On-est-lay?

Our title today is that Austin-Powersesque emphatic-cockney-expression-of-incredulity. Honestly?

A lawyer needs thick skin. Empirical data does not provide for any greater number of scoundrels among the bar than is found in the general populace. Yet the public hostility toward the profession shall withstand any measure of flagellation the state bar shall exact. In a pinch, people want a lawyer. Badly. Yet, they don't like em, and a lawyer can't tell himself otherwise. A cause of animosity is that law is unpredictable, it is adversarial, and results cannot be guaranteed. Yet, the hardworking attorney must still be remunerated. Likewise, the waiter must still be paid even if the food's lousy, and the doctor must still be paid, even if you die. The problem is that the disgruntled diner and the dead patient don't like having to pay, even if it was the fault of the cook, and cancer.

What's fantastic about bankruptcy is that when done right, the results are highly predictable. The client gets what the client wants. I like those odds, and with attention to detail I ensure there's no random element of luck: we get swell results. Yet, it's not just results that satisfy a client. It's the way the client's treated on the way to those results. With every client I believe I undo the damaging lawyer rep.

Still, the animosity lingers. I provide a half-hour free consultation to potential clients. Yet, I don't look at the clock. I get into necessary detail and nuance, and give the potential client complete information concerning the potential hazards we must avoid. Therefore, it's odd that at the end of this discussion, a potential client should assess me, and ask apropos of nothing, "Are you honest?"

I don't take it personally. The point here is that there's absolutely nothing personal about it.

Still... for a fleeting moment, I consider the diplomas and certificates on the wall that represent a hundred-thousand-dollar education, years of training, and an oath before the Supreme Court. I consider the many pages of client feedback on display that represent years of hard effort. I consider whether patients ever ask that of doctors, even though doctors rarely explain shit-all, and sometimes they kill people, to boot. I consider saying (out loud), "Don't you suppose that's patronizing, offensive and highly inappropriate? Yes, I'm fucking honest."

For a fleeting moment, I consider such petty self-indulgence (and sacrificing of physicians to a false cheap-shot just to stress a point).

Then again, knowing the lawyer jokes... knowing the Shakespearian incitement to kill em all... I chose to be a lawyer. So be it.