Anonymous Lawyer

I came into the office this afternoon to catch up on some work and there was a Trader Joe's truck completely blocking the street, preventing anyone from turning into the parking garage. I honked the horn a few times, and finally the driver moved, but it was a serious inconvenience, and a pain in the neck. I like their triple ginger snaps and banana crisps as much as the next guy, but it's ridiculous for their truck to be blocking the parking garage entrance, even on a Sunday. So I sent out an entire e-mail to the firm: I don't want to see any Trader Joe's products in the office anymore, and I don't want anyone at the firm to be shopping there. If I see a bowl of cashews on anyone's desk, I'm going to ask where they came from. And if I catch anyone with their products, they're not parking in the garage anymore. Terminating them would be too extreme, I admit, but revoking their parking permit seems like the right punishment. Everyone can get their truffle oil and frozen brown rice somewhere else from now on. Trucks. Ridiculous.

I got a few e-mails from people who visited my law firm's new web site and discovered I've got a book coming out in just a few weeks. I'm putting the Amazon link in the sidebar. Pay no attention to the author's name. Just a ghostwriter. They're afraid to let me reveal my true identity. ;) The book's a novel about my life at the firm, unlike this blog, which is the god's honest fictional truth. So the book's different from the blog, although it's written in the form of weblog entries as well as e-mails. A couple of entries from here have found their way into the book in some form or another, but the vast majority, maybe 85%, is brand new material, with a plot, a whole bunch of characters you've never met before, and an epic battle between me and one of my colleagues to see who gets to run the firm.

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz read the book a couple of weeks ago, and had this to say:

"I know who the Anonymous Lawyer is! He's my former students, their bosses, and their colleagues at the big firms. This hysterically funny novel made me laugh and cry -- laugh at my profession, and cry for the talented students who sell their souls to these soulless law firms. This is Grey's Anatomy for lawyers, with a touch of Seinfeld. You don't have to be a lawyer to laugh out loud at Anonymous Lawyer. Everybody will be talking about this book and seeing a little bit of themselves in its exaggerated truths."

But I'm not going to bore you with this book stuff. The link'll stay over in the sidebar, but it'll be business as usual over here, unless I get an outcry for something else. Updates about the book will be over at the law firm web site, if you're looking for them.