“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” --- Shakespeare. Henry VI
I don’t know why I became a lawyer. Ideas of truth and justice have always been important for me, so perhaps it was something to do with that. I hadn’t decided what to do until I went to see my school careers’ adviser, and he suggested I was suited for a profession “such as law or teaching”. Teaching wasn’t appealing so I chose the law.
On the whole I have enjoyed my work and I don’t regret that decision. But there have been many times when I have considered doing something else. This is partly because I have a restless spirit, and partly because the lawyer’s role is mainly to give advice, whereas I prefer to be more hands-on. I also sometimes wonder whether there is something inherently bad about being a lawyer - why else do people laugh when I say “Trust me, I am a lawyer”? Lawyers are not universally loved!
In the end my biggest challenge has been how to integrate my values with my work – to be true to myself. I want to share what I have learned as I have met this challenge.
My first experience of the law I began my career as an articled clerk (now called a trainee solicitor) with a commercial law practice in the City, specialising in litigation. This was not a happy experience! I was not particularly good at litigation; it had little to do with justice or finding fair solutions to disputes and much to do with lawyers trying to score points over the “other side”. The British legal system breeds antagonism.
The system is also unwelcoming for non-lawyers, having complex rules and antiquated practices. It can feel (and it certainly felt to me) to have a rather arbitrary and artificial character, far removed from real life. As law professor Simon Roberts put it, the law is “a discrete sub-system, rather cut off from the rest of society”. Courts are “remote places presided over by specialists who conduct their business against a background of unfamiliar ritual”.
Within this system, a lawyer’s role is to take one side of a case and argue in favour of it, whether he believes in it or not. Is it then surprising that people don’t trust lawyers?
What’s more, the behaviour of lawyers tends to mystify or intimidate their clients, giving the profession a bad name. Here are some examples:
•Lawyers’ language is hard to understand. It is designed for communicating with other lawyers, an antiquated secret code (which is why as an in-house lawyer I often described myself as an interpreter). Pick up a typical contract and you will find it hard to digest in one sitting. It starts with three pages of definitions, including such illuminating explanations as a “day” means a period of 24 hours and ”the United Kingdom” means Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Lawyers find this normal but to me it is off-putting and a real barrier to communication.
•Fees are another source of irritation and tension. Lawyers are expensive. Charges of £150 per hour are not uncommon for high street solicitors and they rise to over £500 per hour for some City lawyers. Compare this with the weekly salary of £500 for an experienced staff nurse in the NHS.
•Some lawyers are simply arrogant. They get carried away, believing that what they do is intrinsically important.
However we get the lawyers we deserve. Clients must accept some responsibility for their lawyers’ actions. Some clients use the law to punish or gain revenge over a neighbour, a business partner, or even their wife. Others are looking for someone to blame for an injury or loss and turn to the law to seek satisfaction or reward. Personal injury lawyers constantly turn down people hoping to get rich through a law suit. There is no shortage of claimants.
Business people can have different motivations for misusing the law. Powerful companies like to throw their weight around and hire expensive lawyers to threaten their competitors or bully their suppliers. One purchasing manager I worked for wanted to include, in a long-term contract, the right to reduce the price he paid, at will, “to respond to market changes”. Some suppliers are so dependent on their large customers that they accept such terms rather than risk losing the sale.
Given these patterns it is not surprising that many lawyers are unhappy in their jobs. They may have become lawyers with the idea of making a useful contribution to society, only to get a shock when they start practising. A survey in America in 1998 showed that one third of lawyers were so disillusioned or dissatisfied that they were considering quitting the law.
A better experience I concluded that a law firm was not the place for me and left shortly after qualifying. The universe kindly arranged matters so that I soon found my niche, as an in-house lawyer for a large corporation. Suddenly I was part of a team, preparing and negotiating contracts for international projects, working alongside accountants, engineers and marketing people. There was a real sense of collaborating to find practical solutions.
I learned that contracts can be vital for businesses. Yet when prepared by a lawyer they are usually long, take ages to negotiate and are difficult to understand. This can obscure the big picture and even damage the relationship between the parties, due to haggling over issues of minor importance. It happens because lawyers typically approach contracts defensively, looking for something that will stand up in court. Yet this is counter-productive. Their attitude increases friction between the parties and makes it more likely that they will end up in court.
I find it better to take a more positive attitude, which starts by asking the question “How can we use the contract to build a healthy business relationship?” This usually leads to productive negotiations and the contracts tend to be clearer and more concise. They then provide the basis for a healthy relationship that is more likely to survive the inevitable ups and downs of business life.
Some solicitors may object that it is easier to practice like this if you work in-house, since you are free to be bold. Private practice solicitors produce longer documents partly out of fear of omitting something and being sued if things go wrong.
Yet I know solicitors who manage this very well. I remember in particular a brilliant solicitor who helped me with a complex purchasing arrangement. He listened, quickly grasped the essence of the matter and went away to produce a three page contract, which was exactly what we needed. To me this was how Mozart would write contracts if he came back as a lawyer – effortlessly and beautifully.
