06 Nov Isn’t Every Day “Love Your Lawyer Day”?

Gotta love Hallmark and marketing people. Those who push Mother’s, Father’s, Valentine’s, Grandparents’, Sweetest’s, Boss’s,  Clergy Appreciation, Ferris Wheel and Administrative Assistant’s Day have another friend. A guy who runs something called the American Lawyers Public Image Association (ALPIA) is declaring that today is the 15th annual National Love Your Lawyer Day. Now I am decidedly not a curmudgeon who poo poos appreciation and sap. I’m forever thankful for all the people in my personal and business life who are important to me, and I do my best to let them know as often as possible. Am I best in the world at it? No. Is a special day to focus on it a bad thing? No, and we’ve now officially analyzed this way too far.

But a more serious issue is how the world (at least here in the US) perceives the humble attorney at law. I have a whole book of lawyer jokes in my office helping exhibit the answer. It doesn’t help, especially in my world of Wall Street, that too many of my fellow attorneys end up in trouble. In law school I lived in a town where you had to pick up your own mail. Each day the Post Office guy would hand me my stuff and say, “How’s my favorite liar…I mean lawyer today?”

I always tell my colleagues if you wanted a job where people love and appreciate you all the time, you’ve chosen the wrong profession. It’s more about doing your best and doing right and knowing it yourself as the most important. Every so often we are provided praise and thanks from our clients. But mostly, we know they are happy when they come back for more help, or send their friends and others along as referrals. So even with this post I’ve violated the ALPIA’s declaration that lawyer bashing is banned on this holiest of days. And I agree with the sentiment of LYLD, but don’t we think it just might lead to even more making fun of-ness? Just saying. Sorry.