I am almost speechless. Not so speechless that I can’t put this post together, but really, really close to speechless.
Today at Above the Law, lawyer-turned-novelist Allison Leotta gives us an extended, apparently serious post comparing female lawyers to hookers.
No, I’m not kidding.
Ms. Leotta is supposedly a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former assistant United States attorney, in which capacity she supposedly prosecuted sex crimes. I say supposedly because after reading this post I seriously question her professional credentials.
Oh, I get it, it’s supposed to be amusing, this comparison that gets off the ground by pointing out that the D.C. Madam was a law school dropout. Lawyers already only care about the causes they’re paid to care about, according to Leotta. Why not make the big money that comes with being an escort?
Several ridiculous paragraphs follow. Escorts make more money but have to sleep with people they don’t care about. Prostitution isn’t good for “gender balance” because there aren’t many jobs for men. (What?) Lawyers are less likely to go to jail for their work. Then some sort of argument about how it’s difficult to enforce covenants not to compete in the sex trade.
This spectacularly tone-deaf piece of ridiculopathy concludes with advice to women who might actually be trying to decide which field to choose. Yes, it does. Leotta advises women to stick with law because it’s safer. Safer! That is why we should go on practicing, ladies! Because even though prostitution is “tempting” (her words, not mine), law is safer! Yay!
I don’t read pulp fiction trash like Leotta’s “book,” Discretion. I imagine that it may be found on the shelf in the grocery store check-out line, next to the 2013 horoscope guide and the latest Gooseberry Patch cookbook. I can only wish Leotta had taken the title of her book to heart before she undertook to post this morning.
There are many reasons women practice law. But if being a lawyer made Leotta feel like a hooker, it’s probably best she has turned her talents to fiction. I hope she keeps them there, because the rest of us have work to do.
