What Kind Of Drinker (And Lawyer) Are You?

There are lots of kinds of lawyers; figure out which one you genuinely should be.

There are lots of kinds of lawyers. Figure out which one you genuinely should be. 

Too many of us from birth have been told we’re precious snowflakes and can be whatever we want. And for the overwhelming majority of the readers of this column, that’s right: we’re Americans, with families or friends that love us, and a lot of God-given gifts, who went to college and law school. With hard work, we pretty much can be anything we want (if not precious snowflakes, because to be what we want to be does involve that hard work).

I say “pretty much” because I don’t think I was ever going to start for the Yankees, no matter how hard I worked, nor could I simply work myself into creating a successful band that would tour with Metallica, nor could I be a leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera. And I’m not pretending there is not sexism, racism, xenophobia, and more, but these days while that might get in the way of a given job, it hopefully does not outright prevent some from having a given career.

But with actually very, very few skill-and luck-based exceptions, most of us in America who are willing to work hard can have just about any career we want.

That certainly applies to us very fortunate and very privileged lawyers, each of us whom can be pretty much any kind of lawyer we want to be. Too many of us, though, have trouble figuring out what this is, and for a variety of reasons that are way beyond the scope of this piece. Unfortunately, rather than try to figure the kind of lawyer each of us should be, I see us making complaining our response. Way, way too many lawyers complain about their daily work, and I mean all the time, and they find plenty of complaining comrades in the profession.

I understand the negative opinion some lawyers have about their work since, as an outside observer to non-trial work, a lot of the work I see lawyers do seems pretty horrible to me, or, at least, I would be pretty horrible at it. That may be because, as noted and as I wrote last week, my colleagues and I are trial lawyers.

According to a judge herself, that makes us whiskey drinkers. The amount of our firm’s alcohol budget devoted to Teeling and Greenspot whiskey as opposed to Sutter Home Chardonnay bears that out.

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But not all lawyers are whiskey drinkers. Some are non-trial lawyer litigators, wine drinkers in Judge Cheryle Gering’s parlance (and as I’ll write in a future column, not only do I actually love Barolo or Barbaresco or anything from a grape in the Piedmont in Italy, really good trial lawyers have to learn to be really good litigators, too). That’s perfectly fine. Some lawyers are amazing writers, tactical thinkers, or deposition takers or defenders. They are great litigators. But the insanity or energy of trial may not get them going, or may exhaust, scare, or frustrate them.

Many lawyers never get near a dispute. They organize our world and counsel individuals and companies. They help write our laws and stand up for human rights all over the world. Stating what is obvious to me now, but what I didn’t realize until I was applying for jobs in my third year of law school, there are a hell of a lot of different kinds of lawyers that never get near a courtroom.

Our job—our obligation, given all the opportunities we are blessed to have—is figuring out what kind of lawyer we are, what our drink is. We need something that fits our pace, our vibe, our style, our energy. I like whiskey (and that strong red wine!  I’ve tried dozens of cases, but handled hundreds of depositions, and we all know we should drink more wine than whiskey). But it is fine to drink Budweiser, or a Brooklyn Sorachi Ace Saison, or a Vodka Gimlet, or a wine cooler, or iced tea. I won’t try further to ascribe drinks to different kinds of lawyers (except I’m pretty sure real estate deal lawyers are tequila drinkers). The point is that we must find what is the right drink for us.

To help us get started in figuring that out, I quote another judge, one of my great teachers, Second Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi. He put it simply to the fourth-grade class I brought to visit him a few years ago: “Do something fun and useful.”

I love it: we should not just look to what we want or “find challenging,” being solely self- focused. And we should not just vaguely try to “do justice” or “help people.” These sound great to many of us (perhaps that is part of the problem), but I fear this view leads not only to being unfocused, but burning out when things get tough.

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We need to look in at the same time that we look out.

We lawyers each need to find what is fun and useful for us. Maybe the lawyer work we do today is exactly right for us. Or maybe it is exactly wrong for us, neither fun, nor useful, or maybe only one of those. If that it the case, we must change our work. And, yes, with financial commitments and simply life, it can be tough to change. Too bad. We need to spend the hours and the months and the years to become the kind of lawyer we are supposed to be, doing the kind of work we are supposed to do.

Don’t complain. Make the tough decisions. Figure out what you are supposed to drink. And then drink it.

Earlier: A Trial Lawyer Is A Whiskey Drinker


john-balestriereJohn Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.