Nothing new for the legal profession perhaps. One member of the Solicitr team recalls some advice given in the early weeks of their law degree – lawyers were considered to be at the top end of the table when it came to being an unpopular class in society (along with estate agents and a few others) and were certainly considered to be the most disliked professionals. Having then been plied with statistics on the subject for future reference, they were advised to bear it in mind when embarking on their legal career…

Well that may be one thing but consultant Douglas Richardson has written in an Altman Weil publication that many large law firms are being lead through major changes by narcissists who like to exert control and reject collaborative decision-making. Uhuum.

And retired law professor and ex-Bay Street partner Philip Slayton wrote an article accompanying his book "Lawyers Gone Bad: Sex, Money and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession" entitled "Lawyers are Rats" which outraged the Canadian legal community…

Douglas Richardson for his part has said that: “Narcissistic leaders are distinguished by their big ideas, big personalities, big egos and general indifference to the opinions of others,”

“They resolutely reject the status quo, thus affronting all those tied to tradition and cautious about change. They want to reshape the world to their vision. They don’t much care if others label them vain and self-centered; they count on the power of their vision and their personal charisma to drive them to the top during periods of great upheaval or change. Their style is at best despotic, and often coercive.”

Sound familiar anyone?

And Mr. Slayton, in defence of the rather general nature of his article said, “who’s actually going read an article with a title ‘A Small, Minute Subset of Lawyers Are Rats’?”. He also went on to emphasise three problems inherent in the Canadian legal profession which underlie the occasional “human follies” of some lawyers:

1. the value-free culture of the legal profession where there is an inability to pass judgments of morality on clients
2. the self-governing structure which leaves it to lawyers, and no other entity, to discipline other lawyers
3. the legal system’s poor regard for access to justice and the omnipresent pre-occupation of billable hours which diminish the motivation to work on a low-cost or pro-bono basis

Any threads of truth in all this or is it just plain old Lawyer bashing???

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