Thus I learned how rewarding it can be to practice law. I was not surprised to learn that law was once considered a healing profession, along with medicine and the clergy. Chief Justice Warren Burger of the US Supreme Court said not long ago: “This healing function ought to be the primary role of the lawyer in the highest conception of our profession”. This notion has been lost in our modern practice; many might find it bizarre. Yet as a lawyer I can heal a broken relationship between two people or two organisations, by helping them see matters from the other’s perspective. I can also heal an individual who is struggling with a problem - by actively listening, I help him to find the answer deep inside himself. To my mind this ability to listen is the most important quality required to be a lawyer.
Seeking wholeness “Above all, to thine own self be true.” -- Shakespeare. Hamlet
I spent over 10 years working with large corporations. As I gained more experience, I realised that it wasn’t enough just to be a good technical lawyer. To be fulfilled in my work I needed to integrate all of my personality, all of my passions into what I did. This is what I think of as integrity. As lawyers we are encouraged to be analytical, rational and objective. Yet there is so much more to us than that. We are human beings with feelings, intuitions and passions. Shouldn’t we bring the whole of us to work, rather than wear a professional mask? If we love colours, why wear only black and white?
Thus I give myself permission to bring my feelings into my work and I seek to use my intellect as well as my intuition in making decisions. Sometimes this may mean telling a client something I know she doesn’t want to hear, or perhaps turning down work if I don’t believe in the client, or when someone else is better suited to do the work.
I faced a real dilemma in 2002 when working for a large international retailer. Having joined as group legal manager I had moved into a project management role in corporate finance. It was a great place to work – I liked my colleagues, enjoyed my work and was paid well.
However I had become increasingly aware of the social and environmental crisis that we all face, and of the major role played by multinationals in precipitating this crisis. To my mind corporate social responsibility programmes, no matter how honestly pursued, do not go far enough – a fundamental rethink is required. There was a basic conflict between my values and my work but I couldn’t bring myself to give up the comfort of a steady well-paid job.
As I wrestled with this internal conflict, fate stepped in to rescue me. I was offered redundancy, since the department was being wound down, and I accepted with some relief. I left the company, destination unknown.
At first I refused to face up to what my heart told me to do. I rejected everything - not just working for multinationals but the very idea of being a lawyer. Over the next two years I tried a number of things, with varying degrees of success. I was even going to open a fair trade, organic delicatessen (fortunately perhaps, this idea went nowhere).
What am I doing here? I asked myself what I came to this planet to do. I believe we were each born with a task to perform in this lifetime. Some of us know it intuitively from an early age, most seem to take a long time to realise it and others may never actually work out what it is. When you are fulfilling your purpose in life, you enjoy your work more than ever before; it feels effortless.
All this may seem a little strange to Western minds, yet it is quite familiar in the East. Indian sacred texts have the concept of dharma, which has a number of meanings, one of which is “life purpose”, the work you were born to do. The idea is that if you follow your dharma then you are working in accordance with the essential order of things, leading to harmony, goodness and inner peace.
Essentially following your dharma means that you do nothing that is contrary to the true Self within. For me, this sums up what integrity, and authenticity, is all about.
Thinking about all this, I finally realised what I had to do. It wasn’t necessary to reject my previous experience and my skills as a legal adviser – rather I needed to seek like-minded people to work with. I decided to set up my own practice.
Yet with no clients and little experience of marketing myself, I faced a daunting challenge. So while starting to explore the possibilities I applied for temporary positions, leading to an offer of an eight month contract as a lawyer with a building society. This offered secure income and a role with an ethical employer, possibly leading to a permanent position. I was tempted.
This leads me to describe a dream I had some time ago. In it I saw two paths ahead of me. One was broad, grey and flat, with railings on each side. It was, in other words, safe but boring. The other was beautiful, but narrow and risky. It rose up high and graceful over a deep chasm, ending in an enchanted wood at the far side.
When it came time, in real life, to choose between the two paths I picked beauty over security and turned down the job offer. Instead I set up my own practice, trusting that people would come to me. Which they have. I am now working with inspiring, enthusiastic and talented people who are seeking more ethical ways of doing business.
The end? Or another beginning? I began with a quote about killing the lawyers. I now see this as a neat metaphor for the process I have been through. I had to “kill the lawyer”, i.e. to reject a profession I could no longer wholeheartedly identify with, and to let go of my career and the lifestyle that came with it. I thus liberated myself to explore a different way of being – one that is more scary and unpredictable, but also more creative, interesting and, ultimately, fulfilling. It has been a long journey and yet it feels like this is where the story really starts.
Patrick Andrews
Copyright: © 2004 Patrick Andrews. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
References:
Simon Roberts “Order and Dispute”. 1979. p22
See the NHS website - http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/nhs-knowledge_base/data/11.html
Lawcare “An Alternative Career” (published at www.lawcare.org.uk). Figures for the UK not available. One recent development in the UK is the formation of a group called Lawyers for Change whose aim is “to inspire lawyers to be a force for good”. The group is open to lawyers and non-lawyers (they can be contacted by e-mail at: maitland@kaltons.co.uk).
Quoted on www.healingandthelaw.org.