Unlike the rest of humanity, lawyers never do monumentally stupid, embarrassing and humiliating things. Almost never. Well, maybe just as often as anyone else.
Rarely is any mention of it made here, unless there is some point to be made that illuminates matters for the rest of us. It’s not just offered for its titillating or salacious value, to grab eyeballs of people who can’t get enough of snarky cat memes and who learned about sex on the internet.
But this post at a UK blog calld Legal Cheeks disturbed me. A Brooklyn solo practitioner, Stephanie Hendricks, had a really bad day and ended it drunk and stupid. Very drunk and very stupid. It had absolutely nothing to do with her being a lawyer, and offers no insight to lawyers other than to avoid getting very drunk and stupid. But this is a message for everyone, not just lawyers.
Why? Her story appeared in the New York Post, a tabloid known for its hard-hitting, deeply thoughtful content. So let’s spread the word around the blawgosphere in order to free ride off the salaciousness of her having removed certain articles of clothing and uttered some particularly poorly chosen words to police officers. Like I said, she had a very bad day.
Adding insult to injury, this is the sort of thing likely to appear in Above the Law, where no humiliating moment that happens to a lawyer, without regard to whether it’s of any consequence to her professional responsibilities or performance, is offered to titillate the senses of young lawyers whose own lack of a life is fulfilled by Staci Zaretsky’s posting dirty stories on the internet. Oops. Too late, it’s already there.
There is an allegation that Hendricks ran off without paying a $6 cab fare before, well, other things happened. Whether that’s true, and whether that was a by-product of her drunkenness or a deliberate act, might be fair for commentary, but let’s be real here. Had she not been naked from the waist down, and not spoken as she did to cops, nobody would ever care about the $6 cab fare.
It’s one thing to raise and discuss things done by lawyers that provide lessons in what to do, and what not to do, in the conduct of our practices, our representation of clients, our integrity as professionals. Lawyers certainly do plenty to feed the discussion of wrongs that need to be righted. But this was nothing, a person who got drunk and behaved incredibly poorly. That the person happened to be a lawyer is irrelevant.
When the blawgosphere resorts to spreading stories which serve no purpose other than to humiliate people who happen to be lawyers, stories which offer nothing of value or thought, and are posted merely to titillate, it makes us puny.
Have you never seen a naked person before? Have you never heard rude words? Big deal. Grow up and get over it. We don’t embarrass people for no reason. When we do, we embarrass ourselves and our profession. This was disgraceful, and it’s unbecoming to get your kicks off someone else’s really bad, and wholly irrelevant, day.
Are you proud of yourselves for getting a cheap laugh out of Stephanie Hendricks’ drunken behavior? If so, you really need to grow up.
Simple Justice
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Greenfield, I tend to agree with you on this one . . .
It all revolves around our warped culture of sex and nakedness in ‘Merica. Something to do with the Freudian Madonna–Whore complex and other such nonsense . . .
In fact, when I was little, my mama told me, “Scotty boy, never look at a naked women lest you turn to stone.” And sure enough, the first time I discovered my older brother’s Playboy magazines, I got really scared, cuz I felt something hardening. For a moment there, I thought mama was right and I was indeed turning to stone . . .
Which somehow leads back to our now embarrassed barrister; I’m sure she has a lot of grievances after such an episode and the resulting unwanted and unnecessary prurient interest and media coverage . . .
But the way I look at it, she’s already halfway home: she nailed the undressing part; all she’s gotta do is now redress her grievances and, as you know, attorneys tend to be pretty good at that . Problem solved . . .
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I sense you’re right, and yet there’s something unsettling about the way you’ve framed your comment.
It was covered at PoliceOne too.
Not that they have a high view of lawyers to begin with.
I bet they’re loving the schadenfreude. I was going to take a look, but I don’t want to see the comments.
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Well, SHG, truth be told, I too thought is was a bit unsettling when I posted it, understanding, however, that I really haven’t quite settled down since the stone scare incident when I was but a wee little lad. Cuz I mean, let’s face it — it’s not everyday that you turn to stone . . .
Which reminds me. Did you hear about the guy that got a Viagra stuck in his throat?? He ended up having a really stiff neck . . .
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LOL. No, you don’t. They are not pretty, although they seem to be having a big laugh over it.
Eh, it’s no big thing.
That’s just mean.