Sometimes the most important lessons have very little to do with the law.
In a recent Law.com reflection, an attorney recalled an encounter with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. When Scalia entered the room, the assembled lawyers remained seated. He noticed.
After looking down for a moment, Scalia expressed his disappointment. These attorneys, he observed, had sat there “like bumps on a log” rather than rising to greet an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He then added that, in his day, he automatically stood whenever a woman entered the room.
His criticism was blunt. It was also about far more than whether someone stood up.
Scalia was talking about respect.
We have become increasingly casual about the small gestures that once helped hold society together: standing when someone enters the room, looking a person in the eye, offering a firm handshake, holding a door, addressing an elder properly and allowing someone else to speak without interruption.
None of these customs requires us to surrender our independence or pretend that every person deserves our agreement. They simply acknowledge the dignity of the person standing before us.
You could disagree with Justice Scalia’s judicial philosophy and still rise when he entered the room. Respect was never supposed to mean ideological approval. It meant recognizing the office, the institution and the human being.
That distinction has become increasingly difficult for us.
Today, disagreement is often treated as permission for contempt. Political opponents are not merely wrong; they are evil. Public officials are not questioned; they are shouted down. People routinely say things online that they would never have the courage—or the indecency—to say while looking someone in the eye.
We have confused informality with equality and rudeness with authenticity.
The lesson Scalia offered those lawyers was not really about etiquette. It was about discipline. A good lawyer must know how to control the room, but first must know how to control himself. That means listening carefully, respecting the court, understanding tradition and recognizing that professionalism is revealed in the smallest moments.
The same is true outside the courtroom.
Character is demonstrated when there is nothing to be gained from showing courtesy. It is saying “thank you” to the person clearing the table. It is putting down the phone when someone is speaking. It is treating people with dignity regardless of their job, politics, education or usefulness to us.
Justice Scalia’s words may sound old-fashioned to some. Perhaps that is precisely why they are worth remembering.
Not every tradition deserves to survive simply because it is old. But the customs that teach humility, gratitude and respect should not be discarded merely because they require a little effort.
Sometimes getting yelled at makes us defensive.
Sometimes, if we are willing to listen, it makes us better lawyers—and better people.
The Valley Viewpoint 