A PROFILE IN PROFESSIONALISM

Diana E. Marshall The Marshall Law Firm

I am not convinced that one lawyer is “professionaler” than another. But I am positive that some lawyers are not professional at all–no way, no how. I hope the anti-professional lawyers don’t read this, because I am not speaking to them. The anti-professionals are not trainable or interested in salvation, and I forsake witnessing unto them. Aside from the small group of anti-professionals, there is only one other group, and it includes the rest of us. We are the imperfect lawyers who accept professionalism as a religion grounded in honesty and respect. Judge Andrew Jefferson said that professionalism has been his salvation, so that proves it is a religion. Since my group is imperfect, we sometimes fall short on our creed and are remorseful about it. We are blessed with a professional conscience. My group is trainable, so I have decided to preach to the choir. Professionalism raises a little matter called restraint.

“She started it,” is not a defense to a professional sin. Members of my group are not stupid or weak. Faced with an anti-professional rascal on the attack, we have the wit and courage to fashion a mighty fine comeback to a crude insult. The trick is having the restraint not to do it. Nobody wins a brutal tit-for-tat competition. Thus, I am not speaking to the anti-professionals, meaning I am trying not to take the bait, neither to lecture nor to trump. This is my one-step restraint therapy and I recommend it to my group. If I stoop to conquer, I could wake up like the woman in “The Others” and figure out that I am the ghost in the house I think is haunted. Aaron Burr was the last man standing, and look where it got him. Scripted by Gore Vidal as Burr’s final lament is this: “I cast Hamilton from the mountaintop, and myself fell.”