Most lawyer movies and legal series convey a completely skewed image of lawyers and courts.
But as most people unfortunately spend more time in front of the television than before an appellate court, these misconceptions inform their expectations. And then, people are disappointed when the whole law firm with five lawyers is not exclusively dedicated to their one single case, when the court still hasn’t made a ruling two days after a lawsuit has been filed, when the courtroom is neither packed with jurors nor with curious spectators, and when the judges aren’t constantly smashing their desks with wooden hammers. I can also regularly sense the disappointment of my clients when I don’t show up with a limousine and a chauffeur, like the “Lincoln Lawyer”, taking the tram instead. Or simply walking to court.
A particularly annoying example is “Suits”.
“Better call Saul”, on the other hand, I found surprisingly realistic.
Now, I don’t mean that the drug mafia kidnaps me, drags me out into the desert of New Mexico and tries to shoot me every week. But that’s probably because the guys from the Sinaloa cartel read that I am totally capable of getting lost in the desert and almost dying of dehydration by myself. There’s really no need for them to get their hands dirty.
Beyond the superficial theatrics, “Better call Saul” presents the hard life of a solo lawyer with all its ups and downs: the exhausting courtship of clients, but then too many show up at the same time. You have to take care of everything yourself because you have no staff. And if you don’t get around to answering e-mails for a few days, clients show up at home.
But now I have discovered a truly realistic lawyer movie: “Maîtres” is a documentary about three French female lawyers who run a law firm in Strasbourg, focusing on immigration law.
Not only because I also work in immigration law did I immediately recognize a lot: Of course, superficial things like the older editions of legal commentaries, which serve as a base for laptops and lamps, or the smoker’s balcony (although in my case with relaxing cigars instead of a quick Gauloise).
But most of all, I recognized the clients and their stories. There are clients who come with a thick folder, everything perfectly organized. And then there are those from whom you have to extract every piece of information, as if they were in Guantanamo. (There is a movie about that, too.) Clients who bring their children to interpret, half proud, half ashamed. Clients who think they have done everything right because they have always worked hard and never been on welfare, because they speak French and all their children go to school, but from the state’s point of view, it weighs more heavily that they provided a false identity 16 years ago. (Please don’t do anything like that. It only leads to endless complications.) Chaotic clients who would need a secretary to make their appointments, to deal with their mail and, above all, to pay their bills. Clients with dramatic life stories. Clients whose case only has a half-baked chance of success, but whom you really want to help because they are nice people. And even the conversation to prepare for the naturalization test rang a bell.
At first I thought: “Convincing acting, chapeau!” Until I realized that the lawyers are real. And so are the staff and clients. They simply set up a camera in the office and let it roll. Of course only with clients who agreed to it.
Maybe screenwriters and directors should take a lesson from this. Dare to be more realistic. As Egon Erwin Kisch wrote: “Nothing is more exciting than the truth.” Or, if you really want to make lawyer movies, at least ask some real lawyers before. There are enough of us who are willing to help.
By the way, I don’t really want to complain the way it sounded above. In all honesty, it’s a pretty cool job. You sit around, listen to people’s stories, think, write a few letters, read a lot, and in between, you smoke.
I realized how privileged I am as soon as I watched the next film, which was about work on a construction site. Now, that’s what you can legitimately call a stressful work environment.
What about your job? Are there any realistic movies/series/books about it?
Links:
- If you live in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium or Luxembourg, you can watch “Maîtres” and “Alarms” for free on Filmfriend, the Netflix for intellectuals. It’s included in your public library membership. You would be surprised by all the stuff offered by public libraries!
- More movie recommendations.
- My small law office.
The Happy Hermit 
Pingback: Ein realistischer Anwaltsfilm: „Maîtres“ | Der reisende Reporter
They did make a movie about my job. It’s called “Office Space”, and it’s quite accurate, despite being billed as a comedy. And yes, in my first job, I had 3 bosses, though they were all on the same team. Yep, three bosses, about 8 people, one team. I should note the company used to be a part of the American monopoly The Bell System. ‘Nuff said.
I had never heard of that movie before, but the trailer and the clips on YouTube look really funny!
I often think that many people who hail private sector flexibility over government bureaucracy have never worked in a large corporation with all its divisions and departments and boards and rules and regulations and meetings.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those large corporations are more bureaucratic than a small country.
I’ll put it this way. By working various little rules left over from Ameritech’s days as part of the Bell System, I carefully crafted a few hours of overtime on Saturday mornings into the equivalent of 6 weeks of vacation in my 2nd year working there. Company standard was two weeks, unless you’d been employed for something like 20 years, then you got 3 weeks. Plus. I was turning some of those Saturday mornings into 1.5 times my pay to pay for vacations on that time off. I traveled all over the US to sci-fi cons, basically by working rules most people didn’t know were there, thanks to leftover bureaucracy. (And my father’s knowledge of the Bell System from his almost 40 years with the behemoth.)
I could never do something like that, because I am a very honest person and always feel bad when taking advantage of something. 😇
I figured they got about 5 hours of my Saturday mornings, plus my commute time to and from home. In return, I got either 1.5 times pay or equal time off – the fluke was, instead of industry standard of only my time in the office, the old Bell System rules paid for the commute as well as the office time. The bosses all signed off on it, so I figured if they approved, and if the company allowed it, then how wrong could it be? ;) (Yes, I am a more mercenary soul than you are. Guess I’ll have to watch you in Heaven from my warmer home in Hades. :D )
As a lawyer, I bill by the hour in many cases.
And then when I look at the timesheet or the final bill, I think “oh gosh, that’s really a lot” and I reduce it. Which might explain why I don’t have a car and have to take the bus to court.
