Nobody Wants A Lawyer Who Cries

Can we ever be our authentic selves at work?

When I was still at university, I signed on the dotted line with a big city law firm, committing to work there for a minimum of two years in exchange for them funding my law school tuition fees. At the time, talk of ‘being our authentic selves’ didn’t permeate conversation between my friends and I; still inhabiting the blissful naivety of youth, we pretty much said and did what we wanted.

But as soon as I stepped out of my baggy ripped jeans and Converse trainers into my pinstripe suit and shiny black shoes, I knew instinctively that something was very wrong. To the extent that clothing is an expression of self, this clothing did not express me. And I found myself sitting at lunch in the office canteen with my fellow trainee solicitors, entirely mute.

The fact that I found it almost impossible to contribute to the conversations around me, which seemed to centre around funny stories I didn’t find funny and interesting anecdotes which to me seemed excruciatingly dull, I put down to some inherent flaw within myself. It took me a good few months of internal self-flagellation over cheese and pickle sandwiches to realise that these perfectly nice people were simply not my people, that our lack of connection wasn’t their fault but then neither was it mine. It was ok to be me, I just needed to find different people to be me with. And whilst this didn’t happen immediately, it did happen, and I gravitated towards two colleagues I found hilarious and fascinating and brilliantly non-conformist and who remain close friends to this day.

Fast forward twelve months, and I was informed by the powers that be that they were transferring me to an entirely different city to complete my training; I would be leaving London and with it, my house-share in Brixton and rambunctious social life. At twenty-three years old this news felt akin to a death sentence and so, when the partner with whom I shared an office nipped out for lunch, I closed the door and I allowed my emotions to crash over me in huge undulating waves. In other words, I cried. Then, to my horror, I heard a knock at the door and the door swung open. I looked up from the snotty tissue crumpled between my fingers into the eyes of another partner, a suave and sophisticated man from the entertainment department. On seeing me sobbing he stepped into the office, closed the door behind him and asked me what was wrong and I found myself, in between sniffles and heaves, telling him.

He seemed to listen attentively, head tilted slightly to the side, occasionally running a palm across his grey stubble. And after I’d finished my tale of woe I waited for him to console me, to say he would use his seniority and influence within the firm to pull some strings internally and see what he could do to help. But no. He simply placed his hand on the door handle, smiled grimly and said, ‘Delphine, nobody wants a lawyer who cries.’ He then walked out of the office.

I’ve carried these words of wisdom with me from lowly trainee, to being made partner myself in an entertainment law firm, to being head of business affairs at a major record company, to becoming COO of an artist management business, record label and publishing company. The advice was definitely sound. The stereotype of a lawyer is someone who’s steely, tough, ready to march fearlessly into battle on behalf of their clients and fight to the death and clearly, I was expected to conform to the stereotype. So whilst crying was my authentic response to the situation presented to me, the message was received loud and clear; being authentic to myself in the workplace, to the extent that authenticity of self might entail a display of ‘weakness’, was simply not acceptable.

Lawyers are of course held to professional standards and it could be said that publicly crying in a professional environment is simply not professional. It certainly wouldn’t get you very far in a negotiation, that’s for sure. But what about displays of anger or aggression? Where does talking over someone, raising your voice or shouting sit in relation to professionalism? I’ve been on the receiving end of such behaviour more times than I care to remember and I’m afraid to say that those dishing it out were almost always men. But in all honesty, I’ve dished it out too. Because after leaving the big city firm to work in the music industry, an industry which back then was very much a boys’ club and arguably remains so in 2025, I realised that I wasn’t going to get very far as a young female shrinking violet.

This revelation of sorts crystalised into action on a work trip to Texas when a senior male colleague’s bullying behaviour reached unbearable levels and led to me (privately) having a cry in my hotel room during a stop-over in New York. I called my sister, who at the time was still a student and so wasn’t yet endeavouring to adhere to any kind of professional standards. Her advice was simple; the next time he does it, shout at him. So seemingly left with no other options (don’t be silly, of course there was no HR department!) that’s exactly what I resolved to do. The resulting show-down took place in the taxi queue at Austin airport. In front of a long line of gawking people, when my colleague began his next attack, I bared my teeth and I attacked back. I yelled at him, loudly. I may have even jabbed a finger at the air in the direction of his face. And it was fucking terrifying and my heart was racing and my cheeks were burning. But it seemed to do the trick, because after that, he pretty much left me alone.

I subsequently cultivated an ability to tap into the injustice of what I could refer to as many things but will call ‘an improper imbalance in power dynamics’ i.e. I learned how to switch it on. I could walk into rooms and shape-shift into what I sensed the room required of me or more particularly, what was required of me to achieve the desired result in the context of the nature of the humans there present. I garnered a reputation for being steely and tough. I was praised by (male) colleagues for ‘wiping the floor’ with other men in a boardroom negotiation. I was lauded for being ‘a force of nature’. I still cried – from stress, exhaustion, being subjected to treatment which I deemed to be unacceptable and unfair. But I did so in a toilet cubicle behind a locked door or in the office of a trusted friend. I was a lawyer who cries, I simply pretended that I wasn’t.

But crying is typically (problematically for all sexes) regarded as a feminine trait, and anger and aggression are generally regarded as masculine. So does this mean that the standards of acceptable behaviour in a professional context are, despite our times, still largely determined by gender stereotypes? In order to progress in my career, was I able to be authentic as long as that authenticity conformed to the behavioural expectations of men? The answer is quite possibly, yes.

But then perhaps choosing to engage in business at an executive or indeed any level unless you’re a psychopath or narcissist is always going to be tough at times, and being authentically yourself within the context of the (skewed sexist?) standards of (music industry?) professionalism is even harder. When I compare the version of me who attends my book club, writing collective, permaculture group meetings, local climate resilience group, against the version of me I once presented in the record label boardroom, I’m almost unrecognisable to myself. In such non-business settings I’m authentically me, and to feel ‘permitted’ to settle back into the full emotional spectrum of what being authentically me entails including self-doubt and vulnerability, knowing that I won’t be judged or belittled or any less heard as a result, is truly wonderful. And it makes me question what lessons we could we learn from the kind, compassionate, non-egotistical, non-capitalist dynamics of these forums and apply to the business world.

Thanks for reading x