(Ebook) Regulation of Lawyers by Stephen Gillers; ISBN 9781543825879, 9781543825862, 1543825877, 1543825869

(Ebook) Regulation of Lawyers by Stephen Gillers; ISBN 9781543825879, 9781543825862, 1543825877, 1543825869

Imagine that you are going to spend substantial time in a distant island nation. You’re excited because you’ve heard a lot of good things about the place, but you’re also a little anxious. Much will resemble home, but many customs will be new. You don’t want to embarrass yourself or, worse, get kicked off the island. You buy a guidebook to tell you how to act in different business and social situations. What should you expect?This book is a guidebook of sorts. Its silent subtitle could be How to Perform in the Law. It tells you how to act in a new place—Lawyerland—a place where most readers of this book will spend decades of their working life. You need to know the customs or, more accurately, the rules in order to thrive.How to act. In The Performance of Self in Everyday Life, the sociologist Erving Goffman compared everyday face-to-face encounters to acting, to a series of performances. In chapter 7A,Robert Post draws on Goffman’s study of performance and acting to help understand the popular perception of American lawyers. “All the world’s a stage,” Jacques declared in As You Like It, anticipating Goffman by centuries. Law practice is also a stage, on which,updating Jacques, a lawyer in her lifetime will play many parts.