Baby lawyers: if your mentor is a jackass to opposing counsel (or OC& #39;s staff) for no good reason, find a new mentor yesterday.

I& #39;ve had many strenuous disagreements with OC, and have snarked about a claim or two. But I& #39;ve never found it hard to treat OC like a human being.

You& #39;re not generally pitted in a personal battle against opposing counsel. You& #39;re each doing a job on behalf of your clients. Sometimes that means telling OC that their claim is shit and you& #39;re not backing down. That& #39;s different than being a shithead to them on a personal level.

If anything, do it for your future. If opposing counsel respects you, there& #39;s a very real likelihood you will get a referral or two from them down the line.

I think maybe one of the complicating conceptual difficulties (separating views on law from the personal) is brought on by social media.

I have snarked at a lawyer and a half on Twitter who I think is full of it and ass-backwards on the law. [cont]

[cont]

But if I were across the representational table from them, it doesn& #39;t matter if I& #39;ve gone ten bloody rounds with them on here. I& #39;m still going to treat them with professional courtesy and respect, even if I think their positions (in the case, even) are horrid.

Scoring an illusory point in a meet-and-confer isn& #39;t worth making the profession a less pleasant place to spend one& #39;s career.