Case dismissed.

• Author: Pomper, Stephen
• Position: Book Review

THE CASE AGAINST LAWYERS A Soldier's Life by Catherine Crier Broadway Books $23.95

WHEN I WAS A VERY JUNIOR lawyer in a big Wall Street firm, I dragged myself into work one day after a particularly punishing spell. As I slumped over my desk, destroyed, a senior colleague walked in and closed the door. "You have to keep things in perspective," I recall him telling me. "There used to be a saying in this trade:

1. Nobody's going to die.

2. It's only money.

3. It's not my money."

He was kidding, more or less, but within that three-part homily is much of what America hates about its lawyers.

Lawyers are like the Untouchables of the Indian caste system--handling the tasks that are too messy for others to go near. We deal with other peoples' money, fight their fights, and manage the negotiation of ugly little details that people don't want to admit actually matter. We have been known to defend the indefensible, and to file lawsuits that will not make the world a better place. We sometimes sow discord. When parties sit down to hammer out a deal, we focus on the hard issues, confronting points that have been brushed aside to preserve the illusion of backslapping bonhomie among the players. We argue over commas. And let's not even talk about fees! When you're on the way up, we make our nickel papering your mergers and acquisitions. When you're going bust, we're happy to handle the bankruptcy work. And in the end, if it all goes badly--we just move on to the next file.

If you, like Court TV's Catherine Crier, find this to be a highly regrettable state of affairs, here's some advice: Get real. Lawyers are professionals--like doctors, accountants, and teachers. As with other professions, law requires the talents of bright, hardworking people who can handle really awful situations with some detachment. It's demanding work and often not a lot of fun. To be any good at it, you have to be aggressive, thick-skinned, and none too squeamish. That's a good thing, by the way. You don't want a lawyer who is repelled by ugly facts any more than you want a doctor who will go to pieces every time you show up with a scratch.

These sound like pretty obvious points, don't they? But for some reason they present a real struggle for Ms. Crier. Crier, who was a prosecutor and a judge before she burst onto the small screen, decries a world in which lawyers are not nearly enough like the role models who drew her to the profession in the first place--Atticus Finch (as played...