Are you an ambulance driver?

In the interest of privacy, I won’t go into who or how. It will suffice to say that I cared. We come across new things every day, and this was the first time that I was seeing death this close. And when you care, you tend to notice things that you may otherwise have missed..The scene is a hospital premises. The cardiac episode was entirely unexpected and the family, both near and distant, is in shock and grieving. While close family and friends are striving to stay composed, acquaintances are endeavoring to make themselves useful and undertake all the necessary measures to deal with the situation. An ambulance draws up to the front, to move the body to a mortuary..The ambulance is manned by a single person – the driver – who has clearly been through this process numerous times and expertly shifts the body from the hospital stretcher to the ambulance stretcher, wasting no time in matter-of-factly sliding the body into the ambulance. The outstretched hands of relatives prevent him from completing the act, and the driver is clearly peeved with what he sees is an unnecessary holdup. The family stays close to the body and pays their respects before the driver swoops in, slides the body into the ambulance, and slams the door shut, taking no care to ensure that the slamming door does not make contact with the body. The family is probably irked by the driver’s irreverence but they let it pass because this is neither the time nor the place to raise an argument..Once at the mortuary, the admission formalities are completed and the body is all set to be preserved for a few days. The body must be prevented from deteriorating till the time of the cremation ceremony, which will only happen a few days later. These few minutes will be one of the last opportunities for the close family to spend time in the physical presence of their lost kin. The hospital staff are looking on impatiently, waiting for the family to step away from the body so that they can whisk it away into the refrigerated chambers. Friends of the family request the hospital staff to leave the room so that the family can have a few moments alone. A most reasonable request, and that too for only a few moments, but the staff quietly stand their ground. They need to be, not requested, but told a couple of times before they decide to allow the family some space. Soon after, the staff, mimicking the ambulance driver, swiftly slides the body away – this time into the refrigerated chamber. The ordeal, for the time being, is over..When we stop to think about it, this is not very different from how a corporate lawyer reacts on being presented with a brief. Clinical, unemotional and programed to act with cutthroat efficiency. I’m sure most of us will agree that the actions of the mortuary attendant and the ambulance driver were unsympathetic and callous. Even if they can’t be sad or distraught, we’d expect them to show more respect for the dead. That said, an extremely liberal personal may still defend these acts on the grounds that these are less educated individuals performing duties that have little or no dignity in a country where the value ascribed to life is not very high..What excuse do lawyers have?.We feel no sorrow when drafting a termination notice for an employee, a notice that is probably going to change the individual’s life forever. Similar is the case when dealing with winding-up proceedings that may shut down a company that has been a client’s life and dreams. Even when providing advice on how to deal with sexual harassment, we are not really thinking of the victim’s pain and suffering. As far as we are concerned, there is simply research to be done, a document to be drafted and a deadline to be met..Of course, it is unfair to generalize. Of course there are socially conscious lawyers who are very much in touch with their emotional side. Of course there are lawyers who do pro bono work. Of course there are advocates whose passion drives them to litigate certain matters. We are only looking at a large majority of law-firm lawyers here – the rule, not the exception..It’s not that law firm orientations don’t endeavor to inculcate the right attitude. The need to put oneself in the client’s shoes is strongly emphasized. The merits of doings so are underscored; it will aid in providing the client with the most pragmatic advice it is said. However, human beings, especially lawyers, are hardwired to believe that that quality of the end product is the bottom-line. We do try to put ourselves in the clients’ shoes, but only to the extent necessary to provide the best possible legal advice. What’s wrong with that, some of us may ask. That’s also exactly what the ambulance driver is thinking – what’s wrong with the swift and unemotional execution of one’s duties..Louis Canning, a character from The Good Wife – a law-firm TV show with a bunch of suave fast talking, jargon throwing lawyers – says that, “Clients don’t hire me for my compassion, they do so for my expertise”. This is a sentiment that recurs throughout programs such as The Practice, Suits, Shark and Boston Legal. It’s easy to rubbish references to popular culture, but there is a reason why they are called that, because the shows are, after all, popular. “Make sure you seem angry and upset during the deposition”, Will Gardner tells Alicia Florrick, again both lawyers from The Good Wife. If the display of emotion has to be forced, it’s clearly not something that has been naturally evoked based on the factual matrix presented by the client..A couple of things here. Firstly, the research that goes into making these high budget series’ probably ensures that the depiction of a corporate lawyer’s mental makeup is accurate. Secondly, even if inaccurate, popular culture does influence and mould society, eventually making the depiction true. These shows are widely viewed in our country as well, at least amongst the class of people relevant to this discussion, and the Indian law-firm model is cogged right off the western structure, making the western pop culture references directly applicable in the Indian context as well..We may argue that, unlike the ambulance driver, we are not overtly insensitive to our clients. Without being cynical, and accounting for the possibility exceptions, this is in no small part due to the fact that being impervious to a client’s emotions is not good for business. Also, we tell ourselves that the art of lawyering requires you to be a smooth talker and being able convincingly feign concern for a client is a trait we should all have in our armory. You tell yourself that it’s not possible to experience genuine emotion when simultaneously dealing with two winding-up applications and cross-border merger at the same time. Well, the ambulance driver has three bodies to move as well, and the mortuary clerk has hundreds to stow away..Our education and working environment allows us to carry out a charade of compassion that puts clients at ease. There probably are situations where the client fully knows that the lawyer is not genuinely sympathetic or truly concerned. However, the fact that he has made an effort to fake it possibly makes the client feel respected, and at the end of the day, that is all most of us really want. .Unfortunately the poor ambulance driver did not have the luxury of education, at least of this cynical variety, or the pressure to retain a client. If he did, he would probably have simulated the appropriated emotions to ensure that he didn’t add to the emotional wounds of the deceased’s family. We lawyers, if not the rest of the world, can’t really blame the driver and the attendant for being negligent. We’re really not a whole world better than them, or let me at least speak for myself.

Are you an ambulance driver?

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