Bully Lawyers and Other Reasons to Give Thanks.

A client recently said to me the following:

“How fortunate that you’ve lost your idealism. Now, you are totally free.”

I do not know if my belief in the wonder of humanity is defeated, but it is certainly depleted this month.

And, for that, I give thanks.  

Freedom is never free.

________________________

As may be obvious, I have been practicing law for 34 years. I have experienced the sojourn of having members of the bench comment about my attire, and tell me to sit down in my pregnant state. I have experienced counsel condescend when challenged rather than consider and reflect.  And, yes, it has been sexism and ageism in a profession that can harshly “judge” success and failure in absolute win/loss terms.  Overall, though, with time, I have found my competence presumed, and the practice of law grow more collaborative rather than absolutist.  I have had positive curiosity outweigh negative name calling and hard work drive outcomes.  I have watched progress take root.

Until a recent transactional matter grew grade-school yard nasty.

Admittedly, I was part-remote during a slightly less than garden variety transaction.   My staff took direction under time pressure over phone call after phone call while I was not a part of the in-person hurly-burly of chaos. There were, too, behind the scenes reasons to get the transaction complete, a hard deadline that suited no one.

Cue short tempers.

That said, there are some maxims I abide by that this ‘opposing’ counsel did not: 1. Consider the purpose 2. Do not tell others how, when, or why to do their own work; 3. Pause before speaking or writing or attacking; 4. Do not intentionally mislead; 5. Own one’s issues, when and where possible; 6. Address the conflict in the metes and bounds appropriate, not with third-parties; 7. Aim for resolution.

Years ago, in a similar circumstance, I would have been perhaps more gendered, and feminine in a polite response or non-response to someone else’s at best non-sense and lack of professionalism, and at worst, personal attack mode.  Because of those then choices, the event about which I write about now would have been smoother then and at my personal expense.  I would have been ‘nice’ and silently absorbed inappropriate behavior.

No longer am I willing to, in the name of some greater good of client efficiency, take abuse from a so-called colleague who feels emboldened to attack me to my staff.

I am too “old” for and so too should this world be beyond the behavior; that remains true even though, the more I called out the egregious behavior, the worse the behavior became — I wondered if we were really ‘going back’ to my first of days in the hierarchy of the legal profession where patent leather shoes would be remarked upon because they ‘reflect up’ as a joke. [1]

For the benefit of those who will deal with this behavior in some future-time, I remark publicly. It costs me little overall to call out the lack of fundamental respect dished at me in what I thought a very gendered fashion. My reflection may have been a time-consuming pursuit of idealism, of a world in which one should not make comments about character just because ‘they can’ and particularly not to staff. Where one’s place in the world never justifies demeaning others. Where this behavior would not have occurred had my name been Maurice.

One must stand up and rise up to the displays of behavior I believed were once and for all past time but may not be in this year 2024. Where there are public models of this behavior that embolden those who might otherwise restrain their callous disregard, the voices must be loud.

While the practice of law is not for lilting flowers, it must be for those with heart and backbone both.

We (read I) are not going back.

[1] I was reminded in this whole conflict of the TS quote that said ““The most rage-provoking element —- is the gaslighting that happens when, you know, for centuries, we have been just expected to just absorb behavior silently.”