Dickens, Whish-Wilson and loud lawyers

Does anyone love the sound of his or her own voice as much as a lawyer does? (I add her advisedly. One of the loudest, most obtrusive lawyers I've ever run into, whose clownish antics destroyed my quiet efforts to enjoy a baseball game on television, was a woman, and a public defender, no less, just as high on adrenaline, self-importance, and lack of sleep as her more mercenary male colleagues.) From my experience in bars, cafés, and other places of public relaxation, I'd say actors, salesmen, and political operatives give them a run for their money, but lawyers win on sheer weight of numbers; there are so many of them.

Two of the books I'm reading now note this vocal brand of lawyerly self-love. Charles Dickens' Bleak House tells us that the deliciously named Chancery lawyer Conversation Kenge

"appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great importance to every word he uttered." 

And this, from Line of Sight, by David Whish-Wilson, about a lawyer's son who takes after Pop:

"The same class as Cooper [a lawyer] too, no doubt, western suburbs all the way. A consideration in the speaking; a pleasure in hearing the sound of your own voice. ... Cooper himself came from an old settler family, whose generations had increased their wealth and power despite bouts of bankruptcy and madness and the occasional imprisonment for fraud."

Bleak House is all about a legal case of infernal length and is thus full of gibes at lawyers and their profession:

"...that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar."

and

"This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means."

and

"I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment."

I can pay Charles Dickens no higher compliment than to say that he gives lawyer jokes a good name. But, as advertisers like to say, it's all about you. What are your favorite fictional depictions of loud or self-important lawyers? How about your (least) favorite real-life loud or self-important lawyers?

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

A good sign

Photo by your humble blogkeeper

 1) Kudos to the folks at Plenty on East Passyunk Avenue in Philadelphia for using correct Italian grammar. Panino is the singular form; panini is plural. The grammar is perfect. The sandwich is pretty good, too.

2) Elsewhere, attended a "Drinking With Dickens" celebration at the Dark Horse Inn, this being 200 years since Dickens' birth. The evening featured good fellowship, carols, readings from A Christmas Carol, and, of course, wassail and smoking bishop. The former has long been one of my favorite words, since I first encountered it in the writing of Stephen Leacock. (You know Leacock. It was he who wrote: "Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.") Either drink would make fine accompaniment for a smoked-brisket panino.

A Christmas Carol, you may know, is neither hard-boiled nor noir, though its opening would not be out of place in a murder mystery: "MARLEY was dead: to begin with."

Wassail!

© Peter Rozovsky 2012