 Married to the Law (Sort of)
by Tony Wilson
When I first started this column two years ago, I said I’d write something on what two married lawyers talk about at home, given the fact that my wife is also a lawyer. It’s is a topic we’re asked with amazing regularity. When people first meet us as a couple, they seem shocked that we’re both lawyers, forgetting the fact that teachers marry teachers, policemen marry policewomen and actors marry – and divorce – actresses with incessant regularity. “Oh, you two must be rolling in dough” has been a staple comment from acquaintances in the public sector (“we’re not,” goes the stock answer, “because as lawyers, we don’t have a cushy pension plan, overtime, a union or six weeks of holidays”). Another is “Oh…now I know who to call when I’m in trouble!” (“Sorry, we don’t do ‘Trouble Law.’”) Still another is “you must talk about the law at home” (Well, almost never, if you must know).
She does real-estate law and her suburban conveyancing practice is so busy these days, we joke that B.C. Ferries named the Queen of Surrey after her. (Good thing she doesn’t practise in Oak Bay!) I, on the other hand, do franchising and trademark law, so our practices have little in common. We have had only one legal discussion in the past two years and it concerned a trust she was drafting for the benefit of a parrot.
Anyway, to understand what two married lawyers talk about at home when they aren’t talking about parrots, you have to understand my wife. And the only way to really figure her out is to graph her personality on a very large piece of graph paper. So let’s return to grade 9 math for a moment.
On the “X” axis write “Spock” on the far left side and “Sybil Faulty” on the far right. On the “Y” axis write “Mary Poppins” at the bottom and “Carmen Electra” at the very top. These character attributes may be used with any wife, and any wife can do the same analysis with her husband using the attributes of say, Homer Simpson, Brad Pitt, Basil Faulty and Sting. To assess my wife’s personality on any given day, I notionally throw a dart at the graph. Before we had kids, the dart used to hit Carmen Electra with a tad more frequency. I can only attribute hitting the “Sybil Faulty Zone” to bad aim, the pull of gravity, and the fact that when she throws her darts at my graph, she almost always hits Basil Faulty.
So here, for all 10,214 of us, is what two married lawyers talk about at home, in no particular order:
She: “Could you please pick up the kids tonight? I’m out at a partners’ meeting.”
He: “OK.”
She: “Please don’t walk over the garbage bag in the middle of the floor, take it out.”
He: “OK.”
She: “You’re so much better at the computer than me, can you help me log on?”
He: “OK.”
She: “Could you please take the kids to the dentist this afternoon? I have to sign up a will.”
He: “OK.”
She: “Your mother’s furniture has to go.”
He: “OK.”
She: “Please put up the Christmas lights.”
He: “OK.”
She: “Can you look at this fabulous design for the backyard with me.”
He: “OK”
She: “You can’t print this.”
He: “OK”
Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson
This article was published in the August 2005 issue of BarTalk. © 2005 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved. |
