Over the last several months there have been various iterations of stories and reports making the rounds about the susceptibility of our profession to depression and substance abuse, reports of 1 in 5 lawyers being problem drinkers, etc. There are also always folks out there writing variations of pieces about the problems that are created by incivility among lawyers. Here’s one rolled out earlier this month. While I am a strong believer that vague and “eye of the beholder” concepts such as civility and professionalism should be kept separate from ethical codes that are enforceable through discipline, I’m also on record about the general, good advice of simply not being an ass.
I don’t know if it is true, as I’ve heard some say now or as some said in 1989 before I was ever even practicing for that matter, that things are worse/more vitriolic now than they have been in the past. I don’t purport to know the answer to that last question but certainly have my own cynical views about nostalgia generally (and as to the practice of law particularly) where I end up agreeing almost wholeheartedly with John Hodgman’s view:
But, at the same time I recognize in myself the additional stress in life that can come as a side effect to all of the wonderful benefits that technological advances do bring to life. None of us are perfect and all of us are under pressure and all of us feel the need to provide rapid responses and take rapid action, a need that is inculcated with each passing day that we practice in the always-at-work world of smartphones, wearable tech, and whatever might have been invented just now.
A week from today I will be speaking in Memphis for attorneys who need an hour of ethics credit on the topic of “Ethics in Dealing With Opposing Counsel. Ironically or not, the talk will be in connection with a Happy Hour event, and there will be adult drinks available afterwards.
All professions have aspects of what they do that induce stress; lawyers are not unique in that regard. Yet, one thing that we do have to deal with that almost no other professionals have to endure are folks like the Connecticut gentleman who prompted this federal court order and who claims to have reopened the “federal postal court” and to have created his own language rife with strange syntax, mathematical formulas, and a core tenet that only nouns have legal meanings.
Ask any LAWYER YOU know and THEY’LL TELL YOU that they’ve HAD TO DEAL at least ONCE with one of THESE CHARACTERS that also MANAGES TO ALWAYS have to work in random BOUTS OF capitalization. Having to deal with these folks and assist clients in attempting to unwind the crazy stuff these jokers attempt to do is a bonus stressor for the legal profession.
In this particular incident, as today’s ABA Journal online article explains, most of the heavy lifting in unwinding the nonsense was borne by a federal district judge. Yet, the problem created was not insubstantial, and I would guess at least a lawyer or two spent some time stewing over the potential damage that was being caused to their client. The gentleman had filed an $11.5 million “judgment” of the federal postal court for registration in Connecticut against Ocwen Financial Corp.
In ordering that the “judgment” be stricken, among other choice nuggets, an actual federal court had to write that that the gentleman claiming to be a judge of the postal court had explained during a telephonic hearing:
that the Federal Postal Court operates on the basis of a sophisticated mathematical understanding of language that proves that certain mortgage documents are fraudulent.
The story also notes that there were dozens of similar filings made recently in Connecticut purporting to be judgments of this “court” which, uniquely, has no physical fixed location but happens to have “transitory jurisdiction wherever the federal postal eagle symbol may be.”
Just writing about this issue kind of makes me interested in having a beer with lunch. If I do (I won’t), it would be a Belgian beer as a reminder of real, and much more consequential, problems and stressors that are out there in the modern world.