Chaining Bellerophon: on Ethics and Pride

Commentary MICHAEL CAVENDISH Chaining Bellerophon: On Ethics and Pride THE TALE FROM Greek mythology about able, intractable monsters of injustice. And, to retreat further into the figurative, we have lawyers in gener- Bellerophon proceeds like this. Bellerophon al, who, finding themselves in what is often the zero- was the greatest warrior of his age. He rode Pe- sum universe of the criminal and the civil law—one side does usually fare better than the other—feel the gasus, the winged flying horse. Bellerophon flush of success and the subsequent Bellerophonic wielded a great spear and slayed an unbeat- impulse to move on to some feat that is even larger than the one that came before. Lawyers need able, intractable monster: the Chimera. Return- Bellerophon, because the lesson to be learned from ing home, the warrior quickly became bored, Bellerophon’s story is the imperiling nature of hubris (a billowing pride) specifically and pride more gen- then—much to his regret—decided to ride Pe- erally. Pride and lessons following even mild humiliation gasus up to the peak of Mount Olympus to rub or embarrassment catalyzed by pride-based vignettes elbows with his equals—the gods. But the peak are an inescapable part of the human experience. The last such incident for me occurred when I trav- was too far for him, and his successes came to eled to a mixed meeting of potentates and peons (I an end: Bellerophon died. was the peon) who were presiding over an audit of a large and rich state government agency during my home state’s gubernatorial transition. Arriving early, I Lessons on pride did not end with the Greeks. was greeted by a conclave of mayors, senators, sher- William Shakespeare wrote a barn burner of a play iffs, and dignitaries, and I had to decide quickly on the subject titled Coriolanus. If you want to expe- whether to exist among them as an aristocrat’s rience an example of hubris so intense that it blushes child—seen but not heard—or to attempt to “take my the hearer as foul language would, borrow the place at the table” and “punch above my weight,” as Arkangel recorded version of the play from a public it were. I decided to try both a place and a punch, library and listen to it for a week during your lunch took the best available seat, and quickly learned that breaks. The protagonist in the play, Caius Martius, I was occupying the still warm throne of the called Coriolanus after single-handedly capturing the agency’s secretary, who was out taking a call. This rival city of Corioles in Conan-like fashion, is a per- was an embarrassing moment and, for me, a quick fect facsimile of Bellerophon, except that his bridge and effective mini-lesson. too far, his version of the Greek hero’s assault on Lawyers need more of these kinds of lessons—or Mount Olympus, was his postvictory toxic relation- they need to spend more time reflecting on the fate ship with his fellow citizens—a group that would of Bellerophon—than others need. Lawyers are not have adored him after his great conquest had he allowed to feel the full range and frequency of hu- only put away his own greatness for a while. man emotions on the job. We cannot be greedy in Other case studies dealing with the problems the way we set our fees or the manner in which we caused by pride can be found in literature, history, handle monies entrusted to us. We cannot be too and mythology. But a Greek tale drives a message emotional or empathetic in our analyses, lest we ig- like a nail. Of course there aren’t really any flying nore rules of law that control our fact patterns. Con- horses, chimeras, or mountain-dwelling, privacy-lov- sistent with these restraints, lawyers ought not be too ing deities. There weren’t any in Athens or in Sparta proud, and they ought not create the trappings of back in 1000 B.C. either. Yet today, we have some pride when dealing with others, because in lawyer- things that the original hearers of the Bellerophon ing, the Bellerophonic assault—that bridge too far story would identify as closer to their proud, flawed that was targeted out of sheer ambition and proud storybook hero than anything they ever encountered momentum—can imperil the ethical rules that bind at the temple or the forum. us. Today we have trial lawyers: heroes, both authen- Consider the prosecutor with the unblemished tri- tic and self-styled, flying about on winged jets and al record; or the plaintiff’s lawyer with the string of wielding weapons of words and ink against unbeat- staggering jury awards; or the criminal defense attor- 26 | The Federal Lawyer | June 2007 ney