Heart of Stone
“This is business; not personal.”[1] How many times have I quoted that line? How many times have I heard it? How many times have I stupidly offered it as comfort, just like the imaginary killers with whom it originated? Have I become part of a 37-year generation of schizophrenics and multiple-personalities to whom this statement truly deep-down makes sense? Take it from the Unemployed Lawyer—things do not happen randomly in law firms. Most of what happens to you happens because you are you. How much more personal can you get?
And yet, consider the most successful lawyers you know. The corner office guys, because they are mostly guys. The Management Committee. The Executive Committee. These are the guys who say, “Get me an associate,” the same way they would say, “Get me a stapler”. These are the same guys who: a) never look you in the eye; or b) always look you in the eye so that you won’t think that they’re the kind of guy who never looks you in the eye. The top operators can coo and cluck over your poor little tragedies fifteen minutes after signing the papers that will kill your career. These are the guys who rise and rise while you lie bleeding in the dust. These are the guys who make headline news. These are the guys who control the Business of Law. These are the guys who really don’t care as long as business is good. “The reason the above-named folks are better than you is because you got feelings. Feelings get you killed”.[2]
'"A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections--a mere heart of stone”.[3] The really successful lawyers personally known to your really unsuccessful Unemployed Lawyer seem to have managed, not the true Heart of Stone, but belief in the slippery, crazy duality of, “This is business; it’s not personal”.[4] I know some former colleagues who would say that the Really Big Guys have completely mastered the Heart of Stone, but I disagree. The Really Big Guys go home at night and love their families and friends like anybody else does. They have the whole gangster thing down pat: Heart of Stone in the Office and Vito Corleone playing among the tomato plants with his grandson when at home. Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.[5].
Where does that leave those of us who can’t manage the juggling act; who simply can’t develop multiple personalities? We’re certainly at a disadvantage in the Business of Law because we can and do get hurt. Feelings get you killed? We want to please and want friendship and affection in return. This is deadly, because those things are generally not on offer and not to be trusted when they are. Worse, people will think you’re crazy if your feelings show, so you have to contain, contain, contain. For all BigLaw’s concern with racial, religious, and ethnic diversity, it is still, and seemingly always will be, a private club. Its doors are open to those who can conform and contain. On the surface, every firm looks different, but on the inside they are all the same—and they like it that way.
Maybe this chill continuity is a good thing. I am not able to judge. I take everything personally. I take it personally that I can’t find a job, when I know that somewhere, somebody has just found one. I take it personally that I don’t have a job in the first place. I take it personally that the Really Big Guys and the Business of Law will never really like or want me—just because I take it personally that they don’t.
“There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been ‘Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself,’ while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have any chance to look out for themselves.”[6] The jungle atmosphere at many law firms; the kill or be killed attitude fostered, I believe, by taking nothing personally, by giving nothing personally, has brought the Business of Law to its present state of failures, layoffs, and firm closings. It’s much harder to fire someone you care about. It’s much easier to ask everybody to take a pay reduction if they actually care about the people whose jobs might be otherwise lost. When you’re playing for the team, you’re giving from the heart. When every man’s for himself, then there is no strength in numbers. You’ll have only a melee, and not a sound battle formation. “Things fall apart; the center will not hold”.[7] Not that there was any center to begin with; not that you can start building one on a Heart of Stone.
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[1] The Godfather, Alfran Productions, 1972, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton.
[2] Appaloosa, New Line Cinema, 2008, directed by Ed Harris, starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortenson, Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons.
[3] Charles Darwin, Letter to T.H. Huxley, July 9, 1857.
[4] Godfather.
[5] Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005, directed by Shane Black, starring Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan.
[6] Woodrow Wilson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1913.
[7] William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, 1921.
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