Silke, lawyer in Paris

Silke on her way to work

Before the winter break, Silke did a week-long internship in a lawyer's office. The internship is a requirement of the final year of collège. It is up to parents to arrange it. Through a contact in her orchestra, the internship in this office was proposed. Lawyer was not honestly something that Silke was initially excited about, but we felt that for a one-week internship, one can't do better than a lawyer's office for insight into the business world; not to mention for exploding some preconceptions that Silke may have had. This particular lawyer (the "Maître") is a divorce lawyer - a rather high-society divorce lawyer, the office being located on rue du Louvre - just down the street from the Louvre in fact. Divorce law can give insight not only into the work world, but into even humanity and society. From the first meeting with the lawyer, Silke's idea of a lawyer changed: not a money-grubbing parasite on society, but an affable and engaging person, able to talk with Silke knowledgeably and insightfully, without preparation, on a large variety of topics, including topics dear to Silke such as books and writers, while at the same time moving the conversation along efficiently without ever being in the least brusque; someone whose daily business it is to efficiently fix the messes that other people land themselves in. Some quotes from that meeting, or later comments:

“To be a lawyer in Paris, you have to be Parisian. You have to know what it means to be from the 7th arrondissement.”

“Being a divorce lawyer is deadly for your ideas about romance.”

“As a lawyer, you spend your whole day solving other people’s problems. Nobody cares about yours.”

During the week, Silke saw how a lawyer's office runs (the secretaries chat amongst themselves and laugh; the lawyers don't); she had to research and answer questions on aspects of the french civil code (she said that the french civil code is much bigger than a telephone book - a striking comparison, because I wonder whenever she would have seen such an anachronism as a telephone book); and she got to see into some particular cases, and be present at meetings with a client.  She got some inkling of how very complicated a divorce can be, particularly in the case where there is a child custody dispute, or cross-border and international issues.  Overall, while she now has a much greater respect and appreciation for lawyers, she is probably still not inclined to it as a career.  It is not the lawyers that she has any objection to - they are calm, capable, rational and focussed under all conditions; it is the clients that she found to be the most unpleasant aspect - emotional, irrational, even vindictive and plain disagreeable.  But then, that is divorce law.

The principal adornment in the lawyer's office.