* put things in strong, intriguing terms;
* take things in a bit of a new direction; and
* hopefully round-up and round-out my ongoing trickling of
themes in a way that will make my still-being-unfolded stories a little more
focused, and not only serve my own personal-story needs but also be—at least in
some passing way—relevant to some current events we all are talking about.
Subsections below:
A family series
coming; and consideration of the personality of a lawyer
A lesser series on “the
lesser ways of lawyers” was on my planning board already
A “man on the make”
helps root relevance to my “lawyer type” series
Keeping the focus
clear and realistic
A family series
coming; and consideration of the personality of a lawyer
A series will start with a history of my father’s family (especially
his parents, Karl and Gertrude Ludwig) and move in the direction of my talking
about Alan L., my most provocative roommate ever (the linking of these two
sets, family and Alan, is fairly coincidental on one level and, on another level,
offers quite a stark juxtaposition, in terms of values). The latter subtopic of
Alan, as it happens, will also relate to the 30-year reunion planned for this
month at my college, GWU—and the Alan aspect will also touch on the following
thematic ground.
I want to look at bit—if we were to probe empirically and
with hearty curiosity and some bafflement—at the sort of personality that makes
a lawyer. Now, we can probably all agree that there are all kinds of personalities among lawyers; but when you’re young and
in college, some of your peers that are dead-set on becoming lawyers may be
controversial among peers, or arouse strong reactions among them; and I think
they are among a certain type that ends up going into the law field: sure of themselves and their sense of right
(or, specifically relevant to law, of “justice”), and also—rather ironically—seemingly rather limited in their ability (whether
by capacity or, I think more often, simple willingness) to really learn about a
wide range of things in the world, whether the highly various and subtle
aspects of human personality, or a lot of how the business world (especially
the small-scale type) operates, whether this latter is borderline-dishonest or
not, or whether—especially—it is about the sheer prodigiousness and pain of
trying to scrape up a living out of nothing, which lawyers with their enormous
fees, their being helpfully buttressed by a “legal-system infrastructure,” and their personal
sense of entitlement seem as ignorant about, and indifferent to, as can possibly
be.
Alan L. was one example of a “young lawyer-diamond-in-the-rough”
personality, I think; but interestingly, there was another person I later lived
with, a housemate actually, Dean “Wrigley” (the surname is a pseudonym), who
was a difficult personality for different reasons, and who was in law school
when I lived in a house with him and two other housemates. (To clarify: Alan
and I were roommates at GWU for three semesters, from fall 1980 to fall 1981; Dean and
I were housemates in Arlington, Virginia, from May 1984 through February 1986.)
Dean was notorious in his law school (that at GWU, which law
school at the time was called the National Law Center, and now is called something
like the George Washington University School of Law) for being a quirky sort of
personality (the notoriety was not only among students but with at least one
professor). And his ways tended to make people closely involved with him to,
among other things, question whether he should really become a lawyer. To put
it another way: A.V., another housemate of mine in the same milieu, who had a
critical view of Wrigley from a sort of warmhearted religious perspective (and A.V.
and I wrote songs together, in off-hours, when I was still apt to write music
with my guitar), says that since he himself (A.V.) had become a lawyer—he and Wrigley
were in the same law class at GWU—he occasionally encounters, in his
professional peregrinations, the kind of lawyer he calls a “Wrigley.” Because
Dean had pause-giving traits you could find in others.
In a way, it makes sense for me—when it comes to criticizing
personality types among lawyers, and when it comes to recounting anecdotes and
general lessons from my experience—to focus on Wrigley more than on Alan L.,
because—for one thing—it could be said Wrigley was definitely more pathological
than Alan L. But as it happens, Alan L. will be a fond focus for me, and—as I
think seems an OK plan for now—I will draw some implications about lawyer
personalities from Alan (as long as I have entries focusing on him), and—when I
can, and as I can do tastefully and
in the right context, and without much conceptual difficulty—I will talk about Wrigley
(who, as it happened, didn’t quite bother me as he did his law-school peers).
