Legal fictions

With my background as a lawyer, I always enjoy legal dramas and thrillers. While I’m carried along by the story, there is a part of me that often laughs at the unrealistic portrayal of what it’s really like working in the law. The fictitious lawyers often seem to prepare for a trial in a matter of days and the dramatic hearings are over in the time it takes for counsels to do their summing up. Oh sure, there is often a montage sequence of our dedicated legal hero/heroine at the law books late at night — beautifully-lit shots of them with a furrowed brow surrounded by books and occasionally leaning back to stretch and rub their temples to convey deep thought and hard work. But have you noticed how their files tend to be only a few pages thick?

In reality, lawyers files are stuffed full of papers and go on for volumes. Cases take months, if not years, to come to trial. And the trial itself could last for months or years. While I’ve never been a litigation lawyer, a property project I worked on started while I was practising as a senior lawyer, continued during the five-year break that I took to write my two novels and concluded only a few years after I returned to the firm — in the meantime the trainee who had worked with me qualified as a solicitor, took on the running of the project, had two children and became a partner!

And of course, I never come across any dead bodies, men with guns or murderous conspiracies!

One “lawyer in peril” series that we’re currently addicted to is Damages. The plot is impossible to summarise but suffice it to say that it is full of tension, blood, guilt and cliffhangers. The main reason that we are completely mesmerised is Glenn Close. She plays the senior partner of the firm and is a cross between Cruella DeVille and her younger bunny-boiling persona in Jagged Edge. She is at her most scary when she is being apparently pleasant and kind …

But the best thing about her character is her wardrobe of amazing power suits and crisply cut shirts. They exude power and confidence and stylishness. Even in the most tense and dramatic moment, I am often distracted, shouting out, “Look what she’s wearing! I would love to have that suit!”

In reality, of course, in my days as a lawyer, I often had difficulty maintaining the smart appearance that I started the day off in. The downward spiral would begin with the jacket coming off and going on the back of the chair. Then I would turn up my sleeves. My shirt would get creased. Sometimes, I would get covered in dust if I had to look through ancient property deeds. I’ve even managed to spill coffee all over myself and my desk during a long and difficult time phone negotiation — what a klutz!

In my current job, I’m no longer practising as a solicitor and there is a fairly relaxed dress code so I am often in jeans if we don’t have a business meeting. I feel less severe and more able to be chirpy, cheerful — and more myself — in casual wear. It doesn’t impact on how well I do my work — it just means that the boundary between my work and personal life is less sharply defined.

All of which makes me wonder: if I actually got myself togged up in Glenn Close’s intimidating, power suits, would my personality change? Would I become sinister, manipulative and murderous? And would I suddenly come into the office one morning and find a dead body?

Do I dare put this theory to the test…?

Photo: from Damages official website, with thanks