Skepticlawyer

I’ve just read The Pin Striped Prison by Lisa Pryor (2008, Picador, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney). Pryor was a law student who now works as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Pryor is exploring a number of questions: what drives young people to want to become lawyers? Why do many lawyers decide it is not worthwhile once they get there? Why do others stay in corporate law jobs even though they hate it? She also looks at bankers and management consultants.

I felt that this book was spread a little thin. Pryor explores some really fascinating questions, but just when I’d think, “Oh that’s really interesting, I’d like to see more analysis of that,” she’d move on to the next issue. By the end of the book, I was also intensely irritated by some of Pryor’s conclusions, which I thought were naive and simplistic.

I’m going to cherry pick a few of the issues.

First, one of the most interesting sections of the book for me was the section on high achieving high school students. Yes, I was one of those, I confess it. Pryor talks of people desperately trying to get into law because it is a “prestige” subject, and because students don’t want to “waste their marks”. I’m sure this resonates with any person who has studied law in the last 20 years. Some students in particular seem to build their whole existence around making a “well-rounded” CV. They have sporting activities, musical activities, charities, drama and so forth. But one wonders how much time they have to just, well…live life. Just to relax and think and be normal.

I read somewhere a few years ago that one of the reasons why so many people are unhappy despite unparalleled resources and opportunities is that, in the first world, at least, most of us are affluent enough that we have moved beyond “survival mode”. We therefore have the “luxury” to aspire to be the best (rather than just survive). We feel that we have to achieve academically and we have to be the best in the highly competitive workforce. We compare ourselves with others all the time, and find ourselves wanting. That’s particularly the case in a selective school, or in a selective course like law. And Pryor makes the observation that parents seem to heap expectations upon their children.

Actually, I didn’t do law because I got the marks. I did law because I genuinely enjoy an argument, I love language and I love thinking about how to solve problems. I am very grateful to be a lawyer, and there are times when I find it to be very empowering. I am also glad that I actually practiced for some time, and I advise all my students to at least give it at try. Nonetheless, I don’t know that I’d advise a young woman to do law (particularly one who was wanting to have children). I think it is a particularly difficult career from the point of view of juggling family and work. I have managed to juggle it only by opting out of commercial practice.

That brings me on to another point raised by Pryor: the deep unhappiness of many who are in the law. It’s no secret that rates of depression in the legal profession are many times higher than in the average population, and it’s something I’ve blogged on many times before. Pryor’s argument in part is that these intelligent, ambitious young students are sold a pup – they are told that they will be doing glamorous exciting work, and instead they get stuck in the bowels of a firm doing discovery work or something equally mind-numbing. She looks at the ways in which firms try to sell themselves to young graduates, and the ways in which the rhetoric does not live up to reality.

Here, I think that if people are disappointed to be doing mind-numbing stuff from the outset, then they are simply naive. Every job I’ve ever worked in involves tedious and mind-numbing aspects. Sometimes, also, the boring tasks are annoyingly important. Try working in a factory putting together diaries (as I did once). And then imagine that this is all you have for the rest of your life…

On the other hand, after a few years in practice, I did start to feel a bit like a sausage factory. Here’s another file, ker-plunk! Contact the defendant. If defendant cannot be served, get substituted service. Does the defendant file an appearance? A defence? If no, proceed to summary judgment. If defendant files a defence then there’s usually three options to take. And so on, and so on. But the important thing for someone in my position to remember is that on the other side of all these files is a real person (generally a person who is very stressed out and stands to lose their biggest asset – their house). In addition, most jobs have moments like that, whether one is a teacher, a bus driver, a scientist, a manager, a parking attendant or whatever. It’s not something special to law. We all have the feeling that we’re going through the motions by rote sometimes, I’m pretty sure.

I do wonder if modern culture has something to do with the dissatisfaction of the modern graduate. We’re told we need to make education fun and interesting. We have to make the learning experience transformational. Newsflash! Work is not always fun and interesting. Nor do you always change the world through your actions. But that doesn’t make your actions worthless.

One thing I agree with Pryor is a significant disadvantage of large law firms, banking firms and other firms is the workaholic culture. I’m sure people get depressed because it’s not just 9 to 5 – you have to give your life to the firm. And as a junior lawyer, in particular, you don’t have much control over what you do, and you are at the whim of the partners. Which is fine if you have a partner who knows how to manage people and how to manage projects…but if you do, it’s in large part up to luck.

