About Real Lawyers
People love to hate their lawyers. They make jokes and poke fun at them all the time. Lawyers are ridiculed by most of the public at large and are seen as immoral liars. Few people try to defend lawyers, except for lawyers themselves. The self-defense draws even more cynicism, however, no one else will defend the image of the good lawyers. The image of lawyers that Victor A. Fleming presents in his article “About Real Lawyers” is an accurate contrast between the public stereotypes and the true nature of lawyers.
Fleming addresses the false image of lawyers that television creates and the problems it causes for actual lawyers. He cites several examples from certain shows that wrongly depict how the courts usually operate. Fleming describes “Perry Mason”, a show in which “homicide cases are routinely resolved by courtroom confessions” (25). He later points out “courtroom confessions are rare occurrences” (25). Television depicts the solving of murder cases as fairly easy; all the lawyer has to do is get the murderer to confess. The reality, though, is that the lawyer has to form a case by analyzing the evidence that is available. The lawyer must put in much more work to create a believable argument, since he knows that he cannot rely on a confession. Another show that Fleming uses as a blatant example of the inaccuracy of television shows is “L. A. Law”. The author gives many examples of the show’s misrepresentation of the law practice, such as “judges mercilessly lectur[ing] the lawyers” (25). The impression is that the lawyer knows little about the laws that are pertinent to the case, therefore the judge must tell the lawyers what is really going on. Fleming also states that “lawyers who try to be ethical get thrown in jail” (25) and “every disposition results in a shouting match” (25) when the lawyers “appear in each other’s offices without appointments to read case law” (25). The false image given by “L. A. Law” is that all lawyers are aggressive, selfish, and unethical. Showing that ethical lawyers are placed in incarceration allows the attitude of the audience to believe all lawyers are immoral, but not all of them are. The meaning behind showing up “without appointments” is that lawyers have a complete lack of regard for each other’s schedules, but in general it is not the case. Not all of the problems lawyers encounter end in “shouting matches”. The aggressive behavior demonstrated through the shouting leads the audience to believe that lawyers will be as belligerent as possible, inside and out of the courtroom. It is an extreme misconception that yelling matches occur in the courtroom, since it is a place of order and respect. There may be isolated incidents, but it is not widespread. The fact is that television shows disregard the true nature of real lawyers for something juicier and more entertaining; something more dramatic. The liberties that the producers take create a false image of the lawyers on television, and thus, in the minds of the audience.
Fleming also uses the misinterpretation of Shakespeare to display a common misgiving of lawyers. The quotation from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II is from a member of a group of militant and ignorant peasants, where upon their rise to power, “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” (24). Fleming goes on to point out that the group “set out to kill all ‘scholars, lawyers, courtiers, [and] gentlemen” (24). The quote, “kill all the lawyers,” is taken out of context, so the meaning is twisted. The misuse of the quote is to display a hatred of lawyers even by great writers. The sense that is thus given to the public is Shakespeare hates lawyers so much that he wishes to kill them first off. Taken in context, the meaning is markedly different. Lawyers are not going to be murdered due to their profession or their actions, buy merely since they happen to be more educated and may hold more power than the uprising group. Quite a stark contrast exists between being more intelligent and just being despicable. It can be seen that Shakespeare does not necessarily choose to kill all lawyers due to the malevolence of the profession, but to eliminate them since they are more intelligent. Yet, few tend to try to straighten out the misconception, so the public continues to believe Shakespeare shows a hatred of lawyers.
There exists an inherent human factor in the blind hatred of lawyers by the general public. Not only is television and supposedly Shakespeare telling people that lawyers are wicked, but it is part of human nature to reject the unfamiliar. Lawyers have the ability to read, interpret, and understand the laws that govern everyone’s lives. Most people have no comprehension of the law, so the fact that lawyers can makes them different and peculiar. Being different automatically predisposes lawyers to receive hate due to jealousy and rejection of the unfamiliar. Humans fight change; they reject anything new and different. It is in human nature to dislike anything different from what we are. The same prejudices that are seen between races and religions can also be seen between the layman and the lawyer. People tend to reject anything that is different from them. Lawyers have an ability to understand and interpret the law that most do not have. Therefore, lawyers are subjected to the prejudice and discontent of the masses.
All the aforementioned factors, television, Shakespeare, and human nature, play a role in the stereotypes about lawyers that Fleming presents. The author quotes what he designates as “ an early example of a tacky lawyer joke” (24) by a Mr. Day, who says, “to most people a lawyer is a more obnoxious animal than a spider” (24). Lawyers are only seen as “more obnoxious” than spiders as a result of the generalizations made by the public. Another such generalization is a response to a request to stop repeating gossip, “It’s hearsay right? You lawyers are all the same!” (23). The person making the remark has no regard for what the lawyer, in this case Fleming himself, is really thinking. The person just assumes that Fleming does not want to hear it since it would be objectionable in court, but in reality Fleming just does not want to hear bad rumors about the person. There is no thought that a lawyer could actually have a conscience, it is just believed that they only see things as what they can use in court and nothing else. A final statement that Fleming uses is “Can you imagine anything worse than slamming a trunk lid on a lawyer?” (23). The implications of the statement display lawyers as greedy and ready to sue at any moment. The generalization made is from the more contemptible lawyers. Not all lawyers chase ambulances; there are some that actually work outside of personal injury cases. The small field of personal injury lawyers has a bad public image, and the bad image is then translated to all other forms of law and lawyers. Stereotypes, such as all lawyers chase ambulances, are degrading to all lawyers, good and bad, and most are undeserving of such a degradation of image. The public image of lawyers, which is created from television shows, misquotations, and automatic rejection, is an example where a few have marred the image of the many.
The bottom line is that lawyers are stereotyped into a malicious image. The causes of the stereotypes are from various sources, but mostly television, the lifeblood of American culture. Stereotypes are inherently evil; they make generalizations about all so that the truth about the individuals cannot be sought. The stereotypes that are made for lawyers have the same cruelty as stereotypes made based on skin color. All lawyers have the same public image as the few immoral and bad lawyers have. The image is false; not all lawyers are the same. So people should seek the truth behind the people, behind the real lawyers, and not just paint them all the same way.
Work Cited:
Beherns, Laurence. Making the Case. “About Real Lawyers”, Victor A. Fleming. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001. p. 22-
25.