For the love of the game

I am a baseball nut. For as long as I can remember, I have rooted for my Detroit Tigers and been absolutely proud of them...119 losses in a season notwithstanding. Of course, I live in Texas, which renders my team of choice somewhat strange to many. But many things about me seem strange. Just ask Mark Bennett and Scott Greenfield.

Not only am I a baseball nut, I am a sports nut. I love sports. Always have. I grew up in a place where sports are religion (think Friday Night Lights, the book not the T.V. show). Growing up as I did, you played sports. It was a given. Not everyone made the team, and that was ok. Those that did, played hard every down, every quarter, every play. You took it seriously. It was an opportunity not everyone was given, and it was an insult not to give your absolute best all of the time. You played hard. You played for the right reasons. You played for the love of the game.

I suppose that this mantra has stayed with me throughout life. I'm the type of person that does something because he wants to. If my heart is not in something, I'm not interested. Which is probably why I am a criminal lawyer. Sitting at a desk all day drafting contracts doesn't interest me. Pouring through piles and piles of discovery for a car accident case nauseates me. It's just not for me. My heart would never be in it. This is why I practice criminal defense. It interests me. I love it.

So what does this have to do with baseball? Well, I recently posted about Weinstein the lawyer. A lawyer who will do anything and say anything to get a client. Of course Weinstein doesn't care about the client. He could care less if the client is a 22 year old college girl with no priors that got into an accident at 3 a.m. and is charged with DWI. If she doesn't pay Weinstein, he's going to coerce her into pleading. Without pretrial discovery.

Scott Greenfield wrote a "follow-up" (tongue firmly in cheek) to my post. After reading Greenfield's post, it dawned on me that maybe I'm too naive to be in this business. But then I read it again, and I realized that I simply do this for different reasons than Weinstein. The Weinsteins of the world think of themselves as businessmen. The client is a fee. The practice of law is the practice of making money. In the immortal words of Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s character Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire, "It's not show friends, it's show business." "Show me the money."

Don't get me wrong, money is nice to have around. But I don't do this for the money. I think pretty much every criminal lawyer will tell you they could make more money doing something else. For most any graduate that did well enough in law school, there will always be offers from some large firm to pour over piles and piles of pretrial car accident discovery. The point is, if you're a lawyer to make money, there are better avenues than criminal law.

So why do this? Simple. For the love of the game. I represent people that are typically one step away from spending a considerable amount of time locked up away from society. Now I am not a bleeding heart liberal that thinks drugs should be legalized etc... We've been over that before. But I like to think I take what I do seriously. Maybe I'm idealistic. Maybe a bit naive. But that's ok.

I would rather be known as the idealistic naive criminal defender than the Weinstein. My client is a person, not a fee. My job is to protect my client, not collect a fee and shove my client off of the cliff.

I like to think I do this for the right reason. I do it for the love of the game.

Comments

[Mark Jakubik]

Love the "Jerry McGuire" reference - my favorite line from the movie. One quibble - it was Bob Sugar who said it, not Rod Tidwell. Great post, and great blog.

Mark

[Matlock]

Thanks for pointing out my Bob Sugar mistake. How could I have missed that? He's my favorite character.