Understanding Lawyers

You wonder why lawyers, whether accidents at work claims lawyer or whiplash claims lawyer or holiday claims lawyers, are all grumpy and impatient. You see them frowning whenever the conversation turns to subjects unrelated to the point. You hear them curse when summoned from the piles of paperwork they are submerged in. You smell the unmistakable odor of nicotine or alcohol in their breaths. When you grasp their hands for a handshake, you feel nothing more than an automatic tug, a movement so devoid of sympathy and life, symbolic of their eternal discontent with social formalities and mundane ceremonies.

You then judge them.

You think them inconsiderable boors. You look at their work and their faraway stares and think them impolite, arrogant, snobbish, myopic, putrid, ambitious, vain, and speculative. You smell the aroma pervading their offices, an odor so unwelcoming even mice and roaches dare not trespass. You hear them talk and in the undercurrent of their voices you trace hints of concealed superciliousness.

You then judge them all the more.

You should not. For all kinds of lawyers, especially those who work in the industry of tort claims, such as accidents at work claims, are only unsociable because of the backbreaking burden they carry. Contemplate their lives and you will see why. Imagine their lives so far, having worked for numerous years tirelessly memorizing and annotating laws and codes, many of which can be traced back to the time of the Romans. Then imagine the sleepless nights they had to endure in order to prepare for examinations and recitations, every day feeling the pressure to excel and the fear of failing. Imagine them finally graduating and then witnessing a disorienting revelation, the kind which wracks a fresh graduate’s soul, the tremendous earthquake of disjunction echoed by the conception that law school litigation is different, very different, from real life litigation.

Thus, let lawyers be.

They have to bear the burden of representing others. They have to bear the burden of understanding both sides of a question. They have to bear the burden of the public’s intrusive gaze. But most of all, they have to bear the punishing stereotypes of a world which hates lawyers and tolerates them only because its inhabitants cannot live in peace.