January 21, 2004

Mediating with feminists

I got to the law firm at 9:30 this morning, well in advance of the scheduled mediation. And I was prepared, too. In addition to my purse, I had my notes about the case we were mediating, a legal pad, my T-Mobile Sidekick (for e-mail and internet access) and a book to read during the down time. I even got there early enough to get a seat at the table (but I sat along the wall anyway).

For those of you who have never been to a mediation before (fess up, guys, you know who you are), it works like this: the mediator (whom both sides have selected jointly) gives an opening talk to plaintiff and defendant(s). Then, each side gets their chance to tell their "story". Then, one of the parties goes into another room, and the mediator runs back and forth between the two rooms, trying to negotiate agreeable terms. When done correctly, this process ocassionally works.

We knew we could never mediate this case today. There are 25+ defendants in the case, and each had their own lawyer there, plus we had the plaintiff and his two lawyers -- a man who is quite nice, and his wife who has a special circle in hell reserved for her. However, the judge ordered us to mediate this case (because he wants to get rid of it), so we complied.

We were in a large conference room of a large law firm here in town. The conference room sits on the 32nd floor of this office building, and has a magnificent view of downtown New Orleans and the Mississippi River. It is a perfect place to lose track of time (as an aside: several of the large firms who occupy these spaces often have problems with tourists who wander into their conference rooms and libraries wanting to take pictures of the cityscape).

At one point, while the mediator was in the other conference room conferring with the plaintiff and his attorneys, I was reading my book and several of the lawyers were chatting to pass the time. One of them, who happens to be my former boss, walks in with a stack of photocopied papers in her hands. She begins passing out these papers to everyone for our review. The sheet of paper I received contained a review of a new book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger entitled, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands".

Understand this: my former boss is a feminist. And I don't use that word lightly. I can understand how she morphed into feminism, as her first legal job was at a large law firm in town that had no female partners when she started working there. Furthermore, many of the male partners were pigs (not all of them, of course, but a good number). She ultimately worked her way up the ladder and became a partner there and was a memebr of the firm's Management Committee. She is also married to one of the most conservative men I know. He's somewhere to the right of Rush, and is of the type who finds the Fox News network too "touchy feely".

Once I received this book review, I already knew the score. I've always thought of Dr. Laura as something of a Nazi, but an avoidable one (thankfully). However, this book reviewed intrigued me.

As an example of her (ahem) "advice", Dr. Laura starts one of her chapters with quotes from real-life (no fakes here!) men. One of them is as follows:

"Men are only interested in two things: If I'm not horny, make me a sandwich."

John

A few thoughts: (1) No one would really want to eat the kinds of sandwiches I prepare, my husband included; (2) Most wives would never get the opportunity to make the sandwiches in the first place, men's sex drives being what they often are; (3) Is it some big revelation that men want to have sex as often as possible? I understand that there are many men (unlike Dr. Laura, I cannot group all men together) who, if possible, would have sex 24/7 -- however, this is real life, not Cinemax. Wives can only perform so many miracles in a day, and constant sexual gratification of their husbands sometimes isn't one of them.

One of my favorite quotes from this book? "And at the end of the day . . . roll over in bed, close your eyes, give him a big hug, and remember that without him, you are only a sorry excuse for a person, but as half of the team, you are invincible."

Well, this sorry excuse for a person is going to hang out with her girl friends this weekend.

And no, we didn't mediate the case.

Posted by Kitty at January 21, 2004 08:56 PM

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