My Comfortable Vanity

I didn't say you should care about justice. I said that the people who don't and who go through law school anyway are often unhappy about it. Of course, if you can hunker down and deny your own unhappiness, why should that matter?

The only route to improvement I can suggest here is to use imagination to open the fortress so you can escape. What would it be like to be someone who didn't have to deny his feelings quite so much? Suppose, just for the length of one exercise, that you tried to feel what you have tried not to feel, and imagined living a life as a lawyer out of that (perfectly imaginary) condition of life. Naturally you won't do anything as dangerous and crazy as actually living in the possession of all your feelings; surely you will keep as many of them safely buried as some sampler hung on the wall about serenity (meaning anaesthesia) will permit you. No actual change of any kind will occur. But just having the occasion to write from such a perspective might be good for you anyway.

-- By JoeTeresi - 10 Mar 2017

Disassociation is the most natural and easiest way for us to avoid the predicament that is now. But, it’s also necessary for us to deal with the here and now. I’ve always used disassociation as a technique to address things that I thought were beyond my control, and I never considered if I was making the right choice or not. I was selfish. Discussion in class centers on the theme that as lawyers we should hate injustice, love justice, and use our tools to advocate for social change. From this, I started questioning my decision for coming to law school. Is my apathy to some of the issues we discussed a warning sign that I’ll be destined to hating myself? I’ve realized that my goals were just different, smaller than others. I’ve disassociated those greater issues from those I deem controllable. Furthermore, I think disassociation is crucial for a lawyer.

I began disassociating from issues I deemed beyond my control at an early age. I faced a situation I couldn’t change no matter how many times I tried nor how much effort I put into doing so. At first, it was an emotional reflex, a way to make things manageable. I then stumbled upon the serenity prayer – grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference – which I internalized and practiced religiously. If I judged a problem outside my sphere of influence, I would accept as much and move on. It’s a useful technique; there’s a reason some of the largest support groups in the nation use it as their maxim. At first, I told myself to completely disassociate from issues not for myself, but for the people I cared about. It sounds paradoxical, but I convinced myself by using the cliché – how can I help others if I can’t even take care of myself. The oxygen mask warning in an airplane before takeoff was the real-world example I analogized my reasoning too. This example doesn’t necessarily hold true anymore. It assumes that the other person is helpless, which just isn’t true anymore. In my personal life, disassociation serves its purpose, but with strong support it’s unnecessary. Oftentimes, disassociating can lead to poor communication and create more issues than it solves. However, I believe that disassociation is necessary for law, especially disassociating the law from one’s personal life.

I came to practice law. I thought it’d be a good profession to use my skills. I didn’t consider justice or injustice. I worked with a man I looked up to, saw both the people he touched and the money he made, and thought the law would be a profession where both rewards were dependent upon each other. He practiced personal injury law, low brow law to some, but I respected him nonetheless. He advocated for genuinely hurt people who had been wrong and helped himself at the same time. He didn’t start out in personal injury law; it was originally his feel-good project. He ran his own practice that specialized in product liability defense work for 30 years before switching to personal injury due to burnout (I think). He would tell me, “working with a corporation just doesn’t bleed.” The case isn’t tangible like an injury is, and as such the win isn’t either. The thought of working with people who were wronged, making an actual impact on their lives, and while doing so enriching my own enthralled me. However, the longer I worked with him, I saw more and more disassociation between his practice and what he preached. The viability of every case was calculated using objective criteria: potential damages, defendants economic standing, the chance of winning, the effort required to win the case. The decision to take every case was a business decision. If the case crossed the threshold inquiry of viability, he’d wholeheartedly and zealously advocate for them. The dichotomy between him as an advocate and a businessman was striking. He disassociated the potential good he could do for someone as their advocate from the calculated decision about the case's potential. At first, I was troubled by this, but I realized law requires disassociation. Running one’s own practice is a business. It requires a disassociation from addressing all the problems one wants to solve as a lawyer, with the ones that one can. So, I find it acceptable that he dissociated the business from his advocacy. Disassociation is compatible with a lawyer who can find worth in his work. Also, it made the compartmentalization of his personal life from advocacy issues easier. His personal life wasn’t easy, abnormally so. He repeatedly told me how he had to compartmentalize and disassociate the issue addressed throughout the day and his personal life. Doing so was necessary for the health of his practice and his personal life. To keep our lives balanced and manageable, I believe that disassociation is necessary for a lawyer

In class, we began discussing how a lawyer needs to be able to deal with the here and now to identify and address society’s predicaments. I never considered doing public interest, nor has my opinion changed on the matter. I don’t need to create drastic social change. I’ll be satisfied with having a tangible effect on some people’s lives. The talk about big law and what’s coming for us in the near future has been daunting. Reconciling, that future where we’re compensated handsomely for work that is not as meaningful for us our client, with my expectations, having a tangible impact on my client’s life, will take time. But it is possible and disassociating is key. Being able to compartmentalize the practice from the advocate is necessary and something I believe I am prepared to do.

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