In Office Space, Lawyers Weekly explores the workspaces of lawyers chosen randomly from across the state. This week, reporter Noah Schaffer takes inventory of what is in the offices of Boston attorney Ellen J. Messing and her law-firm colleagues.
ON THE WALLS
When this employment law firm moved into a new, larger office space in downtown Boston last year, its members decided to choose art from a "related" source: the paintings and drawings of Pauline Stiriss, the mother of partner Ellen J. Messing.
Stiriss was a longtime artist and social activist whose work was displayed in settings as noteworthy as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
MR&W partner Dahlia C. Rudavsky had seen Stiriss' art in Messing's home and had suggested that a selection from the artist's work be a part of the wall decoration in the law firm's new office space.
A Stiriss drawing entitled "Superior Court" hangs in an office hallway. "My mother was in a car accident in the 1960s that resulted in a trial in Springfield," Messing says, by way of explaining the genesis of the artwork. "She spent a lot of time in the court there, and, as always, she was sketching."
Another wall hanging, this one a large oil painting called "Seasons," has as its subject a pensive teenage Messing.
Messing, too, has shown a flair for the artistic — in the medium of photography. Several of her original photographs can be viewed in the firm's offices.
Art seems to run in the firm's extended family. In partner James S. Weliky's office, three small works of art by his wife, Carin Schiewe, are displayed on the walls.
ON THE SHELVES
A dramatic architectural feature in two of the law firm's offices, including the one belonging to Rudavsky, is a rolling built-in library ladder.
"It was part of the old offices, and we had to bring it with us," says Rudavsky.
Prominent on Messing's file shelves is a large shingle, similar to the one comic-strip character Lucy has been known to hang out in "Peanuts." The sign says: "Psychiatric help: 5 Cents." However, the word "psychiatric" has been crossed out and replaced with "ethics."
According to Messing, the sign has its origins in a National Employment Lawyers Association convention. Messing is involved in that organization's Ethics and Sanctions Committee.
ON THE DESK
On Messing's desk is a tiny music box, which plays — appropriately, for its placement in the office of a labor and employment attorney — "The Internationale," the working class anthem.
ON THE RECORD
Asked whether clients notice the artwork in the offices, Messing acknowledges that often they have only legal matters on their minds.
"Many of the people who come here are too focused on what brought them here to really think about the physical surroundings," she says. "But we've had artists, art teachers and art professors, and they have thanked us for having interesting art so they could think about something other than the pain that brought them here."
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November 27, 2006