A lesser series on “the
lesser ways of lawyers” was on my planning board already
All this being said, I don’t want to imply, or plot out for
myself, a lot of blog talk about “lawyers as personalities” as if I know a lot
about the legal field. Truth is, I think I know a fair amount of legal stuff,
but this is as a layperson, and as among
a lot of practical and pragmatic bits and pieces, in a very catch-as-catch-can
way, not at all in a schooled way. (I have represented myself legally, not that
I was trying to prove anything in a “wiseass” way but simply because of limited
money, on three levels: local, state, and federal.) (And meanwhile, I still
think one of the best career decisions I ever made was not to go to law school.)
In fact, I thought of starting pretty soon an occasional series,
but in the form of “sidebar comments” that are appended to more-normal blog
entries, under the banner of “Off the
Scales: A comment series on excesses in the U.S. legal profession,” which
would comprise, clearly, comments from a layperson, on various issues either
from my own experience or from things I’ve seen in the news. I can try to make
this stuff as incisive as I can and entertaining. Meanwhile—partly for the
reason that I don’t want it to seem as if it’s from someone actually licensed
to practice in the legal field—I would limit it to being “sidebar” stuff.
So, I will have entries coming related to family themes and
an old roommate, and on topics related to the legal field as witnessed by a
layperson. And this isn’t all I plan to write on. But there is one relevant
reason I want to focus on legal stuff, and especially the personality of the
lawyer—as “limited and precious” as that latter area might be, coming from me—as
I move along with my blog work.
A “man on the make”
helps root relevance to my “lawyer type” series
Chris Christie is
increasingly making big footsteps in the news, and if you live in New Jersey and
read the main state newspaper (The
Star-Ledger) that covers his doings, you realize there is an increasing
drumbeat (not that everyone in the
media is enthusiastic about this; far from it) in the direction of his running
for president. I have held off saying a lot about him here (except in such an entry as here), because so many other
people, with more professionally buttressed and more incisive means to measure
him, have covered him resonantly in the media.
I also realize that my talking much about him might be taken
as “me speaking as a Democrat,” which I realize is likely to shade the view of
some because of my series of entries on local Democratic activities last year,
starting with this. But I don’t want
to seem as if, in talking about Christie this season, I would be merely taking
pot shots as a Democrat.
My focus on Christie would be a little more fundamental.
When I see him doing his thing in the public eye in recent months, I think to
myself (with some guardedness about wanting to go too far with this), “I know this type….” He’s a little younger
than I, and there are some things about his personality style—which can be
grating in ways—that cohere with the specifically “lawyer types” I’ve been
witness to over the past 30 or so years. (And let us be clear: the types of
personalities I am talking about are such as are seen among practicing lawyers, not law professors. I would hope that people
who follow my blogs know the large and
important difference between these two professional categories.)
What is it about such a person, besides sheer ego, that
makes him want to become president? This, of course, is a big question, with a
big answer (and variable in relation to different types—because such a person
isn’t stamped from the same general mold). I would not aim to have a big or
final answer. Nor would I want to cast such doubts on Mr. Christie himself—whether
or not these doubts seem “merely another distant, quaint county heard from”—as
to hinder his ability to run for president (at least, not yet).
But people could well wonder, What is it about such a
personality that allows him to reach for the stars and run for president? (Especially
when, as some critics might say, one particular such fellow’s track record as a
state governor doesn’t offer a lot of positive to run on, not least considering
the second downgrade in bond-rating for his state by Fitch [I think it is] this
year.)
Keeping the focus
clear and realistic
Some of Christie I saw in Dean Wrigley, I think. And some of
Christie was in Alan L. I do not hope to be definitive about any of
these people in discussion about them. But I am interested in making some
observations that resonate, that elicit further thought and discussion.
Because for some onlookers, the idea that such people could run
for president—even be elected as such—could be regarded as about as likely as
having elephants fly. And the really scary thing is, sometimes these elephants really do end up flying, and it takes a
lot of other people—supporters—believing in them and working for them to make
it happen, despite lots of factual matters (and legally buttressed suspicions)
that may be “in the record” that would seem to argue against this. (For one
thing, could such a hale fellow have the “right stuff” to stand up to—and not
merely with braggadocio and a puffed chest—an overseas, lizard-eyed,
military-employing power monger?)
