Bucks Writs - Summer 2020 - 11

ast weekend, I was babysitting my five- and
one-year-old granddaughters. My five-year-old
granddaughter is at that "what is?" stage and was
asking me all kinds of questions such as: "When you
see the globe with the countries on it, why doesn't the
water and the land parts fall off?" Anyway, I digress....
One of her other questions was: "Mom Mom, what
work do you do?" I assumed she was talking about work
work as opposed to the work it is doing the stereotypical
"woman's work" like cooking, cleaning, and finding fun
activities for the kids, so I said that I was a lawyer. She
then asked me to describe in language a five-year-old
could understand, what a lawyer does. Of course, my
husband, a retired law enforcement officer, smirked and
mumbled a few things under his breath, which shall
not be repeated here. (The obligatory "but not you
honey" followed.)
So, I thought and stuttered a bit all the while wondering
just what it is that a lawyer does and how to describe it to
someone who genuinely had never heard of the concept
or the job title. I mean, how do you explain that there
are all kinds of lawyers including those who are good,
bad or indifferent, prepared and unprepared, ethical and
unethical, genial and obnoxious and that these people
generally specialize in any number of areas of the law
(she didn't know what "law" was either but did seem to
nod when I told her that the "law" was what her parents
told her to do).
I finally created a hypothetical story in which my granddaughter disobeyed her parents (the law) and was sent
to time out. She asked me, her lawyer, to negotiate her
conditional release, in exchange for an hour "on the
outside" weeding the vegetable garden. I asked for a hug
as a retainer and told her I'd expect at least five more
hugs if I was successful in bargaining with her parents for
her release. Unfortunately, her parents countered with an
hour of weeding and an hour spent picking up the clothes
thrown on the floor of her room. That was almost a deal
breaker for my client but ultimately, she agreed and was
released from time out.

My granddaughter thought a bit and finally
said that the lawyer hadn't gotten a good
deal as she wouldn't have agreed to clean
up her room because it would take longer
than the time out period....Obviously, if I had
been her lawyer, I would not have gotten the
hugs that had been promised.

My granddaughter thought a bit and finally said that
the lawyer hadn't gotten a good deal as she wouldn't
have agreed to clean up her room because it would take
longer than the time out period....Obviously, if I had
been her lawyer, I would not have gotten the hugs that
had been promised.

So, can you help me figure out how to explain to a five
year old (or anyone else for that matter) what a lawyer
does? I'm not sure I did justice to the concept. I'm still
working on a better example but was having difficulty
explaining that I could protect her chalk drawings
from being copied by her little friends with a little
copyright litigation. 

SUMMER 2020

Bucks Writs - Summer 2020

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