ISN'T IT RICH? - American Business Media

BARTALKMADDENINGLYREALA legal scholar’s take on the boozy television drama Mad Men.Former solicitor general WALTER DELLINGER has a full docket these days: The O’Melveny & Myerspartner heads a Harvard/O’Melveny Supreme Court and appellate practice clinic, and is a visitingprofessor of law at Harvard Law School. But there is one evening already blocked out on Dellinger’scalendar: March 25, the season five premiere of Mad Men, a TV show about New Yorkadvertising executives in the 1960s. An avid fan since its 2007 debut, Dellinger led a blog discussionof the show’s fourth season for The Wall Street Journal. Senior reporter Amy Kolz spoke withDellinger about life during the Mad Men years, and his expectations for the upcoming season.You began your law career duringthe Mad Men era. What do you thinkis most realistic about the show’sportrayal of the time? I think theshow is at its best when it dealswith the changing gender roles inthe 1960s. It does a wonderful jobof showing [through the charactersof copywriter Peggy Olson and of-fice manager Joan Harris] the tensionsthat arose between the veryfirst women who were in professionalroles and their predecessors,women who had been confined tosecretary and staff roles. In 1965I was a law clerk at Paul, Weiss,Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison onMadison Avenue, and my wife,Anne, was a technical editor at aninsurance company in Manhattan.We’re constantly struck over howaccurately the show conveys thosenuances. Mad Men also shows a1960s world of closeted homosexualityand casual anti-Semitism,and gets those just right too.What about the show’s copiousdaytime drinking? Did you encounterthat as a young associate? It’shard to describe how extraordinarythe world of law practice [inthe 1960s] was to someone whogrew up relatively poor in NorthCarolina. I was very struck by thefact that it was quite common forpeople to drink a good bit at lunchat a fancy restaurant.Where, if anywhere, does the showfall short? The most serious criticismof the show is that while ittakes a stance of disapproving ofthe benighted ways of that era, italso undeniably takes great pleasurein portraying them. Oneweakness is that the show doesn’tquite know what to do about race,but I don’t think the world of MadMen quite knew what to make of[changing race relations] either,so maybe that’s accurate. Theshow’s weakest link is probablyits portrayal of the rising counterculture,which tends to be a morecartoonish version.What are you most looking forwardto in the upcoming season? Thecontinuing saga of Don Draper’sself-invention is always interesting,and the question that always lurksover the show, is whether he willbe able to escape his past. And itwill be fascinating to see what thefuture holds for Peggy and Joan,who both have shown the enormousprice that women had topay to be successful. Although theshow is called Mad Men, in someways the most interesting aspect iswhat’s going on with the women. MAKE YOUR MARKON THE CANADIAN LANDSCAPE.Looking for a full-service law firm to navigate your business interests north of the border? As Canada’s largest law firm,Borden Ladner Gervais LLP’s (BLG) government contracting professionals will help you realize your business goals andensure there are no barriers to your Canadian success.Not only has BLG been recognized as a Go-To Law Firm ® of the World’s Leading Companies for five straight years, butwe also have the most lawyers selected by their peers in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in Canada. ®AN ILTA EVENT IN ASSOCIATION WITH LEGALTECH, A DIVISION OF ALMCalgary | Montréal | OttawaToronto | Vancouver | Waterloo RegionLawyers | Patent & Trade-mark AgentsBorden Ladner Gervais LLPis an Ontario Limited Liability Partnership.blg.comGo-To Law Firm ® is a registered trademark of ALM Media, LLC. Used with permission. The Best Lawyers in Canada ® 2011(Copyright 2010 by Woodward/White, Inc., of Aiken, S.C.)