What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

I’ve been a lawyer for a long time by anyone’s measurement, y’all. When I graduated from law school in 1994, Bill Clinton was president and Johnny Carson was just about to retire. It was the same weekend that Nelson Mandela was first elected president of South Africa. We still had a month to go before OJ Simpson fled from the police in a white Bronco. History.

I’ve learned a lot since then, mostly about conflict, and why it happens, and what it takes to resolve it. I’ve had to, professionally. As a municipal court judge, it’s my job to decide stuff about what happens to people. As a mediator, it’s my job to help people come to resolutions on their own.

And here’s what I think: 99.99999999% of all disputes are misunderstandings, and 99.999999999% of all of those misunderstandings are because someone or another just doesn’t understand something fundamental about the way things work.

As the Captain says in Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”  What we’ve got most everywhere is a failure to communicate. Also, a failure to understand.

I did a mediation today. That’s not unusual. But as I was explaining for the millionth time this year why, aside from being round fruits, apples had nothing to do with oranges, I had an epiphany.

We need an agency of some kind. Probably government funded, though maybe volunteer run, since we don’t want the government interfering in the types of answers it can give. It should be staffed entirely by post-menopausal women who no longer care who they make mad. I haven’t quite figured out how enforcement would work, since getting people to acknowledge that they need the services of this agency could be problematic, but people who are in a dispute with someone else could go to this agency and explain to their caseworker what the problem is.

The caseworker, who by virtue of being post-menopausal has not only been-there but also done-that, has the life experience to sort out the drama from the facts of the story. After an appropriate period of venting, the caseworker gets to cut to the chase and explain things to the client. “No no no, honey. That’s not how things work. You have to pay your insurance bill before your insurance will cover you. No, I don’t care if they didn’t call you back.” Or, “No, I get that you wanted your walls painted ecru and the painting crew painted them almond, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay anything. You still have freshly painted off-white walls.”  Or “Just because you didn’t use the pool last summer doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay the HOA dues.”

There are so many life lessons that no one thinks to teach.  I keep thinking that I should put together a class for my 20-something children’s friends that has a curriculum that includes topics like “obtaining car insurance,”  “balancing a checkbook,”  “how do you make health insurance work?” “making medical appointments,” and “I know I’m supposed to ‘file taxes’ but what exactly does that mean?”

Basic competence about the way the world works is not a foregone conclusion for most people. I’m not saying I know everything—odds are very good that I have no idea how much I don’t know about a lot of things.

But that’s my point. Neither does anyone else.

Buy my book, Devil’s Defense, or the audiobook, order the sequel, Devil’s Hand, and/or find me on Substack.