written up in the newspapers for always conjur- honorific society, or fighting with partners over mon- ing up hooks that wind up acquitting her clients; or ey—the client who is along for the ride experiences the government agency counsel who “wrote the the same punishment that the lawyer does. Thus, ex- book” on his agency’s subject matter; or the sky- cessive pride in lawyers raises a second ethical dan- dwelling commercial lawyer featured in the glossies, ger—that of creating an unrealistic expectation of the swooping into the most major cases like the pale outcome in the client’s mind. horseman from Revelations, only suited in Canali; or After steering a single case related to scrap metal the town’s toughest divorce lawyer. These are the ar- torts to conclusion, a lawyer might be tempted to chetypes—but only stereotypes, really—of lawyers say: “I’m the king—no, the emperor—of those torts.” susceptible to overweening pride. Pride follows hu- It is the lawyer’s pride manity, which inescapably means that pride affects speaking, but not with ethi- us all, vanishing from no one. cal accuracy. So too, an at- Thus, excessive pride Excessive pride in lawyers has quarrelsome psy- torney’s engagements come chological effects. In the first instance, it creates a to an end, but the office in lawyers raises a sec- lust for what Bellerophon wanted—something better bills, as they say, do not. and better—the actual lay of the land be damned. And most every lawyer, ond ethical danger— This is a kind of mania, from which the psychologi- once having found a mallet cal state described as manic derives. In the second, and a peg—and a hole in that of creating an un- overweening pride changes the pride-bearer’s self- which the peg fits—would perception. If the self is better and worthier, is not want to repeat the process realistic expectation of the self better and worthier than others are, the Ego of fitting the peg in the hole suggests? A kind of narcissism ensues, under the for a fee. But if scrap metal the outcome in the spell of which the pride-bearer perceives himself or torts dry up and the next herself to be naturally more correct than others are. wave of work in a conquer- Full-blown in the worst examples, this is a docu- ing tin magnate’s hamlet is client’s mind. mented psychological condition known as narcissis- focused on the arbitration tic personality disorder. But in the milder cases of of sump pump futures arbitration, and this lawyer self-inflation that we are discussing here, this subtle grabs spear and steed and simply charges—and los- shift in self-perception can lead the proud lawyer to es—think of the legitimate competence questions the sense that his or her, say, knowledge of the law, client could raise. Win or lose, in the course of this reading of a case, or analysis of certain facts is inher- charge, this lawyer could have unethically misled the ently more accurate and trustworthy than, say, the client about the risks of the case as well as the prob- court’s are. And so often—and tragically—this is not abilities. the case, although the overly proud lawyer does not Hubris fills up the overly proud lawyer, as hydro- sense the cold reality of this fact. gen stuffs a blimp, and risks pushing that lawyer’s These psychological effects of too much pride cre- acts past the ethical boundaries of the profession. ate candor-to-the-tribunal problems. A lawyer, fresh Self-inflation might cause a lawyer to fail to expedite from a victory—a chimera having been defeated— litigation, demand a procedural concession that is with pumping arteries, perceives that he spies a path unfair to an opposing party, express to a court a per- through a mountain of case authority certain to bring sonal opinion about the justice of a cause, or write a him into the amazed gratitude of the judge to whom preening and uncivil brief. Ask a judge or mediator he presents his argument and charges upward to over lunch how many times he or she has heard a where a more ordinary lawyer could never aspire. lawyer respond to a legitimate challenge with “I Only there was never any path—the cases simply think you know my firm’s reputation,” or “We at the built a wall of slippery rock not fit for climbing. And [Biggles & Hohenzolleren] firm do not take frivolous the lawyer’s problem upon falling is not merely fail- positions,” or even “I have been practicing for more ure—the lawyer has not been candid to the court than 20 years.” These reactions are the tiny seeds of about the nature of the mountain’s face—it has creat- what can grow into hubris.

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