Legal Commentary

In a post last week, I explained how, as a law-firm associate, I was assailed every year in my annual review for the ?complicated color system? of tape flags that I used in a document review during my first year as an associate.

You know what?s particularly unfair about being singled out for that? Lawyers are always making things more complicated than necessary. It?s part of the culture.

For instance, one large L.A. law firm I know uses important-sounding covert-government-style abbreviations for everything, especially the firm committees. The policy committee, and this is completely true, is ?POLCOM.? The litigation steering committee is "LITCOM." And the committee for food and beverage, no joke, is called ?EDPOT,? for ?edibles and potables.?

Hearing a person I know from this law firm talk about firm governance is like listening to a Tom Clancy book-on-tape. That is, to borrow some book-jacket language, it is ?a chillingly authentic heart-pounding supercharged thrill-ride!? When this lawyer talks, it is as if YOU ARE THERE, right in the room where the decisions are being made ?

And then SECPOLCOM entered the room, pointing to the CRT, indicating the EDPOT scenarios. ?I recommend positioning our Amstel Lights to the left of the Heinekens.?

You may have noticed that Amstel Lights and Heinekens are a universal constant at law firms. From New York to Los Angeles, and every law firm in between, when it?s time to serve beer, it?s Heinekens and Amstel Lights. You know I am right. Oh, firms like to pretend they are different from one another, but they all answer the beer question the same way.

Why is it always Heinekens and Amstel Lights? I?ll tell you why ? it?s because they are the safe beers. They taste like domestics, but they are just foreign enough to say, ?We?re sophisticated.?

The truth hurts, I know. But lawyers are the most risk averse of professionals. No law firm would dare serve Miller Lite. Casual Fridays caused enough of an uproar. But serving a Budweiser, that'll never happen.

The law itself is a risk-averse profession. When times are good, or when times are bad, people need lawyers. It?s a safe bet, career wise.

That?s why lawyers like to talk about sports. An interest in sports is a safe bet. It shows you are culturally connected to the mainstream. But since George F. Will wrote a book about baseball, it?s not inconsistent with being a discerning high-brow.

Lawyers love to burst out with observations such as, ?They?re playing Warner too close to the net to make the option effective against that passing defense, especially when you factor in the infield-fly rule.?

This caused me considerable stress during my law-firm days. I love sports, but I was prone, for example, to forgo watching SportsCenter and keeping track of player statistics when my own hours-per-night sleep stat was hitting 2.5, 2.6 ? or thereabouts.

Now sure, sleep?s not that much fun when you spend the whole time having nightmares in which you are frantically trying to figure out what to do with a document that has a blue tape flag in the upper right corner. But at least some sleep is necessary, otherwise you?re liable to burst into a meeting saying, ?I like pudding!?

And if you do that, you?d sure as heck better like pudding alright. Because that?s what you?ll be talking about with the REVCOM every year for the next several years. Don?t ask how I know.?