Likes and Dislikes
Yeoman Lawyer asked me about some of my greatest likes and dislikes about being a litigator. I've probably assembled a gazillion different points over the months in this blog, on that issue, but off the top of my head...
Likes:
1. I now work in an area of law that is intellectually stimulating and genuinely fun. This is true now that I work almost exclusively on bad faith/coverage and federal constitutional issues. It was not always true when I worked on pure insurance defense, personal injury cases, although some of those were occasionally fun also (like the Internet defamation case I once handled, or one road rage case involving the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress I'm currently defending).
2. The sport of it all. All litigation is a battle of wits between competing opponents, and I enjoy beating the crap out of my opponents. That's fun.
3. Being directly involved in the machinery of justice. Because of work I do, even on "boring" disputes between corporations, conflicts that arise in our society are resolved according to long-standing principles of established American law, rather than by violence or intimidation.
4. Now and then, simply tasting justice. I once helped my own wife beat down the most powerful government on earth. I once helped an insurance company take a quasi-fraudulent claim for almost half a million dollars and turn it into a judgment of dismissal and an unheard of award of attorney fees imposed against the individual claimant (unheard of in the sense that courts almost never give awards to insurers against individual claimants; the judge was as pissed off as we were). There are many, many others.
5. Actions translating directly into tangible and real results.
6. Being in front of a jury and realizing that I've subconsciously borrowed a particular mannerism from Jack McCoy of NBC's Law & Order. How many jobs are out there that actually pay me, a lot, to basically pretend to be one of my favorite TV heroes? The only other one I can think of is professional baseball, which rejected me years ago.
Dislikes:
1. Billable hours. The actual number of hours I have no problem with because I don't work at a sweatshop, and frankly I have friends in government jobs who work longer hours than I do for a fraction of the salary. What I hate is the constant pressure to record every minute of my life. Ugh. But such is life.
2. As I've commented about frequently, my inability to develop true trial skills that's simply inherent to being a civil litigator. I don't care what anyone says about their own firm or solo practice. Civil litigators are not in court in front of judges or juries anywhere close to as often as criminal litigators, and the rate at which criminal lawyers are sharpening their skills every day blows ours away.
3. My inability to sue the government for 1st Amendment violations. Mainly because it's my job to defend the government against 1st Amendment violations.
posted by The Uncivil Litigator at Wednesday, September 15, 2004
5 Comments:
"I once helped my own wife beat down the most powerful government on earth."
While this was a heartwarming tale, I would only call it "most powerful" if you'd defeated it militarily. For a miraculous legal triumph, pull of the same thing in, say, North Korea.
Uncivil Litigator, thanks for the response. I took a look at your reply, which I did find quite interesting. To comment further:
Yeoman Lawyer asked me about some of my greatest likes and dislikes about being a litigator. I've probably assembled a gazillion different points over the months in this blog, on that issue, but off the top of my head...
"1. I now work in an area of law that is intellectually stimulating and genuinely fun. This is true now that I work almost exclusively on bad faith/coverage and federal constitutional issues. It was not always true when I worked on pure insurance defense, personal injury cases, although some of those were occasionally fun also (like the Internet defamation case I once handled, or one road rage case involving the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress I'm currently defending)."
I do a little coverage work myself. In looking at your response, I see glimpses of my former self. I did also once sort of like coverage work, but now it is amongst my least favorite. I think my appreciation for it declined as the cases became more and more significant, which gets back to my personality, I suppose, in that carrying around the results of the suit, if wrong, can be a heavy burdon.
Mostly I do tort defense, however.
"2. The sport of it all. All litigation is a battle of wits between competing opponents, and I enjoy beating the crap out of my opponents. That's fun."
That's where I really diverge. I don't like the sport of it at all, and can't even see any. Indeed, while I still hate to loose, I don't get a thrill out of winning anymore. And I know I never will again. I'm just relieved that I didn't loose. The change came for me when I won a hard fought Plaintiff's case, which I rarely do. It was such a battle, and the loss would have been so devestating to the Plaintiff, that getting it off my back was an enormous relief.
I suppose, like most farming types, I'd just as soon leave the world alone if it will leave me alone, but the law doesn't let you do that.
Another odd factor may be this. The Civil Law is really a substitution for private warfare. In early Medieval times disputes were solved with private warfare, which, for example, the Saxon legal system allowed. When that became too expensive to society, private champions, and then lawsuits, replaced it.
But it still has the attributes of warfare. I suspect that private champions found their role thrilling at first, and then fatiguing in the end.
"3. Being directly involved in the machinery of justice. Because of work I do, even on "boring" disputes between corporations, conflicts that arise in our society are resolved according to long-standing principles of established American law, rather than by violence or intimidation."
It isn't a perfect system, but it is a good one.
"5. Actions translating directly into tangible and real results."
Again, sometimes too much so. A positive result is great, and I've had far more of those than negative. But a negative one is a heavy burdon.
"6. Being in front of a jury and realizing that I've subconsciously borrowed a particular mannerism from Jack McCoy of NBC's Law & Order. How many jobs are out there that actually pay me, a lot, to basically pretend to be one of my favorite TV heroes? The only other one I can think of is professional baseball, which rejected me years ago."
I've never seen Law & Order. But the only lawyer film I really like is "Anatomy of a Murder". That one had to have been written by a real lawyer, as the lawyer gets stiffed on his bill in the end.
I enjoyed this post. It shows me how far away from where I started out I've gone. Maybe this is a job best left to the young.
"Maybe this is a job best left to the young."
Maybe! I don't know if I'll feel the same way I do now by the time I reach your experience level. Although, again, I have a theory that there is a fundamental difference between lawyers like yourself, and me: I became a lawyer because I love the law, while you (and perhaps most lawyers) did it for other reasons.
Indeed, a love of the law would make a big difference.
I do think that a love of the law is a rare motivator. I'm not sure that I know too many lawyers who have had that, or if I know of even one. Usually the motivation seems to be something else.
UCL -- what do you mean when you say you "love the law"?
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