Of course, I think that much of the bad culture of law firms is created by timed billing (always a bug bear of mine). In addition, I think that there are some really stupid cultural practices. Like Pryor, I’ve heard of departments where employees stay past 7pm even though they don’t have any work because they want to appear busy. It’s this stupid peer pressure thing. Employees who leave early get looked down upon. There is nothing worse than sitting around work with nothing to do, in my opinion. It’s not like you can do something fun instead – you have to sit there and sham being busy. And there’s only so many webpages one can surf before one wants to smash one’s head against the wall. I was once in a department which was short of work for junior lawyers, and I have to say, I found that far more depressing than being overworked. I was begging for work.

Certainly I think workaholic practices and crazy hours contribute to disillusionment of young idealistic graduates. But as Pryor says, such practices are just a carry on for people who were workaholic overachievers who found time to do everything at high school and university.

Another thing mentioned by Pryor is the pressure on young graduates to dress appropriately – if you’re not wearing designer suits in a big firm, well apparently, you’re just no good. I must have missed that particular aspect of practice. The only time anyone ever mentioned my clothing when I was at a big firm was when another articled clerk came up to me and said, “Who designed your suit?” in a sneering voice. I said mildly, “Actually, it’s interesting you ask. This suit is one-of-a-kind. I designed it myself and had it made up to my specifications when I was in Vietnam.” End of conversation, snooty girl left speechless.

One of the really interesting factoids Pryor mentions in her book is the amazingly high number of Rhodes scholars who go on to work for management consulting firms. I would have loved to have more information on this. I wonder what the exact proportions are? I must confess to confusion as to what exactly management consultants do (apart from wrapping up ways of downsizing businesses in bullshit bingo type words).

Another really interesting observation by Pryor was the tendency for women who have children to be parked in “dead-end” areas of the firm if they aren’t prepared to work insane hours. Firms trumpet their “flexible” workplace policies, failing to mention that mothers returning from maternity leave often get parked in the precedent section. I remember being shocked at seeing this happen to a friend of mine after the birth of her first child. She then talks about the rise of the “yummy mummy” phenomenon at page 182:

No wonder there is talk about successful women opting out of the rat race altogether. If you are a woman, becoming a yummy mummy is one escape route. The kinds of women big firms employ are ideally poised for such an opt-out. As we have already established, they are often upper middle class. They have studied in rarefied environments surrounded by other upwardly mobile high achievers with whom they can partner. … So when they find their job is less satisfying than they imagined, becoming a lady of leisure starts to look very attractive. It may not be what they hoped for but they can hide their disappointment by taking the moral high ground and insisting that family should always come before career. Energies thrown into sealing deals can be thrown into running with an iron fist the women’s auxiliary at the children’s school. Or these women might start their own small business in which they can use their finer, extracurricular skills, like designing stylish wedding invitations.

I don’t think it’s fair to characterise women who decide to stay home with their children as “hiding their disappointment” by “taking the moral high ground.” I think that many high achieving women (myself included) are amazed by the change that occurs when they have children. I just do not have the same career ambition which I had before I had children. I positively want to stay home with my children because I want to have the joy (and the frustration, at times) of mothering them. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing from the tone of the paragraph above that Pryor hasn’t had kids yet (or hadn’t at the time of writing the book).

Still, I’d definitely agree with her that some of the mothers who hothouse little Phineas are putting all the energy that they used to put into perfecting deals into their poor child.

The part of the book which really irritated me was the part where Pryor draws conclusions from her observations. She says at pages 224 to 225:

When the big firm recruit’s work and values are in conflict, becoming depressed is one option. Another would be to find a way to ignore, if not reconcile, the contradictions between a right-on past and a sellout present by flying the ideological flag of convenience. Masters of expediency just mould their belief systems to fit the prevailing ideology of their environment. At university, where the cool kids hang out on protest marches, burning effigies of politicians and visiting refugees in detention, it makes sense to adopt views which are left wing – radical, even. Flying this ideological flag is the easiest way to acceptance and eventual triumph within the social hierarchy of university culture.

