I think the point of that scene was to illustrate his ability to push her buttons, and well, because he has been doing it for his entire career. I didn't take Martha's dislike of the smell of cleaning products, or her mistaking the minimum wage (to reference Amanda's point in another post) as evidence of fraud or inability to cope. Martha is an older women, raised well, wealthy, who has worked in downtown law firms all her life. She is high up, maybe the highest, on the working man's food chain - she is their leader and advocate, but not she's not one of them. This doesn't change the fact that she represents them, literally - she is leading the fight. And Cerriere is a leader of his faction, the corporate faction. They are two people who embody America's class struggle because they believe in and fight for those opposing ideologies at the highest level, in the court room. But they are also attorneys, not occupying the same space as their clientele. And that, in the end, is what every attorney does - simultaneously embody and live completely separate from the client.

On this note, I’m not sure what to make of the role of sensitivity in “Cerriere’s Answer.” Martha tells Robert: “Your problem, Robert, is that you’re too sensitive.” At the same time, though, she’s far too sensitive to the smell of cleaning chemicals from the “Mop Boy.” Robert points to her excessive emotional reaction to the Mop Boy is evidence of her hyper-sensitivity, which adds an extra piece to this.

Is the idea here that she sympathizes with a romanticized, tragic version of the laborer (Mop Boy), but can’t handle the practical reality? I can’t tell if the point is to make Martha look like a hypocrite, or if the point is to make Cerriere look callous.

Most importantly: what does all this say about the role sensitivity plays in being a lawyer?

-- AlisonMoe - 20 Apr 2010