Lawyerland: What Lawyers Talk About When They Talk About Law
By Lawrence Joseph
(1997) Farrar Straus Giroux; 225 pages; $31.00
What do lawyers talk about when they talk about law?
Joseph, a law professor at St. John’s University School of Law, reveals what lies underneath a lawyer’s skin through fictional interviews with lawyers from different areas of the law - criminal defence , corporate commercial, labour, personal injury, you name it – including judges.
Throughout the book, Joseph’s focus is not on what a lawyer does for a living – that’s rather apparent. Rather, through concisely written dialogues, Joseph presents how lawyers think, process, and live as lawyers.
Underneath the professional “tough skin,” it’s surprising how vulnerable and timid lawyers can be. The lawyers revealed in this book are filled with self-doubt and insecurity, but also sometimes egotism and arrogance.
Joseph engages interviewees with questions such as whether law is a “business” and whether “justice” matters.
The answers are far from clear. A young D.A. casually rants on the deficiencies of the criminal justice system while appraising the quality of his lunch. A federal judge talks about her keen observation of litigants in her courtroom shortly before she states that “lawyers don’t live in the real world.”
The dialogues are sometimes shifting and without focus. However, I suspect the author has intentionally constructed them that way. As the tone of the book is even and non-judgmental, readers may occasionally lose track as to what is being debated by the characters.
The book sheds insight on what lawyers talk about when they talk about law: this bittersweet profession.
