IndyBar President’s Column: Being a Lawyer is a Good Thing, Not a Bad Thing

Several years ago, my wife and I were fortunate to attend a live taping of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” at a large hotel instead of the typical NBC Studio. Thirty minutes before the show began, Jay Leno came out on stage in jeans to “warm up the crowd” with a few jokes and to talk with the audience. He was charming and funny and several people in the large auditorium asked questions, which he turned into jokes. When he said he would take one last question, and his eyes darted in my direction, I was horrified to see my wife’s hand in the air! Yes, he actually called on her and she said, “Could we please have a picture with you for our five kids?” Without hesitating he said, “Of course you can,” asked his assistants to help us up onto the stage under the bright lights, and then for five minutes interviewed us in front of 3,000 people. He made fun of my clothes (“Tom, I know your wife picked out those clothes to inform other women that you are married, because no man in America would pick out those golf shorts.”) It was all good fun, he had everyone laughing at my expense, and then he asked the question, “So what do you do for a living, Tom?” “I’m a lawyer.” You could hear the groans, muffled boo’s and other signs of audible displeasure rise into the auditorium’s upper seats upon this revelation. Leno rolled his eyes and made some funny remark about lawyers, and we sat back down. While this was an unusual experience for my wife (who is also a lawyer) and me at least, I feel safe in stating that the public discontent toward lawyers has been felt by every attorney reading this article to at least some degree.

What are we lawyers to do about this? How do we respond? Do we respond? We know our value. We know the rules, we help our clients every day, and we serve as the advocates for justice in perhaps the greatest experiment in democracy in history. Yet the jokes persist, and we must make a choice in certain moments of conversation, or perhaps in front of 3,000 people on “The Tonight Show.” I chose to smile, take it in stride and not become defensive. After all, everybody loves to joke about lawyers until they need one — then they want the best attorney they can find.

I believe that our best approach in these situations is to conduct ourselves with the type of civility and honesty that instills respect and admiration. We must accept that we can neither change history nor misperceptions passed down through generations. For example, many people misinterpret Shakespeare’s line in Henry VI, uttered by Dick the Butcher: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” This statement was not an attack on lawyers, but just the opposite. Dick the Butcher was a follower of rebel Jack Cade, who thought that he could become king if he disturbed law and order, and it was the lawyers, who instill justice in society, who stood in the way of this unlawful scheme.

One of the best ways to respond is to conduct ourselves as helpful, reasonable professionals who genuinely care about our clients and our profession. Part of this is to fully appreciate our fellow attorneys and treat each other with respect. The late United States District Judge Larry McKinney employed a technique along these lines that made a large impression on me. When holding an attorneys’ conference to address some dispute or scheduling matter, he would preside in his “conference room” and open things up by asking each of the attorneys to identify the last book he or she had read. Of course, when the judge asks a question, you answer, and we did. We’d go around the table explaining what book we were finishing or had just finished, which led to short discussions about interests and hobbies.

The beauty of this protocol, I am sure designed by Judge McKinney, was the disarming and de-escalating effect of describing a book in the presence of litigation adversaries, as if we were in a reading club, not a federal courthouse. I’ve thought about this over the years and realized two things: first, Judge McKinney genuinely liked lawyers and wanted to get to know us on a more personal level than gleaned from a brief or case management order; second, despite our duty to zealously represent our clients, opposing counsel are interesting and worthy persons with interests, hobbies and families. Practicing law is more rewarding when we better understand and appreciate them.

This year, the IndyBar Professionalism Committee held its “Take Opposing Counsel to Lunch” program on July 16, 2019. Scott Oliver, chair of our Professionalism Committee, introduced past IndyBar president Kevin McGoff, who has been intimately involved with this program since its inception. Our special guests were nationally acclaimed defense attorney Jim Voyles and our United States Attorney Josh Minkler. Their presentations were outstanding, timely and informative, and they stressed the advantages to be gained through civility, honesty and character. Mr. Voyles particularly stressed the need for face-to-face meetings to allow each other’s point of views to be expressed in an atmosphere of friendship and professional courtesy rather than impersonal electronic messages. The IndyBar provides the perfect forum for lawyers to get to know each other outside the pressures of litigation, transactions or competition for clients.

My late father was a minister, and the only jokes he liked better than preacher jokes were lawyer jokes. I’ve heard them all my life and some are pretty funny. And still, my favorite people are lawyers who love being lawyers, like Judge McKinney and Jim Voyles. Since we cannot stop the jokes, let’s just enjoy each other’s company, hold our heads high and continue to instill justice in society just as we have being doing since Shakespeare wrote Henry VI.•