How happy I am not to be a lawyer

Today, around lunch time, I got to the civil courthouse of Rome to deposit the money needed to take part to an auction for an apartment. Yes, another attempt at the now 2 years long struggle to get my own place to live in, but that's not the point.

The point is that having seen again a courthouse after almost 2 years since last time, I'm ever so happy I decided years ago I wouldn't had been a lawyer. It was demoralizing... papers everywhere, above and under the tables and simple on the floor, dirt and trash everywhere, people wandering the corridors without an apparent goal and with a look in their eyes as if they were dreaming, or rather having a nightmare.

To whoever wonders how possible it is that an italian civil case can stay even 10 years in a court before getting a first judgment (which will almost surely be brought to a second and third one), I'd just suggest to take a walk in those corridors that have the look of ant colony but lacking its tidiness and order. Too many people, too little space, too many cases and piles, houses, mountains of paper.

So, once again, I'm glad I decided not to become a lawyer. Maybe in a different system I would have really enjoyed it, but the truth is that in Italy the legal profession is made mostly of time-wasting menial tasks, queues to deposit documents to bored and frustrated (and with reasons) state employees who lack the resources and means to do their job properly in a system that has lost it's real objective: to give quick decisions that help solving people's problems. Sometimes, often actually, the juridical procedure becomes an heavier burden than the original conflict that brought the two people to court.

Nah, thank you.