"You should ask him out"

Today, I was at work, talking to my boss Mike about one of our clients. My boss made a comment about him (the client) having quite a lot of money, and then turned to me, and said "You should ask him out." At first, I equivocated. "I think that would be against the rules of ethics to ask him out."*

He reluctantly agreed, then brightened up. "You could ask him out when the matter is over." I discretely rolled my eyes. He might have seen me, because he started talking about how he thought said client was a nice, upstanding young man, blah blah blah.**

I felt like retorting that maybe if he thought this client was so great, he should ask him out himself. But that would not be appropriate, so I kept my mouth shut.

Of course, randomly suggesting I date a client is also inappropriate, but pointing that out to my boss would only have lead to a protracted discussion over something I felt did not entirely deserve a response.

I just hope he doesn't try to get the client to ask me out. That would be awkward. It is hard enough trying to get people to respect the fact that I am a smart lawyer, without my boss acting like my job is a dating service.

*Lawyers are not supposed to date their clients, except where the lawyer and the client were already dating before the client became a client.

** This is where I started tuning my boss out.