Robbins: The unscientific realities of law
My early life 鈥� before I started law school 鈥� was in the sciences: physics, calculus, and immunochemistry. These are not exactly the stuff of law.
My first bachelor’s degree was in biology with an emphasis in genetics. My graduate study was in genetics and human physiology. I even took a few courses in marine and aquatic biology and was accepted to medical school.
I was not completely satisfied with it 鈥� I couldn’t see myself spending a lifetime in a lab coat or treating patients. Somewhere, I got the notion to try law school. My older brother was a lawyer; perhaps, although I don’t specifically recall it, he nudged me in that direction.
What I quickly discovered was that I liked it. While my law school mostly grumbled, I genuinely enjoyed the history, traditions, and critical thinking of the law. By the end of the first year, I knew that I was smitten and more than asking folks to open wide and say, “Ahhh,” the law was what I wanted to pursue.
I once got in a friendly argument with a friend who, besides being a kind and generous person, is a well-regarded and well-loved physician.聽His thesis, which I vigorously disputed, was that lawyers were more important than docs.聽With a hefty dose of incredulity, I questioned how and why he would consider such a thing.聽Docs, after all, save lives.聽Lawyers, on the other hand, move around the rooks and bishops of the chessboard of conflict.聽While I in no way undermined the importance of legal matters, I protested to my friend that it wasn’t even close.
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What he said was this.
First of all, folks are more familiar with medicine and the human body than they are with the law. “If I am talking with someone about a broken arm, while they may not know a spiral from a greenstick fracture, but at least they know what an arm is and what it means for one to be broken. But law,” he said, “now to most people that’s a dark hole.”
“Still,” I said.
“Second,” he went on, “when you have a medical issue, it’s just you. And maybe your loved ones too. Especially if it’s something important. But the laws are what knits society together. Law is what holds up and ensures the democracy.”
I could tell that he was earnest.
“Can’t remember, Ed, the last time I preserved our democracy,” I said.
“Still, ” he said, “to most folks, the law is both terrifying and baffling.聽The procedures.聽The formalities.聽The tortured language.聽The way you guys do everything while we sit with our hands in our laps, befuddled, and hoping for the best.”
Although we continued to disagree 鈥� after all, what’s more important, shoring up the rule of law with Pick-up Stix or saving lives? 鈥� one other point he made, I couldn’t disagree with.
“Most times,” he went on, “once a diagnosis has been made, we know what we’ve got. And once we know what’ve got, we can set about to fix it. Sure, there are illnesses 鈥� horrible ones 鈥� that we know too little about and all we can do is to try and do our best. But the regular day-to-day stuff 鈥� you’ve got a broken arm 鈥� we usually can deal with. With the law, he said, exasperation falling over him like a shroud, is different. Too many variables. Too many what-ifs. How does this judge feel compared to that one? Who are the jurors? How good are the lawyers? Can the facts be spun this way instead of that? Too many uncontrolled and uncontrollable variables.”
I had to admit that he had a point.
In my pre-law life 鈥� when I was in the sciences 鈥� I generally knew when I knew something. Paraphrasing our former V.P., Dick Cheney, these were known knowns. There are 27 bones in the human hand, rarely more or less, and we have a pretty good idea of what each is designed to do. In law, however, there are lots of known unknowns which, with diligence, can be pursued and tamed. What causes apoplexy, though are the unknown unknowns 鈥� how this set of facts is just a skosh different than those, and how that can make all the difference.
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Many times, law is more philosophy than science, more English applied to the ball of facts than the ball of facts themselves.
Perhaps that’s what I like best about it.
At law, rarely is something an absolute, a given. Most times, there is room to creatively apprise the law and facts, and to present them, digestibly to a judge or jury.
While no doubt, skilled docs are both saviors and artists, having delved in both science and the law, what I like is the freeform Van Gogh-like expressionism that the law affords.
Rohn K. Robbins is an attorney licensed before the Bars of Colorado and California who practices in the Vail Valley with the Law Firm of Caplan & Earnest, LLC. His practice areas include business and commercial transactions; real estate and development; family law, custody, and divorce; and civil litigation. Robbins may be reached at 970-926-4461 or Rrobbins@CELaw.com. His novels, “How to Raise a Shark (an apocryphal tale),” “The Stone Minder’s Daughter,” “Why I Walk so Slow” and “He Said They Came From Mars (stories from the edge of the legal universe)” are currently available at fine booksellers. And coming soon, “The Theory of Dancing Mice.”
