Lawyers

Lawyers, hate em or love em. I love em. Granted, I am one, but I do enjoy talking to lawyers, being around lawyers, and reading what lawyers have written. Many business men and women, religious leaders, news people, and fiction writers are trained lawyers. When referring to “trained” lawyers I am not referring to the fact that they don’t go to the bathroom on the rug or chew on a slipper or a couch. I mean they have gone to law school and may practice law or may be engaged in other professional pursuits.

Currently and historically, many of the Mormon general authorities have been lawyers. Many CEO’s of big business are lawyers. At least one big league  baseball manager, Tony La Russa was a lawyer.  Obviously, many politicians are lawyers. Like all professions, there are good lawyers and bad lawyers; shysters and people of high integrity. The vast majority of lawyers I interact with seem to be outstanding people.

I like that lawyers are interested in things. Today I sent an email to my partners telling them I had a 9 page article about LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate) which is a global interest rate reference used in many financing transactions. My email indicated that if they were interested in reading the Libor article, I would send it to them. I received five requests for the article. These five people either have no life, a bizarre sense of what is interesting, or are renaissance people. I like to think we are renaissance people.  As for me, I printed the article, read the article and finally put it in my briefcase to take home to the Lovely Sharon in case she is interested in the topic. (Hey you never know, she might consider my gift of the Libor article as very sweet and thoughtful).

Being married to a lawyer is not the easiest of things. I find myself having lawyer-like discussions with the Lovely Sharon. She makes a statement and I ask her for a clarification of what she means. If she uses a word or a phrase that is subject to more than one interpretation I find myself saying something like “that word means _______ to me. Is that what it means to you in the context of the message you are trying to convey?” Generally, her response to that question is a roll of her eyes and a retort of “What do you think?”

The problem with her response is now I have to figure out what her initial intent actually was and I also have to figure out what I thought her initial intent was. They may or may not be the same thing.  So then I have to figure out if her initial intent, and what I thought her initial intent was, are the same. If I conclude they are the same, then clarity has been brought to the situation. If I conclude they are not the same or I am unable to determine if they are the same, then I have to reconcile her actual intent, my thoughts as to what her intent was and then devise a process to determine what her actual intent was. This requires additional questions by me, an explanation to her by me about the uncertainty of what her intent actually was and request for further clarification of what message she actually was attempting to convey.

Generally, this results in further discussion, further analysis and sometimes further uncertainty. The conversation generally ends with the Lovely Sharon saying something like “Forget it, I will vacuum the living room myself.”

Oh well, we should strive for continued clarity