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< | A Relationship with the Law | >
> | Relationships within the Law | | | | |
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< | 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. | >
> | -- By NithinKumar | | | | |
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< | Actually, it's just how
you do the job. | >
> | Lawyers manage a wide range of professional relationships, from fellow attorneys to clients to judges. Yet, while all lawyers manage these types of relationships, the nature and quality of these relationships differ vastly depending on the area of the law and the type of practice. Having yet to enter the professional world, I want to give some thought to what healthy, mutually-beneficial relationships in the law look like, and how this should inform my decision in choosing a career. | | | | |
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< | 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. | >
> | No Connection, No Justice | | | | |
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< | How about "being a lawyer is about communicating with people"? | >
> | While working at the San Francisco D.A.'s office, I learned that the relationship between the prosecutor and the defense attorney was an important one; by this channel of communication, issues could be dealt with in ways that might prove impossible during actual court proceedings. However, because so much of their jobs depended on their relationship with the prosecutor, public defenders rarely placed much importance on building meaningful relationships with their clients. | | | | |
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< | Personal Relationships: Factories of the Law | >
> | This lack of client connection had disturbing consequences that I witnessed first-hand. Once, when a 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 going to sit in jail for an extra week because his lawyer pissed of my boss. Not only was I ashamed to have played a role in the outrageous injustice that both lawyers seemingly ignored, but I was shocked by the public defender's nonchalant attitude toward his client's suffering. His lack of relationship with his client ensured that he would feel no pain when his client spent an extra week in the county jail. His lack of relationship with his client meant that he had no reason to debase himself by groveling for the prosecutor's forgiveness. Thus, the lack of a meaningful relationship with a client can engender the type of disgusting, de-humanizing behavior that I want to fervently avoid in my own practice. Maintaining a genuine connection with clients ensures that attorneys remain faithful to their obligation to advocate for their clients. | | | | |
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< | Robinson, the veteran lawyer that he is, has relationships with all the lawyers he works with. | >
> | A similar disconnect occurs between lawyers and clients in large law firms. The average law firm associate has little or no personal connection with his or her client; however, unlike the public defender who can't be bothered to protect his criminal client, law firm associates slave endless hours, vindicating the rights of a clients who they did not choose to represent nor necessarily want to. Though I have not walked in their shoes, I doubt that many law firm associates feel personally tied to the interests of their clients. Yet, it is important to me that I have a personal stake in the work I do – not only for motivational purposes, but also so that I feel satisfied with the consequences I bring about. Therefore, building strong relationships with clients are important not just to ensure adequate representation, but also because it is more satisfying to achieve goals that I am personally invested in rather than the goals of a distant client with whom I have no meaningful relationship. | | | | |
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< | Not necessarily. But if
he doesn't have them he makes them. | >
> | A Place to Grow | | | | |
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< | 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. | >
> | While the connection that attorneys build with their clients is certainly a critical one, the relationships that lawyers build with fellow lawyers are invaluable lasting sources of knowledge and guidance. The legal profession has historically taken on the form of an apprenticeship, largely because so much of the law can be learned by watching other experienced lawyers. When considering the area and type of law that I want to practice, it is important to know that I will be able to cultivate meaningful relationships with other lawyers who will be invested in my growth, both as a person and as a lawyer. | | | | |
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< | 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. | >
> | A pivotal advantage to attending Columbia Law School is the exceptional faculty that does its best to form personal connections with students. Professors who are invested in their students offer altruistic advice based on sage experience and provide additional opportunities for their students to grow as legal practitioners. Thus, the student-professor relationship can serve as a model of what a healthy relationship should look like. Because I don't see myself going into legal academia, the trick is to find opportunities to build similarly beneficial relationships with lawyers who practice the law. | | | | |
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< | 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. | >
> | One of the lessons Professor Moglen tries to convey is that large law firms do not offer opportunities to build beneficial relationships with other lawyers. He warns that EIP is a degrading experience where partners relish the opportunity to humiliate students rather than build relationships with future colleagues. Within the firm, there is no incentive for senior attorneys to commit to seeing younger attorneys succeed. Young associates do not receive the type of well-meaning, friendly nurturing that might help them succeed; rather, they are thrown into a meat-grinder that chews them up and spits them out. Those who survive the institutional lack of meaningful relationships are allowed to stay and eventually offered partnerships. Ultimately, the types of relationships that law firms foster are not healthy, let alone beneficial to a young lawyer such as myself. | | | | |
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< | Were you ashamed at the
injustice? Did you look at the defendant the way you'd look at a
goat about to be killed in religious sacrifice? Did you believe it
didn't matter because he deserved to be in jail anyway? What would
you want your lawyer to do if you were the defendant to whom that
happened? If you were the defendant's counsel, would you lick the
prosecutor's shoes to get your clients out of jail
sooner? | >
> | An Incomplete Inquiry | | | | |
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< | 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.
You think Robinson is
telling her to be patient because obstruction of justice might or
will occur? I thought we covered that in class.
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.
What?
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.
These sentences are
purely repetitive. What needed to be said here, according to the
outline?
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?
What is "unpleasant"
about the obvious fact that practicing law is a social activity?
What is the difference between "exploiting a relationship" and "being
in a relationship"?
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.
But what, other than the
obviously prohibited act of betraying a client in order to help a
friend, was the supposed complexity here? There was no softness to
the line there, and no other content to the graf.
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.
I don't think that's
credible. Because a lawyer sweet-talked a jury? Perhaps. But a
judge was sweet-talked into granting an acquittal? Tell me
another.
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.
There's almost no here
here. Law is a social activity, what we do in society is made of
relationships between people. There are ethical and unethical ways
to conduct professional relationships. Cut and wrap. The
rest—the repetitive sentences, the sounding empty phrases like
"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," or
"without making any ground-breaking conclusions" or "a creative
lawyer recognizes the value of relationships between individuals,"
the "might actually" and "setting aside the question"—is
bullshit.
The way to improve the draft is to return to the beginning of the
outline and refine your own central idea. When you have located it,
write it simply at the top, as clearly as you can. Outline its
exposition, showing how you adduce facts in its support and interpret
its complexities. Figure out which objections need to be addressed,
and address them. Show where the reader might take your idea
further, and leave the reader to do that work as she wishes.
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>
> | I chose to investigate the type of relationships that are built in the legal profession largely because I am disturbed by the utter lack of quality relationships that are promoted by the structure of big law firms. Furthermore, I have become painfully aware that I do not know which areas of the legal profession offer the best opportunities to build strong relationships with others. Certainly, one of my tasks in law school is to further explore this issue. And while I don't have enough information yet to properly consider the types of relationships that a career in government or a small firm or even my own law practice would promote, I have a clear enough picture to understand that large law firms do not offer the best opportunities to build meaningful relationships with clients or with other lawyers. |
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