Oompa Loompa Lawyers

I am a Crown Prosecutor. For those of you who are ill-acquainted with Canadian law, that means that my job is to convict the guilty. Part of my job involves interacting with a species called "Male Lawyers".

My friend, Tequila and I were in law school together when we noticed something unusual about our habitat. It was mostly filled with small, aggressive, vertically challenged penis-ridden individuals. They were everywhere, it was like being surrounded by rammy little oompa loompas.

Tequila and I came up with a theory to explain why 8/10 law male law students were 5'5" and below. At least 7/10 of that group were insanely and ridiculously competitive. Our theory was that those who were picked last in dodgeball concentrated on academics and not athletics, and they ended up being the ones who had the marks to go to law school. Now there are exceptions to the rule, of course. Every once in a while I end up running across a tall, dark handsome lawyer with no trace of the proverbial short man complex. So there is no hard and fast rule.

I should say here that I am not extraordinariy tall. I am 5' 3 1/2". Not at all tall. So this essay was not aimed at promoting sizism or any other ism. And in fact, Oompa Loompa Lawyers are not necessarily short. Basically, I have refined the definition of Oompa Loompa Lawyer to include any lawyer who might have been shoved repeatedly into his locker as a kid in high school. It makes an Oompa Loompa Lawyer grow up mean. Hungry for power. Petty. Dangerous.

When dealing with an Oompa Loompa Lawyer, one should studiously avoid staring at the tops of their heads or at their ill-fitting suit or bad haircut as you speak to them. To do so, is to wave the red flag at the proverbial bull.

A colleague of mine just won a 2nd degree murder conviction against an Oompa Loompa Lawyer. This particular Oompa Loompa Lawyer is of the Ned Flanders category. He literally reeks of geek. You look at Ned Flanders Lawyer and you know he ended up in his locker a lot. Probably got pants a lot. But Ned Flanders Lawyer thinks he is very smart. In fact, he thought that he could win the acquittal of his client based on an obscure concept called nautical twilight. But in the end, twelve common sensical persons in the jury looked at what his client did and said "um, no...that's definitely murder." And they convicted a man for taking another human's life.

But Ned Flanders Lawyer couldn't take being beaten by a girl. A girl who he regards as being his intellectual inferior. And so, after my colleague beat him like a rented mule, he committed an egregious assault on our professionalism. He made disparaging remarks about her character in Court and then....he refused to shake her hand.

In our profession, we argue for a living. It's part of the reason most people hate us. But the majority of lawyers try to be objective and impartial about their client and their case. To allow emotion to creep is to undercut our ability to make rational decisions and to give useful advice to our clients.

So we argue like crazy on behalf of our clients. And then, when the dust clears, we shake hands and maybe even go for a beer.

So tonight I find myself disappointed in Ned Flanders Lawyer. No matter how many lockers we get shoved into in life, it does not excuse being a mean person.