Lawyers Doing In Other Lawyers - Our Adversarial System of Justice

 "It's the other lawyers."

That's what a now-franchise owner told me during coaching. He wasn't happy operating the family's six food shops. Actually, he had enjoyed practicing law but left it when he realized he was losing his health and more. The more included not being able to get and stay sober.

On Abovethelaw, RollonFridays, and professional anonymous networks, we hear a lot of beefs from lawyers. Usually the solution is to do a lateral. As Bloomberg Law reports, 2022 had been a big year for that for law firms such as DLA Piper, Debevoise, Gibson Dunn, and Paul Weiss. 

But the undercurrent of extreme dissatisfaction that is rarely mentioned is what lawyers inflict on each other. After all, essentially the system is adversarial. Recently, though, that factor was flagged on Fishbowl Big Law. Here is the thread.  Interestingly, it didn’t get much attention, at least not yet. Of course, that doing each other in is professionally justified as what goes into being a zealous advocate for the client. That platitude is so standard.

The former lawyer I coached didn't want to both perform the complex work of practicing law and keep absorbing what he labeled as "abuse."

Sure the system can open itself to non-adversarial models like arbitration and mediation. But they tend to have a negative reputation. True justice should be maulings of the other side by your lawyer, right. One wraps up the litigation or transaction floating on a cloud of glory, one slinks out humiliated. That's also the script in pop culture depictions of the legal profession. What Denny Crane pulled off in “Boston Legal” is saluted as heroic.

Interestingly, this bad treatment of lawyers by lawyers can catch fire internally in 2023 if Profits Per Equity Partner nosedive and terminations of manpower increase.

In Law.com former Proskauer chair Allen Fagin warns about that. He was there in 2008 - 2009. Those of us who also were - I had been coaching - bore witness to the worst of capitalism. Remember when delayed start days mutated into rescinded offers? Since we don’t know how this year will play out that might have not been the worst of times.

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