I’ll never forget a moment in a wildlife program about Antarctic penguins – I think it was a David Attenborough series.
There were two little penguin parents and a penguin chick.
Then, suddenly, there wasn’t. The chick fell into a crack in the ice.
The little guy squeaked for all he was worth, the parents circled, there was frantic waving of wings – and not a damn thing anyone could do.
Five minutes later – which seemed like several lifetimes – a member of the film crew tore away a chunk of snow and released the chick.
Profound relief for all involved, penguin and human.
But there was a wrinkle. The show’s non-intervention policy had been violated. A voice-over explained that an exception had been made because the film crew may have created the crack in the ice.
Uh, yeah.
I doubt David Attenborough was buying that story.
The truth? You try filming a baby penguin slowly perishing in front of its parents.
One of my clients, a biglaw senior associate, experienced something similar.
The situation: An 8th year associate – not my client – was up for partner. She worked at a branch office of a huge firm. My client was preparing a case for trial, and her team needed help. They sent word to the branch office, which sent the 8th year. She showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but the partner – an unstable sadist – decided on a whim after two weeks that this 8th year was no good. He didn’t tell her to her face. Instead, he mocked her behind her back to the entire team, proclaiming her work product worse than a second year’s, and bragging he’d send her packing to the branch office, where she belonged.
My client watched all this, and felt complicit. She wasn’t laughing, but she wasn’t saying anything either.
It was like watching the baby penguin.
This 8th year had no idea she was the object of ridicule. In fact, she was arrogant – confident she’d make partner. At the branch office she was their pride and joy, and they sent her to the big city to win support for her bid.
That bid was being derailed. One word from the partner to the branch office and Miss 8th year’s aspirations were toast.
There was nothing wrong with the 8th year’s abilities – she just wasn’t used to the level of aggression this partner demanded in his written work. That, and the partner wanted to hurt something small and helpless.
My client’s instinct was to step in and warn the 8th year.
She didn’t.
Maybe the penguin analogy isn’t quite right. This 8th year was hardly a helpless baby penguin – she was a cold-blooded litigator. If she were watching this happen to someone else, she wouldn’t intervene either.
A better analogy might be gazelles on the African savannah, watching as a hungry lion paces nearby. Each gazelle knows how things are going to end – one of them will be lunch. They would prefer it be someone else. They eye the others – that one’s old, that one’s lame, that one’s still a fawn.
The lion makes the same calculation. He chooses a weak runner, and gives chase.
The other gazelles flee, knowing he’ll get his meal. But this time, it’s not them.
My client was afraid of this partner. If she warned the 8th year, it might get back to him – and that wasn’t worth the risk. There was nothing she or any of the other gazelles could say to the lion – or to one another – that would do this 8th year any good. She was marked. The others were already stepping out of the way. Nature would take its course.
But the lion and gazelle analogy might not be apt either. Gazelles are harmless, but at a law firm anyone can turn dangerous. My client wasn’t naïve. She knew, if this 8th year came to power, she would grow fangs and learn to kill.
A friend of mine recently returned from Australia. He was amazed to find nearly every living creature that walks, swims or crawls Down Under can turn out to be deadly poisonous. It was incredible, he said – they had venomous toads and frogs and spiders and fish and snakes and centipedes and jellyfish and even a poisonous octopus. Just about anything you met could end up killing you.
What was it about living isolated together on a desert island that turned everyone poisonous?
An intriguing question from “A”:
I was chuckling with a client the other day about the insanity of trying to please a partner with a piece of written work.
I did a podcast a while back with the American Bar Association Journal. The topic was “work/life balance.” You can listen to it 
This month “The Alternative” with Terry LeGrand celebrated its one year anniversary. Congratulations, Terry! (And congrats to his technician and sidekick, Andrew Holinsky, too!)
I get asked this all the time: “What if it’s only chemical?”
For subtler changes in brain chemistry, talk therapy – or maybe talk therapy in tandem with a drug treatment component – produces better results.
Your thoughts are also chemicals. When you admire a sunset, you are releasing chemicals which trigger electrical impulses that race through the circuitry of your brain.
This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Here’s an example: If you are depressed and I tell you to go for a run because it will cheer you up, I’m not merely nagging. Aerobic exercise releases endorphins in your brain. These chemicals cheer you up, relieving depression.
When you get the words out, and feel your buried anger, new pathways will form between the ancient regions governing emotion in the center of the brain and more recently evolved cognition areas in the outer cortex.
Subtle changes have been made to the chemistry of your brain – to who you are, how you think, and how you behave with others.
The People's Therapist 