"Oh, you're such a lawyer!"

 

2025 was an extremely busy year for me for several reasons, a house move in the summer being the main culprit. By December, I was limping, exhausted, into some well-earned rest.

The end-of-year break is traditionally a time to catch up with friends and family, head out on long solo runs, reflect on the year just gone, and look ahead to the journey to come.

It is also a time to watch television in my boxer shorts.

Dear reader, I can assure you that the latter occurred with sufficient abandon to allow me to confidently rate and recommend all of 2025’s hottest Hollywood offerings.

Stranger Things was good.

Pluribus was excellent.

Strictly Come Dancing was my daughter’s insufferable choice.

I apologise for the mental image of my boxer shorts.

Of course, my wonky brain rarely allows me to relax for long. Before long, guilt crept in…I should be doing something more productive, something that contributed to my intellectual or career development.

It was in this guilt-ridden state that I wondered whether I could combine my work in mediation with my current TV-induced lethargy. Surely there must be a show about mediation that could stimulate my brain while I remained firmly entrenched on the sofa.

A quick Amazon Prime search later, the answer arrived with a resounding YES. Let me introduce - Fairly Legal:

 

When Kate Reed, a San Francisco litigator, becomes frustrated by the constant injustice she witnesses in the courtroom every day, she abandons her legal career to become a mediator.

I watched this show for you. Do not make the same mistake I did. Here are some highlights from the first 30 minutes of the very first episode:

• “Oh, you’re such a lawyer!” Kate remarks to a half-naked man as she shoos him off her boat. Kate lives on a boat, for reasons that remain unclear on first watch.

• “I’m a mediator… I don’t have emergencies!” Kate declares, while ignoring an important phone call from her boss for the fifth time.

• An armed robber enters a coffee shop as Kate waits for her drink. Kate promptly facilitates a negotiation between the robber and the barista. A settlement is reached. The police are not called. The robber leaves, free to rob at gunpoint elsewhere

• Kate’s evil stepmother, who seems perfectly pleasant and younger than Kate, ushers her into a mediation as she enters the building. “Get them on the same page.” A settlement is reached in roughly three minutes. We are repeatedly told that Kate is very good at her job.

• Kate is sent to the District Attorney’s office to leverage her “connections”. The half-naked man from the boat? He’s the DA.

• Kate is due in court… and she’s late. Bursting in, she apologises profusely. “No, you’re not,” the judge snaps. “You have disdain for the law. You quit the profession.” This judge knows Kate, and he does not like her one bit.

• Despite his hatred for her, the judge orders the parties to mediation with Kate. “A mediator is a kind of referee in a game with no rules, except those agreed by the parties involved.”

• We also learn that Kate once stopped a war between Colombia and Nicaragua using her mediation skills alone. This astonishing detail is brushed aside in two lines of dialogue. Kate is VERY good at her job.

• Despite this, the judge still threatens to hold her in contempt of court unless she settles the case by tomorrow. “Yes, I can do that,” he states confidently.

• It soon emerges that Kate may not be quite as good as she thinks she is when the three-minute mediation promptly unravels.

• “I thought mediators were supposed to solve problems?” …“Sometimes. Sometimes they just like to point them out.”

I could go on, but I wouldn’t want to spoil whether Kate manages to settle all her mediation cases (remember: Kate is good at her job).

By the end of the episode, I had reached an important conclusion: it is sometimes perfectly acceptable to watch mindless television at the end of a busy year, and we should not feel guilty about taking a break.

I had also learned that if I fail to settle my cases within 24 hours, I may be held in contempt of court, which is… mildly concerning.

I hope you managed to read that book, see that family member, watch that cheesy film, and feel refreshed enough to start it all again in January. I also sincerely hope you haven’t spent too much time watching Fairly Legal in your boxer shorts.