’s Not a Principle Until it Costs You Money
~ Bill Bernbach
We have all been reading about the law firm of Paul Weiss having settled with the Trump Administration to get out from under an Executive Order, the legality of which is to say the least, questionable.
Some say that Paul Weiss buckled under instead of defending the rule of law. Their Managing Partner said that they were facing an existential crisis and that they took reasonable steps to survive and protect their clients. He also mentioned that their peers in the legal industry offered little support, and in fact targeted their clients.