Biglaw, Small Law Firms

Does The Legal Profession Attract Sociopaths?

Do some people seek out the legal profession so they can more easily cause stress and discomfort to others?

By  
on

(Image via Getty)

Most lawyers are ordinary people that complete their tasks without causing undue harm or stress toward others. The legal profession is difficult enough without people making other practitioners miserable, and most attorneys are reasonable to deal with. However, every now and then, lawyers face adversaries who are unreasonably difficult and seem like they actually want to cause harm or displeasure to others. After a recent experience with a particularly unpleasant lawyer, I got to thinking: do some people seek out the legal profession so they can more easily cause stress and discomfort to others?

Earlier in my career, I worked at an insurance defense firm, and the vast majority of lawyers I dealt with were reasonable people who simply completed their jobs without going out of their way to make a matter more unpleasant. However, with one matter I worked on that involved a half dozen or so lawyers, one of the attorneys stuck out. The attorney loved to employ dishonorable tactics, such as misrepresenting communications with counsel when speaking with the judge, and he produced discovery the night before depositions on more than one occasion. The attorney loved to make threats, and he moved for sanctions at least at one point that I can remember. The matter was relatively pedestrian, so it was unclear why this lawyer was making everyone miserable by stressing them out and unreasonably forcing them to work on nights and weekends.

When I left that firm, I was happy to no longer need to work on the matter with that crazy lawyer. A few years later, I was at a happy hour, and I ran into a lawyer who worked at the same firm as that unpleasant lawyer. This acquaintance related that the rude lawyer was extremely difficult to work with, and he had an unpleasant personality. This person also conveyed that the attorney was going through a divorce, impacting how the lawyer handled legal matters. While I was sympathetic about the difficulties the lawyer faced in his personal life, it was not an excuse to make other people miserable in the course of his legal work.

At other points in my career, I have experienced adversaries who took ludicrous positions that had no other effect than to try to intimidate me and make my life more stressful. Several years ago, I handled a contentious matter, and one of my adversaries was extremely aggressive in how he managed the case. That lawyer conveyed that my claims were frivolous, which is, unfortunately, a common part of practice even if claims are meritorious, and I’ve written about this issue before.

However, the lawyer took the frivolous litigation assertions so far that they definitely crossed a line. At a simple discovery conference with a presiding judge, the lawyer said that I should be investigated for ethics violations due to the supposed frivolity of claims, and even the judge seemed shocked that a lawyer would use that venue to make such serious accusations against another lawyer. When this lawyer moved to dismiss my claims, I opposed the motion well since the claims were obviously not frivolous. The court ended up not dismissing my claims and found that the frivolous litigation assertions had no merit. Of course, this lawyer never apologized for besmirching me in front of a judge, but that lawyer’s client ended up firing the unpleasant lawyer, presumably because he lost this critical motion: a fitting consequence for the stress that lawyer had put me through, and maybe the client could sense that the lawyer was a jerk. I never understood why that lawyer was so unpleasant in how he practiced, and I wondered if he had been drawn to the legal profession so that he could cause stress and unpleasantness to others.

The vast amount of lawyers are congenial people who are just completing their jobs while causing the least amount of harm possible to others. However, some bad apples are definitely in the legal profession, and I still have to wonder if some people become lawyers because it’s a good outlet to inflict harm and unpleasantness on others.

Sponsored

Rothman Larger HeadshotJordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Sponsored

Topics

, , ,