Call me Alex. I am a pseudonymous lawyer, cosmopolitan, multilingual, who has spent all his working life in the capital of a state in the Heartland. I love growing roses, travelling to the Middle East, joining in the effort to preserve Judeo-Espanyol, reading Ottoman history and learning Turkish.
Most of all, I am tired of holding my tongue. I once drafted a paper to deliver in France under the title 'des mensonges que vivent les avocats,' or 'Lies Lawyers Live.' But I never delivered it--just as I did not respond when invited by the local judiciary to state my views about how the Family Court (whose business is mainly divorce) was working. The answer would have been, 'poorly,' and if I had set out what I thought, I would have lost all credibility with those very same judges.
Where, after all, does my duty lie? Not to the judges as people, nor even to the judges as judges. The primary loyalty is to the client, always needy, often confused, full of fear at what he or she may experience in a very strange but powerful process. Often enough inarticulate in English, or any language.
And loyalty to the client often enough means not saying what I think is so--but instead joining in the predominant hypocrisies, the easy falsehoods, the substitutes for hard thinking or for questioning conventional thinking, the cheap assurance.
There is much more to say. It will come soon.
Alexandar
