The Trouble with Lawyers

Lawyers are often super inefficient, because they chose to do a lot of research and muddle around trying to figure things out for themselves instead of simply asking someone who already knows the answer. Why do they engage in this labor intensive, stress-inducing, clusterfuck of a work methodology to find the answer themselves? Well, I'm glad you asked. I don't believe this comes from an innate desire in all lawyers to learn things on their own and do it the hard way, or any such nonsense. And just to clarify, I'm also not talking about attorney work product that can't just be taken from someone else. No, I have a fun little psychological theory on this idiocy we engage in. 

Fear. The reason we don't ask for help is because we fear asking for help, partly because it means admitting our own inadequacies (is it really an inadequacy to not have the fire code memorized?), but mostly because of our past experiences with asking for help. Maybe this is unique to lawyers, but this is where my experience is generally limited, so this is what I'm addressing. (Although, I did work for two years in a college admissions office, and I feel I can honestly say that when I asked for help or answers or information in that job, I cannot remember once ever feeling dismissed or belittled in my colleague's response.) Too many times, when a lawyer or law student asks a "superior" for help or information, they are readily dismissed. It's as though your supervising attorney, your professor, or that 3L you sort of know is saying, "It's like THIS. How do you not know that? Everyone knows that? What a dumb question. You're wasting my time." 

As I write this, I am remembering moments in class where professors have dismissed a gunner's attempted arguments in an oh-so-hasty fashion, and while we generally tend to revel in those moments (ugh, gunners, be quiet!), perhaps that's not always the best method. I find myself wondering, as a rising 3L, if I treated my classmates this way over the past year. Did I? I'm not sure. All I know for sure is this: I went to an attorney a few days back, to ask a question and get some clarity on a factual situation for a project I was working on, and he replied in such a terse and dismissive manner that I really never want to ask him another question ever again. This isn't this first time this has happened. Not with this particular attorney, nor with any number of other attorneys and law professors I've encountered. And certainly, it will not be the last. 

Perhaps some of you will think I am just being too sensitive, and that quickly getting past false assumptions or incorrect conclusions is merely a fact of business which helps us move along at a more efficient pace. Perhaps you're right. But I for one am rather disappointed. I had hoped to gain more from my law school experiences than a deeper fear of asking questions and being made to feel a fool, but so far.... no such luck.