The Daily Journal, the newspaper of record for California's legal community, ran an obituary of a woman attorney who handled appeals for a large medical malpractice firm. "She had a passion for the law," it said.

I felt sorry for her. A passion for the law? We hear that, as lawyers, about people whose real lives are so colorless and devoid of imagination that the only thing that fires the synapses of their brains is a good case on point. It is usually used as a compliment, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for this woman.

A passion for the law? My friends, the law is a drab and mean-spirited bird whose squak is discordant and whose manners are rude and arrogant. The law is a dun-colored beast who tends to drop bodily wastes on those it dislikes, and it dislikes everyone except those in power.

To say you have a passion for the law is akin to saying that you find concrete interesting, especially after it's just been poured. It's to say that you enjoy the sound of wailing and moaning with no words. It's to say that you feel excitement by being stuck at a railroad crossing when the freight train with 200 cars of closed boxcars rumbles by.

A passion for the law? How can you love something that, by its nature, is not allowed to love you back?

I have a passion for my clients. I have a passion for making sure they find justice in the courts, no matter how hard that might be. I have a passion for trying to get a judge to see the right way to rule, to try to get the opposing attorney to sit down at the table and work out what's best for our clients. I have a passion for helping people in their desperate hour--when did anyone ever call a lawyer when they were anything else but desperate?

But I have no passion for the law. And I'm sad for those whose work as a lawyer is so soul-killing that they have a passion for little else.