Test Case: Getting Interviewed For A CLE Video On Legal Ethics -- On Two Hours’ Sleep
Even under what seems like the worst of circumstances, you can still carry on a conversation about the law and the practice of law.
Allison Peryea
A couple of months ago, I committed to participate in a taping for a series of continuing legal education videos for the state bar association. I’ve been signing up for a lot of presentations lately — just recently I filled in last-minute at a law conference in exchange for a giant, inflatable rubber duck pool floatie (negotiation skills in action!) — and speaking on a video seemed even easier due to the lack of a live audience and its ability to boo and throw old fruit.
One video topic was: “Counsel over cocktails: Analyzing the ethical pitfalls of off-the-cuff legal advice.” While I wasn’t sure how helpful I would be with respect to giving input on ethics, I figured my experience with cocktails was what made my name come up as a prospective contributor.
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Because I like to live dangerously with respect to scheduling decisions, I booked a 7 a.m. flight on the day of taping to return from Detroit, where we were celebrating my grandma’s 103rd birthday. (The long weekend featured Grandma Taylor enjoying a local IPA — temporarily breaking her allegiance to Miller High Life — and comparing her minuscule forearms arms to me and my sister’s “fleshy” ones.)
The night before taping, I stayed up until about 3 a.m. thinking about how I had to get up at 5 a.m. for my flight. I didn’t get much, if any, sleep on the flight, given that I had an aisle seat next to a small child who was basically a walking bladder.
When I arrived at the office around noon, I pulled up the emailed list of topics I was expected to address during my videotaped interview. They included things like my personal experiences giving legal advice to friends and family, and information about work-life balance and stress management. I was pretty sure that every other attorney being interviewed would simply — and probably accurately — say “never give legal advice to or represent friends,” so my sleep-deprived brain decided to be candid about the pro-bono work I’ve done for my stable of legal-issue-having friends and acquaintances. I also felt very hypocritical about providing tips on living a healthy, balanced life, given that lately I have been so busy at the office I reward myself for finishing projects with much-needed bathroom breaks.
When I arrived at the studio, I was horrified to see that there were bright lights and furry microphones and those reflective silver things like you would expect for a legitimate video project. I was expecting some sort of panel of bull-shitters talking over each other, taped on someone’s iPhone 6, so I could just hide in the background like a fake-blonde plant. This taping was like a legal presentation on steroids: No opportunity to consult notes and full-on eye contact the whole time with a stranger, which I think is illegal in Seattle, where we have perfected the whole “smile a little with your mouth closed and look away when passing someone on the street” routine. Filming was in progress, so I had to sit quietly and gaze longingly at the craft services table.
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The attorney being interviewed before me was wearing a suit and intelligently interacting with the interviewer with Barbara-Walter’s-like focus and earnestness. Her eye contact would have won the most competitive of staring contests. I, meanwhile, silently prayed that my exhausted face would be able to produce strings of intelligible words.
Eventually my turn came, and someone awkwardly helped me tape a microphone into my décolletage. The interviewer was a guy named Mark, or a guy who looked like he should be named Mark, who faced me from a couple of feet away and kept having to remind me to look at him instead of the video monitor.
My brain immediately erased itself of any prep-work I had performed, and I launched into stories about providing legal assistance when one of my friend’s apartments got infested with rat mites — which are in fact a real thing that we all should be terrified about — and ghost-writing a letter for my hair-dresser whose neighbor was fighting with her about drain-pipe repairs. My feeling is that, so long as you are clear about the scope of your assistance and are not wading into territory where you have little-to-no experience, it is not a bad thing to indulge your instinct to help out when you have the ability to make things better for people you care about. But I just as often provide referrals to attorneys who have specific expertise, as sometimes people think just because I’m a condominium lawyer that I should be able to competently help them with their divorce or estate planning.
When he asked me about mediation and mindfulness at the office, I told them about how I don’t really sit and reflect on things to calm down, but I do take time between tasks to take BuzzFeed quizzes about how my preferences on athletic shoes will reveal how many cats I will own. They laughed like they thought I was joking.
They also asked about what I do when I am dealing in my practice with someone who is not telling the truth. At that point, I told them my theory about how two people can experience the exact same thing and walk away with a completely different perception of what happened, meaning we all have different “truths.” But I am not sure if that’s is an original theory so much as the way that the federal government now operates. At any rate, people who don’t tell the truth are largely what pays my firm’s bills. I don’t get mad when someone lies — I gather evidence.
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Toward the end of the interview, I started rambling — I remember saying something about compact parking spaces and topless sunbathing — and everyone was cracking up and saying “we definitely need to use this part.” Jet Lag Allison was starting to hijack the controls. I left the taping to go to a client meeting that didn’t end until 9:30 p.m., because at that point, my day had not been long and miserable enough yet.
The Verdict: Whenever I worry about looking ridiculous or saying something wrong at a presentation or meeting, I always take solace in the knowledge that time marches on and people will forget. That’s not necessarily going to be the case in this particular context, but I am still glad I signed up to participate in the taping. For one thing, my zombie-like musings might make me a YouTube sensation. But more likely, I am simply walking away with the knowledge that even under what seems like the worst of circumstances, I can still carry on a conversation about the law and the practice of law. The jury’s still out on whether it made any sense, but we will have video evidence to determine that point.
Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at [email protected].
