Teddy Snyder | Does it feel like the players in your case are acting without rhyme or reason? Like Milo in ‘The Phantom Tollbooth,’ your job as a lawyer is to restore good decision-making and rational behavior.
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Does it feel like the players in your case are acting without rhyme or reason? Like Milo in “The Phantom Tollbooth,” your job as a lawyer is to restore good decision-making and rational behavior.

Milo: “I never knew words could be so confusing.”
Tock: “Only when you use a lot to say a little.”

In Norton Juster’s 1961 children’s book “The Phantom Tollbooth,” the hero Milo, with his watchdog Tock, must rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason to restore order to the Kingdom of Wisdom.

The princesses had been asked to decide whether words or numbers were more important. When they decided they were of equal value, the warring parties banished them to the Castle in the Air, because, “What good are these girls if they cannot settle an argument in someone’s favor?”

Sounds Like a Client Talking About the Legal System?

Milo’s Challenges Are Yours, Too

Do you sometimes feel like the players in your case are acting without rhyme or reason? Like Milo, your job is to restore good decision-making and rational behavior.

Milo initially takes a wrong turn and ends up in the Doldrums, a place where nothing ever happens and nothing ever changes. An ordinance prohibits thinking, surmising, presuming, reasoning, meditating or speculating. The Doldrums are the place for procrastination and sloth, the hangout for the unprepared.

In the realm of Dictionopolis, Milo is confused when presented with all the words that exist. King Azaz counsels:

“With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places.”

In Digitopolis, Milo learns the importance of numbers.

The Terrible Trivius and Sensus Taker

Milo faces several non-boring encounters along the way to rescuing Rhyme and Reason.

The Terrible Trivius is the demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, the ogre of wasted effort and the monster of habit. Terrible Trivius puts Milo and Tock to work doing useless tasks. Trivius’s philosophy sounds like a lot of case management and law office administration activity:

“If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you’ll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won’t have the time. For there’s always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing. …”

Milo and Tock also escape The Senses Taker, who helps people find what they’re not looking for. He vows to steal the voyagers’ sense of purpose, sense of duty and sense of proportion.

Lawyers who lose those things sometimes also lose their sense of right and wrong.

Can You Rescue the Princesses?

To rescue Rhyme and Reason, Milo and Tock have to get past an array of monsters. The Overbearing Know-it-all talks continuously; “a dismal demon who was mostly mouth, he was ready at a moment’s notice to offer misinformation on any subject.” (I think I had some cases against this monster.)

The heroes also evade Horrible Hopping Hindsight (lawyers call it sunk costs), Gross Exaggeration and Threadbare Excuse. Finally, they reach the Kingdom of Wisdom, and the Kingdom’s forces defeat the demons.

When Milo found Rhyme and Reason, the princesses confided, “If we’d told you at the beginning that it was impossible, you might not have gone.” Lawyers, though, do have to confront the tasks that look insurmountable.

Try Not to Lose Your Curiosity or Sense of Direction

Your work will be more rewarding if you treat words with the same respect they received in Dictionopolis. It’s easy to get bogged down by trivia, such as using form documents that may be obsolete or irrelevant to the present task. It’s easy to stay in the doldrums and let cases linger, especially when your caseload is repetitive. Instead, try to maintain curiosity about the details. Don’t lose your sense of direction; chart where you want to go and how you will get there.

Use Rhyme and Reason’s logic and common sense to reach the Kingdom of Wisdom.

“The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer, is available in hardcover, softcover, audio and a 50th Anniversary Edition that includes guest essays.