I shouldn’t say this as a dyed-in-the-wool car guy, but cars are over-rated, especially in urban areas. If we lived in a civilised area with public transportation, I’d take my wife’s minivan out and shoot it – only because it deserves it. ;) Then again, we’d have decent utilities instead of a wood-burning furnace and wouldn’t need the van. Of course, we’d also have high taxes, high property taxes, unaffordable housing, usurious grocery prices, and all the other fun of urban living, so I guess we’ll stick with living in the sticks with the hicks. At least until I can figure out a way to get back to civilisation i.e. Chicago.,
In Germany, we now have a flatrate for all public transport for 58 €/month. Nationwide. All local and regional buses, metros, trains, trams and even ferries.
The only trains not covered are long-distance and superfast trains, but you can still travel across the whole country, you just need to change trains a few times.
For that money, you can’t even fill up a car once.
But apart from the price, the best thing is: No more struggling with different ticket machines, zones and tariffs when you get to another city/county/state.
Luxembourg is even better, though. They simply made all public transport free. For everyone, even tourists.
I wish to say something, with all the love, honour, and respect possible.
I hate you Europeans. :p :D
God, I wish any American city would do that. The chaos required just in going from the Chicago “L” subway to Chicago buses, unless well-planned in advance, can be daunting, and that’s within city limits. Trying to get from city to city is dang near impossible unless you fly. Rail travel is slow, antiquated, and expensive – it would be easier, cheaper, and faster for the wife and I to drive from here (roughly Columbus Ohio) to Chicago than to take Amtrak. That is pathetic! Bus travel is cheaper, but slower, and you basically take your life in your hands, with terminals at each end being in the highest crime rate areas of each city. It is madness in this country.
Maybe I should quit trying to seek refuge in Canada, and just try being a political refugee over by you? I like bicycles – maybe Holland? Avoid the AfD in Germany and their brethren in Austria? ;)
The funny thing is that most Europeans complain about public transport, too, including about the slowness and unreliability of trains.
I personally don’t see a problem with traveling slow (honestly, it’s just really slow in Romania), because I use the time to read, to sleep, to talk with fellow passengers or to simply look out of the window. (There are some wonderful scenic routes.)
And as to delays, that doesn’t bother me much. I always carry a book, so time is never lost.
Because there is a train from any station in any direction every 30 minutes, hour or (maximum) every 2 hours, even a missed connection isn’t a big deal. (Although it would be great if the train stations were warmer in winter and were cozier, like they are in Eastern Europe.)
But people love to complain, especially when they don’t know how the situation is elsewhere.
Amen to that. The light commuter rail in Chicago, Metra, could get me the 25+ miles from where I lived into the heart of the city in 45 minutes – but people griped about the slowness of the trains, despite the fact the drive would take you twice that long. It took me an hour to drive about 20 miles from suburb to suburb at a later job – no mass transit option, because people had shot it down repeatedly because “it would be an eyesore” despite the fact it would have taken thousands of cars off the roads and drastically reduced travel times in the area that EVERYBODY griped about. I always loved riding the “L” in from O’Hare Airport into the city, but most people complained about the line as being too slow, too cramped, too noisy, too uncomfortable. It’s a bloody above-ground subway! It ain’t a luxury railway!
But hey, there was a statement made about US soldiers in WW2. The only time you had to worry about their morale was when they STOPPED complaining! :D Guess the world took a lesson from them, eh?
Funnily enough, the most punctual means of transportation (outside of Switzerland) was the cruise ship I took from Gran Canaria to Brazil, and the other one back from Colombia to Lisbon.
Between one and two weeks on the high seas, but both times it arrived at 12:30 sharp. I thought it kind of took the adventure out of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
One of the most relaxing train journeys was the train across Canada: https://andreasmoser.blog/2019/01/10/27-hours-train/
It sometimes had up to 5 hours delay, but nobody seemed to mind. When the whole trip takes 5 days, what’s 5 hours? Also, in the end, the train caught up the delay and even arrived 2 hours early.
But the good thing was that anyone who embarks on such a trip is relaxed by nature. So it’s a very nice self-selected group of people.
I still dream to do a similar crossing of the USA on Amtrak one day.
And now who’s complaining? ;)
Touché.
The judges tell me we would also have accepted the answer “smarta$$”. ;) :D
Love it! “Better Call Saul” was a favorite. I’ll try to find this new one. I shared your blog post to my BlueSky account. Thanks for your blog!
Karen
Thank you very much for sharing!
If you have/get an account with the public library in Kaiserslautern, you should be able to access Filmfriend for free. They even have English subtitles. (I needed them as well, I have to admit.)
Thanks for the advice!
Thank you for sharing such an intriguing article on maitre d’s and their vital role in the dining experience. I particularly found the insight about the balance they must maintain between customer satisfaction and staff coordination to be quite illuminating. To expand on this topic, it’s interesting to consider how the unique responsibilities of a maitre d’ can vary across different cultures and types of cuisine. For instance, in traditional Japanese restaurants, the maitre d’ not only oversees service but also plays a critical role in conveying the cultural aspects of dining, such as proper etiquette and appreciation for the seasonal ingredients. This cultural nuance adds a rich layer to the maitre d’s duties that may not be universally recognized. Furthermore, the rise of online reservations and dining apps has changed the dynamics of a maitre d’s role, as they now not only manage the floor but also engage with customers through technology. This adjustment presents both challenges and opportunities for enhancing customer service. Given the critical role that a maitre d’ plays in ensuring everything runs smoothly, I wonder how their authority and decision-making can intersect with legal concepts like a “writ of mandamus,” especially when it comes to resolving disputes or enforcing rules in high-pressure dining environments. Have you encountered any examples where legal action was necessary to uphold the standards of service in a restaurant setting?