The Good Place, The Bad Place, and the Lawyer’s Ethical Escape Hatch
I. Prologue: A Café, A Screen, A Cage
If, last year, you saw me in the State Courts cafeteria or at Maxwell Market, staring blankly into a takeaway cup of kopi-o, you might have mistaken my silence for fatigue. It was, in truth, a state of philosophical suspension. I was running on two unlikely fuels: sheer anxiety over an impossible client, and the peculiar wisdom of The Good Place—a Netflix sitcom about moral philosophy that had become my unexpected guide through a professional purgatory of my own making.
Every lawyer knows the moment, sometimes gradual, sometimes sudden, when a file stops being a case and starts being a cage. The weight shifts from intellectual challenge to psychological burden; from professional duty to personal entrapment. Last year, I did not merely inherit such a file. I constructed the cage myself, bar by bar, with the very tools of my trade: diligence, empathy, and an unyielding sense of fiduciary duty.
My client, let us call her “Eleanor,” after the show’s flawed heroine—was a master of strategic distress in a scorched-earth divorce. She possessed the means, the acumen, and the relentless will to fight, yet withheld the one thing that sustained our partnership: payment. When the cheques ceased, the real trial began—not in court, but within the confines of my own practice, my ethics, and my deteriorating well-being.
I had fought through a gauntlet of interlocutory applications, a full-day mediation, and three consolidated PPO matters, all within the shadow of an unfinished four-day trial. A daunting third tranche loomed—one I knew, in my bones, I would not be attending. The financial haemorrhage was severe, but the greater toll was levied on my sanity. In the exhausted silence of those evenings, my sanctuary became the glow of a screen, where an unlikely teacher appeared. It was here, in a sitcom’s witty exploration of cosmic justice, that I found both a mirror to my own professional hell and the blueprint for the only ethical escape.
I had become an unpaid participant in my own torture. This client did not simply refuse to pay. She weaponised her distress. Every conversation was a performance: tearful breakdowns, tales of a failing business, children bearing invisible wounds. These were not expressions of anguish; they were tactical instruments, meticulously deployed to override the mundane reality of substantial unpaid invoices. In a moment of catastrophic goodwill, I even attended court for her after she declared her intention not to pay. I was no longer just a lawyer; I was a captive audience to my own exploitation.
Staring at my reflection in the darkened television after the season finale, I was struck by a chilling epiphany. My practice was not merely in a “bad place.” It was a pristine, real-world case study of the broken ethical system the show so cleverly dramatised. My compassion and zeal which are the very traits that define the best of our profession had been systematically perverted into the precise tools used to ensnare me. In the show’s haunting terminology, I had become the architect of my own Bad Place.
II. The “Good Place” is a System, Not an Accident
The Good Place posits a cosmos in crisis: the afterlife’s point system is so fundamentally broken that no human soul has qualified for entry in over five centuries. Instead, souls are subjected to eternity in the Bad Place through maddeningly personalised psychological torment. The narrative breakthrough arrives not when the characters learn to game this system, but when they realise they must stop trying to survive within its corrupted rules altogether. Salvation lies not in compliance, but in courageous, ground-up reconstruction.
My practice, I realised with dawning clarity, had become that broken system. The incentives were not merely misaligned; they were inverted. My client was being rewarded for non-payment with more of my uncompensated labour, more of my emotional investment, and more of my professional capital. The very “good place” values I held dear – zealous advocacy, unwavering client care, going the extra mile were generating “bad place” outcomes: financial depletion, corrosive resentment, and the slow, steady compromise of my ethical boundaries. I was running a practice where virtue was not its own reward, but its own punishment.
The show’s judge, a detached cosmic bureaucracy, only intervenes when the system is proven irredeemable. I realised I needed to be my own Judge. Not to pass sentence on my client, but to render a clear-eyed judgment on the solicitor-client relationship itself. Under these distorted, exploitative terms, the relationship was no longer sustainable. It was poisoning the well of my practice and jeopardising my duties to the court, to other clients, and to myself. It had to end.
