The lawyer mindset epidemic

Tessa is the teenage daughter of a professional couple known vaguely to me through the social network of a friend. A poolside announcement during a gathering last weekend that Tessa had decided to follow her father into law was greeted with congratulatory cooings and nods of approval by those present - at least, that is what I am told by an impeccably reliable source (happily, I was otherwise committed on that day and was not among the recipients of the glad tidings).

That Tessa’s abysmal career choice was applauded is hardly mysterious; once qualified in law, a rosy financial future is virtually secured, ladies in law are commonly glamourised in highly rating TV dramas, and reflex reference to “doctors and lawyers” as status professions is globally commonplace. What parents would not be pleased at the prospect of their children taking on law?

Hmm. Maybe those who, like me, view lawyers - and of course, there are exceptions - as a particularly loathsome breed undeserving of their elevated social status and surreally inflated remuneration.

As with politics and business, success in law demands a rewiring of the brain, a moral recoding processed gradually through years of study and exposure to the legal system (ah, bugger it - alright, call it a moral lobotomy).

Why?

Because successful legal practice is not about serving justice, but about victory in the courts (or preferably out of them, where a settlement favourable to lawyer and client - in that order - can be negotiated). A blinkered focus on winning, in which fact, truth - call it what you will - is often regarded merely as bothersome and incidental to the main game, is vital to the lawyer’s shady art. Lofty notions of justice sit awkwardly in the legal world, where success depends on strategy, presentation, exploitation of loopholes, and manipulation of perceptions of “the truth”, rather than the truth itself: in essence - spin.

What is a lawyer if not a wigged spin doctor, practising an art that is frequently malicious in its intent, focusing on touching up or concealing anything that might reflect badly on the client while seeking to discredit the opposition in whatever way possible, regardless of truth or fact, in the interests not of justice, but of court victory and professional reputation?

Yet, despite the sleazy reality of legal practice, daily observation of the law in action - while working as a court monitor for a transcript firm - left me with the impression that somehow, against the odds, justice does prevail in our courts most of the time. The great casualty of law as it is practised today is humanity.

Like generals musing on their strategies in the comfort of war rooms far removed from the blood and stench of the battlefield and the fear and suffering of their pawns, lawyers develop a puppet master mentality, becoming uncaring of, if not oblivious to, their power to hurt and destroy. Their art is essentially reductive and thereby inherently lacking in humanity (which is by nature admitting of the complex): they seek to paint their cases black and white, to make their side all right, and the opposition all wrong. Their mission is to search and destroy. There is no room for humanity in that.

The personal toll of power is self-righteousness, pomposity and a dangerously bloated ego. And since society rewards its powerful with ludicrously outsized incomes and privileged status, they begin to believe that they are, indeed, superior beings, with the right - if not the duty - to sit in judgment of others, and where possible, impose their will for “the public good” (which equates, naturally, with their vision of how things should be).

This dysfunctional mindset is not confined to lawyers, of course - it is viral and epidemic, and in my observations, especially rife among politicians (notice how many come from legal backgrounds?). Corporate management, gangster organisations and religious zealots are equally afflicted.

Scratch any tyrant, from dominatrix matriarch controlling her family through subtle manipulations and emotional blackmail to dictators whose levers are guns and propaganda, and the same mindset will be found. It is the mindset of the powerful and those who jealously guard their power, whether that power resides in a family, a court, a government, a fundamentalist religious group, a terrorist organisation. And it is ultimately morally corruptive in nature.

Look no further than Peter Garrett’s backflip on US bases in Australia for an obvious, well-publicised example. Garrett answered the media’s baying charges of hypocrisy with the unelaborated remark that he had changed his mind - which is, of course, in the good ol’ politician tradition, no answer at all.

Naturally, the Libs seized on Garrett’s discomfort and the ALP closed ranks to protect their besieged celeb newbie. In a supreme irony, the only words that rang true from either side were those of Mr Turnaround himself and spinmeister extraordinaire, John Howard, who suggested that Garrett didn’t believe in his heart of hearts in his newly adopted position on American bases.

Political party machines attempt to present an image of party unity to the electorate, because in unity is strength and policy cohesion, and that’s what the punters go for - focused, of course, in the party leadership. We can’t handle dissent, or shades of grey, so forget the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Keep it simple for us simple folk out here - the jury. We need to know what we’re voting for, in black and white, right?

Well, maybe not. I know I’m not the only one out here who is heartily sick of political spin. I’m sick of politicians not answering direct questions directly: of people like Garrett forfeiting his right to express his opinion in honesty and fullness in order to protect his place in the ALP, and advance the party’s chances of triumphing at the next election under a united banner, even if that unity is a ruse.

I’m sick of people like Howard and Ruddock who take the high moral ground with righteous lawyer-speak about observing due legal process on issues such as David Hicks’ incarceration for five years without trial, while refusing to concede that the basis existed for any humanitarian concerns - let alone legal ones - over the conditions at Guantanamo Bay.

I’m sick of having the world presented to me in black and white by lawyer leadership that is all about presentation and propaganda and nothing about truth and humanity.

Bin Laden is not the enemy. Neither is Bush. And, of course, neither are lawyers per se. The real enemy is the mindset to which I have alluded throughout, that prevails in so many lawyers as an indispensable asset, that demonises one side and deifies the other, unmindful and uncaring of integrity and honour. For at the core of that mindset resides the terrorist that is the true enemy of humanity.