For those of you who never watched Boston Legal, my all-time favourite television show about lawyers, Denny Crane was the senior partner of Crane Poole & Schmidt.
Denny had a bit of an ego, summed up pretty well in his pronouncement that, “as God-like as I seem to you and other people, I am mortal inside this God-like shell.”
Does this sound like any senior partners that you have met? I certainly met some lawyers with a God complex, although few of them had Denny Crane’s humility and would admit that they were mortal.
Shirley Schmidt was also a senior partner. She often would explain that she had two reasons for her decisions, as follows: “First, the name of the firm is Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Second, I’m Schmidt.” Does that decision making process remind you of any senior partners that you have come across?
Finally, there was Edwin Poole, the third name partner. Edwin only appeared in four episodes over the five seasons that the show ran. Edwin had a mental breakdown in the first episode. He tried to return to practice a few times, but each time it became clear that he could not handle the stress and had to return to the mental hospital.
The thing that I loved the most about Boston Legal was that unlike most television shows about lawyers, this one was so damn realistic.