III. Recognising the “Bad Place” Client Script: The Four Architects of Exploitation
My “Eleanor” was no cartoon villain. She was, like the show’s characters, a product of her own flawed calculus, operating within a dynamic she had learned would yield results. Her behaviour mapped onto a classic, destructive script, one familiar to any lawyer who has faced deliberate non-payment.
1. The Strategic Victim (Chidi’s Overthinking, Weaponised)
Every discussion was orchestrated as an existential crisis. Her stories of suffering were not casual shares but strategic plays, designed to trigger my deepest fiduciary instincts while deliberately silencing my business judgment. The unspoken subtext was a masterclass in moral coercion: “How can you talk about bills when my world is collapsing?”
2. The Transactional Soul (Tahani’s Name-Dropping, For Sympathy)
My extraordinary acts of goodwill, the unpaid court appearances, the hospital visit, were not logged in her mental ledger as kindness. They were transformed into precedents. Each concession reset the baseline of her expectations, establishing a new normal where my professional labour was expected gratis. Generosity was not acknowledged; it was capitalised upon.
3. The Complacent Gambler (Jason’s Impulsivity, Calculated)
She had the means but refused to pay because she was betting that my professional pride in the case and my fear of its collapse were greater than my need for remuneration. She gambled that the impending “tsunami” of deadlines would force me to capitulate, to protect the work I had already invested.
4. The Unreliable Narrator (The Show’s Core Premise)
In her telling, facts were fluid. Her company’s fortunes waxed and waned in direct opposition to my billing cycle. I was navigating the case based on self-reported data that was, I came to understand, fundamentally corrupted. I was building strategies on shifting sand.
Recognising these patterns was not an exercise in cynicism, but one of professional clarity. It allowed me to see the system at play, rather than getting lost in the drama of each individual interaction.
IV. Building the Escape Hatch: A Protocol for Ethical Withdrawal
The turning point in The Good Place is the radical decision to “walk through the door” to voluntarily leave a flawed paradise for the unknown, in pursuit of something truer. For the lawyer trapped in an exploitative retainer, the doorway is a Summons application for leave to cease acting. Exiting ethically on the grounds of non-payment is a perilous manoeuvre, fraught with professional risk and emotional tension. It demands not just a decision, but a disciplined, procedurally impeccable protocol.
1. The “Jeremy Bearimy” Letter: Time is Non-Linear, But Deadlines Are Firm.
In the show, time is depicted as a confusing, non-linear scribble. For the client in denial, time is similarly nebulous—a series of “after the next hearing” or “when the funds come in” deflections. This must end with crystalline clarity.
I sent a formal, certified letter that established a new, absolute timeline. It clinically stated the outstanding balance, specified the retainer required to proceed, set a final seven-day deadline, and outlined the unequivocal consequence: the taking out of a Summons application to discharge as solicitor. This letter was not an emotional plea; it was a judicial notice served upon my own practice. It marked my transition from participant to judge of the relationship.
2. File the Summons. Do Not Hesitate.
When the deadline passed without compliance, I filed the Summons the very next morning. This is the most psychologically difficult yet procedurally critical step. Any delay undermines your credibility and signals a hollow threat. The client’s subsequent panic, the frantic calls, the renewed tears, the ever-more-tragic narrative is the Bad Place’s final attempt to reset the loop.
My response became a single, repeatable mantra of professional boundary: “My re-engagement is strictly contingent upon receipt of the funds outlined in my letter. Until then, the application to discharge proceeds.”
3. The “Trolley Problem” Lever: A Choice That is No Choice at All.
The famous ethical dilemma is not a mere metaphor; it is the lived reality of the exploited practitioner. The runaway trolley is your dying practice, its viability, your mental health, your professional dignity. One track holds your survival; the other, an unfunded, all-consuming case. The one guarantee is that inaction guarantees a crash.
