Michael Clayton (2007)

I usually can’t stomach lawyer movies. Almost everyone I’ve seen is either offensively unrealistic or unrealistically offensive. I especially despise the films that purport to expose some real flaw in "the system" but distorts the facts or law claiming "artistic license" to make its point.

I don’t mind the "Perry Mason" kind of fantasy because they are so obviously kitchy, except that ever since that show, it has been necessary for judges to remind prospective jurors that it isn’t the obligation of defense lawyers to force the true guilty party to jump up and confess in the third act.

Now comes "Michael Clayton." This is a fairly typical lawyer movie in many ways. The big civil firm is defending an evil agri-chemical client in a billion dollar lawsuit against cancer victims. Thus, the lawyers are depicted as scum.

That’s to be expected. And the big event that triggers the plot crisis is a straight steal from Sidney Lumet’s classic, "Network." The lead litigator for the firm, after six years of battle, suddenly goes bananas — he’s mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it anymore. So in the middle of a deposition, he claims love for the plaintiff, strips off his clothes and chases her through the parking lot (or so we are told — the director had the good sense to withhold the scene of Tom Wilkenson naked.)

Later, the movie becomes a thriller, with surveillance, murder, a car bomb ... none of that is too interesting to me.

No, the one element I latched onto was the idea of the eponymous Michael Clayton, himself. See, he’s the guy in the firm who is given all the "dirty" jobs, we are told. He’s "the fixer," a self-described "janitor" who cleans up all the messes. When a well-heeled client is facing a scandal, he makes the payoff, does the cover-up. He fixes the tickets, presumably arranges bribes, does all the unethical stuff so the partners don’t dirty their manicured hands.

One of the things he does is refer cases to criminal lawyers. That’s something I know a bit about, because I have been one of the criminal lawyers to whom other lawyers have referred clients.

In my experience, there is nothing dirty or sinister about this practice. Most ordinary people don’t know criminal lawyers. Some do know civil lawyers. They’ve had divorces or other accidents of life and when they or someone they know get into trouble, they call the lawyer they know. Some of these lawyers are sensible enough to know how much they don’t know about the arcane specialty of criminal law, and so refer these cases to lawyers they know.

Now, I am sure that at a level far "higher" than my income bracket, there are those who look for criminal lawyers to "fix" problems. I’ve known a few who traveled a shadowy path, so close to dope dealers and pimps that they were engulfed into that world. It was a 60's & 70's fast lane thing for some and a few didn’t survive.

There were others who traded on reputations for being a "fixer" but were, in the end, pretenders. There was a guy who was famous in the small world of L.A. criminal lawyers. He was an outrageous appearing little man, even for the outrageous times, with purple shirt and lavender tie, high heel boots. In the old Hall of Justice, the elevator operators waited for him, greeted him and told everyone who he was. Around Christmas time, he tipped the girls $25. My boss in the PD office smiled slyly. "How much do you think he’s giving the clerks and the judges?"

One day, the lawyer strolled into the courtroom where I was working. We PD’s were waiting to get our cases heard and there were other private counsel waiting as well. But when this guy came in (let’s call him "Harry") the clerk called his case and the judge called him up to the bench for a private meeting.

"Harry" patted his frightened client on the back and went up to the bench. He whispered to the judge. I could hear him plainly from a few feet away. Harry told the judge the latest joke he’d heard. The judge laughed aloud. Harry walked back toward his client and winked, signaling slyly. The judge granted the extension to pay the fine or whatever it was that Harry was requesting. There was nothing unusual in this. The judge would have done it without the whispers. But Harry’s client and many in the audience were convinced that Harry had the "fix."

The more I watched George Clooney be "Michael Clayton," though, the more I thought of how many times I’ve felt like the "fixer." The tag is implied in social conversation, when acquaintances ask those annoying questions about how it feels to get a guilty person off.

It is fatiguing to know you’re admired by some for your skills at a dirty trade.