People tend to assume that, because I work in a law office, I know something about the law. Actually, beyond the fact that marijuana should be legalized and police officers should be more polite when they stop you for speeding, I know next to nothing about the law. (And, having typed that sentence, I now notice that both of those are personal opinions as opposed to legal facts.) I know how to keep an office neat and organized but, when it comes to the actual practice of the law, I’m about as lost as your typical art history major who has a day job as an administrative assistant.
So, perhaps that’s why I enjoyed playing Ham and Egg Lawyer.
In Ham and Egg Lawyer, you play a lawyer who is fresh out of a law school and who is in the process of setting up her first practice. What this means is that you spend most of your time answering the phone and getting asked various legal questions. (Occasionally, you also get a call from a telemarketer who offers you a chance to improve your web page.) The game takes place over 5 days and, once the work week has ended, you’re giving three different score — reputation, money, and stress — based on the choices you made.
Now, the main issue that some people will probably have with this game is that there really aren’t any concrete consequences for having either a low or a high score. For instance, you can have a terrible reputation but clients are still going to call you up and ask you about age of consent laws and whether or not you’d be willing to handle their DUI. By that some token, you could end up with a negative money score without having to worry about getting evicted, losing your practice, or starving to death.
But that didn’t really bother me. The game is well-written and the people who call the office are consistently amusing. From some of the comments that are made at the beginning of the game, I’m assuming that it was written by an actual lawyer and, as such, the game’s situations feel authentic. If nothing else, it makes for an interesting slice-of-life experience.
As for myself, when I played Ham and Egg Lawyer, I specifically went out of my way to pick all of the wrong and/or greedy choices. Bad legal advice? I gave it. Large retainers? I charged them. It wasn’t always easy because my natural instinct is always to try to help people out. “Oh no,” I occasionally thought to myself, “I shouldn’t have guaranteed that client that I’d be able to get him a large cash settlement. Even I know that!”
But then I reminded myself that it was just a game, I’m not really a lawyer, and it costs money to live well! “Fuck being ethical,” I thought as the in-game phone rang with another mark looking for legal help, “Lisa needs a new pair of shoes.”
As a result, I ended up with a high money score but a negative reputation score and you know what? I can live with that. At the very least, I can use that money to start advertising on TV and then let’s watch the cash come rolling on…
Yay!
Through the Shattered Lens 