Stiff, bloodless, sexless, excessively concerned with the appearance of impropriety, lawyers are not much fun at parties. This is particularly true of corporate lawyers. They are professionally risk-averse; relentlessly, unreasonably reasonable; people who look perpetually ready to pull another all-nighter in the library stacks. And they are trained to be exhaustively, expensively argumentative. The culture of corporate law is one in which rigorous attention to detail is richly rewarded, and in which no detail is more rigorously attended to than victory.
The female corporate lawyer is a special breed. Her clothes nearly say it all: I am buttoned up. My attempts at personal expression are awkward and sort of silly. Remember when female lawyers wore man-tailored shirts with bouquets of fabric that bloomed just below the chin? Today’s corporate costume makes a more straightforward statement: I am here to do business. I am in it to win. I will eat your entrails for breakfast (and bill you for it), but I will not stain my Thomas Pink blouse as I do so.