Filing the Summons is the ethical pull of the lever. It is not an act of aggression, but the direct, proportionate consequence of the client’s material breach. It protects the court from the spectre of an underfunded and potentially incompetent representation, and it protects you from further systemic exploitation.
4. Provide a “Janet”-Level Warning: Clarity as the Highest Form of Professionalism.
Like the show’s all-knowing, factually precise assistant, your withdrawal communication must be unnervingly, impeccably clear. It must transition the conversation from emotional negotiation to factual advisory. Detail every imminent deadline, hearing, and filing requirement—the “tsunami” they will now face alone. Explain the likely legal consequences: default judgments, adverse costs orders, procedural forfeitures.
This is not cruelty; it is supreme professionalism. It converts the client’s chosen consequence from an abstract “I no longer have a lawyer” into a concrete, itemised list of perilous responsibilities for which they are now solely accountable.
5. Manage the Aftermath: The “What We Owe To Each Other” Lesson.
The show’s ultimate moral is that ethics are about our relationships in a community. My relationship with this client was toxic and had to end for the health of my wider community: my other clients, my staff, my family, and myself.
Upon securing the court’s permission to withdraw, I provided a final account and facilitated the transfer of files (subject to a lien). I exited cleanly, ethically, and without malice. I was not punishing her. I was respecting her autonomous choice to not pay for a lawyer, and my own choice not to be an unpaid volunteer.
V. Key Takeaways: From Philosophical Insight to Practice Imperative
1. Your Compassion is a Strategic Asset, Not Client Equity.
Your humanity the capacity for empathy, the willingness to listen, the drive to protect is what elevates you from a legal technician to a trusted advisor. When this humanity is systematically harvested and used as a substitute for payment, it is no longer a virtue; it is the engine of your exploitation. Guard it with robust, non-negotiable boundaries.
2. The “Tsunami” is Your Client’s Teacher, Not Your Moral Failure.
A client who refuses to pay for a lifeboat cannot, in good conscience, blame the shipwright for the rising tide. By withdrawing, you are not causing the storm; you are allowing the natural, predictable consequence of their financial choice to manifest. This is a critical, if unforgiving, form of client education—one that reinforces the fundamental principle that expert advocacy has value and carries a cost.
3. You Cannot Litigate from a Place of Financial Resentment.
Resentment is a cognitive toxin. It clouds judgment, breeds bitterness, and inevitably compromises the quality of your work for all your clients. The conversation about money is not a distasteful aside to the practice of law; it is foundational to it. A sustainable practice is built on the bedrock of fair exchange.
4. Watch for the “System.”
If your practice is characterised by one-off concessions, advances on costs, and the unilateral provision of emotional labour, you are not being “accommodating.” You are administering a broken system—one that will inevitably burn you out, deplete your resources, and erode your professional standing. Reboot that system with clear rules, consistently and dispassionately enforced.
VI. Epilogue: Walking Through the Door to Save Your Practice—and Yourself
Binging The Good Place did not furnish me with legal precedents or procedural shortcuts. It offered something more profound: a philosophical framework through which to understand my predicament. I was not merely an unpaid lawyer; I was a soul in a torture machine of my own co-design, where every act of professional “goodness” only served to extend the sentence.
Discharging myself was my “walk through the final door.” It was an act of professional and personal salvation. The sadness for the case—for the unresolved conflict, for the human dimension lost was real. But it was decisively overtaken by the profound, cleansing relief of reclaiming my practice, my ethical autonomy, and my sanity.
To my fellow advocates in the trenches: if you find yourself in your own Bad Place, a hell tailored with diabolical precision to exploit your best instincts, remember this—you are the architect. The power to redesign the system resides with you. You possess not only the right, but the profound ethical duty, to stop participating in your own exploitation, to take out the Summons, and to rebuild.
The integrity of your practice, the dignity of our profession, and the sustainability of your own vocation depend upon it. The good place is not a destination we stumble upon; it is a system we must have the courage to build, and the wisdom to defend.
