1. The screenwriter tried to imitate "Insider" and "Erin Brockovich", but made a mess. I think the most basic reason is because the first two are based on real events, and this movie is a mess. And it's clear that this screenwriter doesn't understand American lawyers and American businesses at all.
2. Who is Michael Clayton? After 17 years of mixing, not only did he not become a partner, he didn't even have a house or a car? Can't even get 80,000 deposits? joke. As a lawyer in New York, last year's statistics showed that the average starting salary of college graduates was more than 200,000 yuan, not to mention the elites with 17 years of work experience, equivalent to the senior partner level. According to Clayton brother's height in this film, I am not surprised that his annual salary is millions. Even if you open a bar and lose a little money in Chinatown, I don't know how a lawyer can live so miserably.
3. Well, let’s take a step back. Even if he is a personality, he has been a lawyer for so many years and has no money. He asked the boss to borrow 80,000 yuan. The boss’s performance clearly shows: the situation is very serious, you have to sell me for another three years. . Let's do the math, how much is 80,000 yuan? According to the experience value of senior partners, Comrade Clayton's Hourly Rate may be 2,000 per hour. Counting the billable hours of working 10 hours a day will create a turnover of 20,000 for the company in one day. Although Comrade Clayton's standard of living seems to be equal to that of the proletariat, we still count in the turnover of the day, and the law firm spends half of the funds on salaries and other expenses. In other words, the company's net profit is 10,000 a day. So, Clayton only needed to work for eight days, and the 80,000 company won back. If the law firm in the movie can be the legal representative of a company as big as UNorth, it is definitely not a small law firm. Therefore, the company must have a lot of money that can't be spent. Just like Goldman Sachs a few years ago, when they make money and earn happiness, the little secretary who connects to answer the phone can do whatever they want with a reward of 150,000 yuan. There is no such thing as signing a three-year contract in the real world, but it is generally aimed at the little hairs who have just graduated. I had a manager who was beaten to death and refused to sign, and they had no choice but to give the money. The significance of signing a three-year contract is basically just to ensure that you can stay at the company for a longer time. And people who have been loyal to the company for more than ten years do not need this kind of "proof" at all.
4. Let's talk about the professional value of the character Clayton. The film keeps blowing, how amazing he is, how capable he is. But I looked and looked, but I didn't see it. The profession of the firm generally has only two natures: one is professional consulting and the other is customer service. When it comes to professional counseling, this amazing senior Clayton has apparently been hibernating for most of his life, because he doesn't even know the basic legal knowledge that the validity of local laws is limited to that state. Anyone who has taken a law course in college understands this problem. Clayton seems to still be a litigator for local governments. I really don't know how he got through those days.
If Clayton's Niche is about customer service, such as dealing with cases that are less clean, unclear, unclear, and unclear, as this film promotes, what is he doing so badly to customers? The screenwriter may think that lawyers are very cool, but he may not understand that in the eyes of lawyers, the one who gives money is the uncle, and the one who gives money is God. Therefore, like Clayton, when meeting an important client for the first time, he is not cold, not warm, not caring, not warm, and he should be scolded immediately.
Not to mention, Clayton's words to customers, colleagues, bosses, and everyone are extremely mentally retarded and have no reference value. You can understand the law, but how can you not even have any wisdom? Your company screwed up the client's business, and you went to tell the client that the person was in a bad mood and that the person forgot to take medicine. Will customers care? Even I know that the only thing the customer cares about is the solution, and the only thing the company cares about is the shirk. Being a lawyer is not a mess. Everything is only about interests, and who cares about your personal feelings.
Speaking of which, I think this writer must be very innocent. He actually thought that those unclean, unclear, unclear, and unclear cases needed to be solved secretly by someone specializing in it. For the parties concerned, a "specialist" is of course needed. This "specialist" is a lawyer, a large group of lawyers. Because good lawyers often turn what you think is illegal and morally detrimental into legal causes. What's so shy about being a lawyer? What "special people" do you need within yourself? I don't think lawyers are directly involved in the implementation of illegal actions, this kind of service is generally out of scope - we don't have the resources or the ability to solve it so we don't take the risk and it's not our business. For example, if you need to kill someone, a lawyer will say to you, "As long as this person doesn't exist, all problems will be solved." As for whether to kill this person or not, that's a matter between you and the killer.
Morality and justice, this is a matter of conscience, not a matter of law. The primary condition of being a lawyer is that one should refrain from conscience and maintain complete objectivity in serving clients. I don't know, what's so weird about this? I know a friend who personally drove an ex-wife who was abandoned by a rich man to the point of losing all her belongings and running to the point of kneeling and crying in a law firm. The woman was cornered, and she knew that only a lawyer could solve the problem. She only knew her husband's lawyers and came to them because she didn't have a penny and couldn't afford another lawyer. No matter how unbearable my friend was, she could only walk over to her stubbornly and tell her that they could not help, because they were the lawyers of the rich man, and they had to serve the interests of the rich man wholeheartedly.
5. Now for UNorth's female legal director. For a large company with footprints in 62 countries around the world, it should not be easy for a woman to climb to the position of legal director. She should be calm, courageous and knowledgeable, and because of her legal background, she is more hard-hearted. And this woman, like a yellow-haired girl who had just stepped into society, panicked when she saw a room full of poop. And when he was finally about to poop in the middle of the house, he almost didn't cry. I have met several vice presidents of the Fortune 500, and even a partner of a big four who has just appreciated in value never needs to rehearse his speech several times in advance. Moreover, this person has no knowledge. As a lawyer, how could she not know that the way to withdraw a case is never to kill the other party's lawyer, but to destroy the other party's evidence, that is, the document. In the end, I have not been able to figure out why she kept hiding this matter from her boss? It wasn't her fault for this calamity. She can at least report it, and it will be successful if she gets it. Otherwise, there is no personal benefit at all for taking so much trouble.
6. Regarding the merger of the law firm with the United Kingdom, what is the use of putting this in the movie? Also, I seriously doubt the possibility of such a thing, since US law firms have to run companies under a state license, so it's hard to consolidate mergers. This is why, although the United States has the largest number of lawyers in the world, it does not have super-law firms deployed everywhere like the Big Four accounting firms and investment banks. I have seldom heard of law firms whose branches are transcontinental, let alone transnational. Stepping back 10,000 steps, even if there is a merger, the operating model of the firm is not an ordinary enterprise, and you cannot have me if you have the same position. As long as there is enough business, the more staff the better, without affecting each other. It doesn't matter if there are 10,000 people in the same position. To understand, for an office, people are the inventory of goods on the shelf. People who thought about a company merger in this movie were panicking, but he found the wrong person.
7. Finally, I just want to make a comment on the form of the film: the pretentious editing of the previous paragraph is really unnecessary. What kind of suspense, a bad film is a bad film.
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