A few years later, a new flag is necessary to achieve the same aim. By the recruit’s late twenties, power and influence are to be found in scaling the heights of the corporate world. The cool kids are taking holidays abroad yachts off Croatia, perusing degustation menus and closing big deals. A new ideological flag of convenience is needed at this point. Lofty ideals are shrugged off as the amusing musings of the young and naive. Sure, the sellout might retain some ideals but now sees more practical ways to achieve those ideals. They may embrace a ‘third way’ of looking at politics, which is neither left wing or right wing. Equality is all well and good but it is best achieved by third-world countries opening their borders to free trade. The tendency of the general population to condemn the high salaries of CEOs and the high fees of banks is dismissed as populist nonsense. The class system they once railed against starts to seem so much fairer when you have before you the likely prospect of becoming part of the ruling class. From the top, society does not look too unfair at all.

Thus, the process of selling out is entirely logical and consistent. And entirely depressing and self-interested.

Pryor argues that people who are good at arguing either side of the debate are excellent at “selling out” because they can always convince themselves that there are two sides to the story, and they do not determine what is “true and right”. She criticises intelligent people for having such a great facility for seeing two sides of the story.

First, it struck me that there was a massive generalisation here. When I think of my law school colleagues, I think of a number of them who have gone on to work for community legal centres, government, for legal aid and jobs like that. They may have done articles at a Big Firm, but they decided that life was not for them, and stayed true to the principles they expressed at university. Not everyone is having the degustation menu (I know I’m not).

Secondly, I profoundly disagree with Pryor’s argument that seeing two sides of the story means that you sell out. It strikes me as naive and immature. I understand from the book that on completing her law degree, Pryor never practiced and went on to become a journalist. It’s no wonder she didn’t go on to become a lawyer if she doesn’t like seeing two sides of the story, because that’s what being a lawyer is all about.

To me, it seems that there are always two sides to the story. Coming to that realisation is part of reaching maturity. When I was about 18 or 19, I had this feeling that I knew everything, and I knew what had to happen for all the injustices in the world to be fixed. Yes, I was a lot more stereotypically “left wing” than I am now. But my law degree and my history major taught me to look at things from different sides, and to think about the implications of the actions you take. What good is it smashing the class system if everyone (rich and poor) starves as a result? What good is it introducing a rule to stop inequity and inequality if it is not enforced and no one follows it? I used to be an idealist, but this blog has taught me that I’m a pragmatist, and a utilitarian in some senses. You can parade around spouting high principle all you like, but if it doesn’t actually help or make a difference, then you may as well throw breadcrumbs into a black hole.

When I worked as a banking litigator, and I repossessed houses, I did justify my job to myself. I used to think that if I was going to have to do a job like that, I may as well do it in a way that left me feeling whole as a person. I tried to be polite and professional, even when debtors abused me or the other side’s lawyers screamed at me. I tried to maintain my compassion for people who were caught up in legal proceedings, and not to get jaded, even when I came across people who deliberately tried to rip off the bank or to dupe me (and there were a few). Sometimes debtors cried, saying that I was the first person to treat them decently. Once a defendant came into the office simply to shake my hand because he said he wanted to see this person who had been so good about the whole business. (That made me cry – although I was heavily pregnant at the time, so very hormonal). I also used to justify it to myself by thinking that if the bank didn’t take action on those loans, then there was no way that the bank could afford to give me my car loan.

That’s the thing. Someone has to repossess the houses so that the banks can keep giving out loans, and I reasoned to myself that it may as well be someone like me who tried to be as decent as possible. Better me than a real hard arse who advises the bank to throw the 9 months pregnant lady out on to the street. (Yes, I did advise the bank strongly to give her another two weeks, and yes, she did raise the money to pay her arrears, thank goodness, so she and her husband were not out on their ears).

Pryor’s book assumes to an extent that people going into law or banking or whatever are not worthwhile. Now, it does annoy me that careers like law are seen as prestigious, when careers like teaching which are incredibly important do not have the same cachet. My husband is someone who chose not to do law although he had the marks. He chose to do science, and I think he made the right choice. He would have hated law, and he is a fantastic scientist. Nonetheless, he earns substantially less than he would as a lawyer at the same point. I would say that the problem is that we do not value careers such as teaching, science and nursing enough. I see people lamenting the lack of maths graduates, but then I think cynically – well, wouldn’t many people go to Accenture or Macquarie Bank if they could get quadruple the salary? The answer is not to belabour the person who responds to that incentive, but for society to change the incentives if they want things to be different. Maybe we need to rethink the ways we organise education and the ways we reward certain careers.

Still, I would refute the implication that lawyers are not worthwhile. As I have said before, private law keeps the wheels of society oiled. I believe this very firmly. There’s a place for lawyers as there is a place for everything else. But I do wonder if we need as many lawyers as we’re churning out…