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“I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best… All who know me, consider me an eminently safe man.”
The reader learns very little about the Lawyer despite the fact that the story is told from his first-person point of view. This summation of the Lawyer’s character, which is located at the start of the text, is actually one of the only moments in which the reader is afforded any insight into the Lawyer’s psyche outside of the story that he is telling. It is also an important moment because it sets up the Lawyer’s “safe” and “easy” personality, which is contrasted with Bartleby’s idiosyncrasies over the course of the text.
“Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him.”
The Lawyer has the above thought shortly after the first time Bartleby responds to a request with his famous “I would prefer not to.” Here, the Lawyer attempts to make sense of the interaction. This brief line demonstrates just how complicated a character the Lawyer is. On the one hand, he displays an impressive amount of empathy and absolves Bartleby of any real blame. On the other hand, his decision to not fire Bartleby is at least partially based on Bartleby’s “useful[ness]” as opposed to genuine compassion.
