Saturday, April 21, 2007
I just left a message on an associate's cell phone. He was supposed to meet me in the office this morning to work on some document review, but he didn't show up. He sent me an e-mail that his wife is in the hospital, but apparently she's still alive. So he should be here. That's no excuse. As long as she hangs on, he should be here. I called to tell him he needed to report to the office right away, but it went right to voicemail. I'm pretty upset about it. I left a message:
"Hey, I want to tell you something, OK? I want to leave a message for you right now. Because it's 10:30 here in the office, and once again you've demonstrated a complete lack of regard for me, for the firm, and for your once-promising and now-destroyed career. When the time comes for me to go to work, I stop whatever I'm doing and I go and I come into the office. But you? You're not here, and you don't even have your damn phone turned on. So I want you to know something, OK?"
"I'm tired of playing this game with you. I'm leaving this message with you to tell you you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me. You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don't give a damn that you've been at the firm 12 years, or 2 years, or you don't even work here, or your wife is in the hospital, or your seventeen children are all dead. Or that your secretary is a thoughtless pain in the ass. You have humiliated me for the last time."
"I'm going to come and find you, just to straighten you out on this issue. I'm going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again. You've made me feel like a mere associate over and over and over again, instead of a hiring partner, which I am, and which you will never be. And this crap you pull on me with this situation that you would never dream of doing if you cared about your job and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to come out there and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you."
"Do you understand me? I'm going to really make sure you get it. Then I'm going to turn around and come back to the office and burn all of your stuff. So you'd better be ready to meet with me, and the entire executive committee. We're all going to let you know just how we feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude, thoughtless little pig."
"Hey, I want to tell you something, OK? I want to leave a message for you right now. Because it's 10:30 here in the office, and once again you've demonstrated a complete lack of regard for me, for the firm, and for your once-promising and now-destroyed career. When the time comes for me to go to work, I stop whatever I'm doing and I go and I come into the office. But you? You're not here, and you don't even have your damn phone turned on. So I want you to know something, OK?"
"I'm tired of playing this game with you. I'm leaving this message with you to tell you you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me. You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don't give a damn that you've been at the firm 12 years, or 2 years, or you don't even work here, or your wife is in the hospital, or your seventeen children are all dead. Or that your secretary is a thoughtless pain in the ass. You have humiliated me for the last time."
"I'm going to come and find you, just to straighten you out on this issue. I'm going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again. You've made me feel like a mere associate over and over and over again, instead of a hiring partner, which I am, and which you will never be. And this crap you pull on me with this situation that you would never dream of doing if you cared about your job and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to come out there and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you."
"Do you understand me? I'm going to really make sure you get it. Then I'm going to turn around and come back to the office and burn all of your stuff. So you'd better be ready to meet with me, and the entire executive committee. We're all going to let you know just how we feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude, thoughtless little pig."
Monday, April 16, 2007
Another quick post, not in character: I'm going to be out in LA for the next couple of weeks, for some TV-writer staffing meetings my agent is setting up. I had an Anonymous Lawyer sitcom pilot script in development at a network earlier in the year, but they decided not to go forward with it... still a chance it lands somewhere, but at this point I'm hoping to get a job writing on something else. If anyone who reads this is in that world and wouldn't mind letting me buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain about it for a few minutes, shoot me an e-mail, I'd be thrilled to meet up. Also anyone with good LA lunch tips -- stuff I can't get in New York -- I'm all ears. Thanks.
# posted by Anonymous @ 8:29 AM 
Saturday, April 14, 2007
A reader alerted me to an article in today's New York Daily News about a lawyer who leaped to his death from an office on the 69th floor of the Empire State Building. "He was interviewing a client," said a man who works in the suite. "He just got up, opened the window and jumped."
Our clients hate when that happens. There's almost nothing they hate more, aside from the pastries not being fresh or the coffee not being hot enough. Or the temperature in the conference room not being quite right, or the lawyers wearing the wrong color ties, or the artwork on the wall not being quite the style they prefer. But besides those things, there's nothing our clients hate more than when the lawyers who are interviewing them open the window and leap out. We've taken proactive steps to limit the frequency of in-meeting suicides by bolting the windows shut and removing all sharp objects from client areas. We have designated non-client sections of the building where windows open, ropes are available, and there's a full selection of pills and anesthetics. But in front of clients we like to keep things professional, dignified, and alive.
Our clients hate when that happens. There's almost nothing they hate more, aside from the pastries not being fresh or the coffee not being hot enough. Or the temperature in the conference room not being quite right, or the lawyers wearing the wrong color ties, or the artwork on the wall not being quite the style they prefer. But besides those things, there's nothing our clients hate more than when the lawyers who are interviewing them open the window and leap out. We've taken proactive steps to limit the frequency of in-meeting suicides by bolting the windows shut and removing all sharp objects from client areas. We have designated non-client sections of the building where windows open, ropes are available, and there's a full selection of pills and anesthetics. But in front of clients we like to keep things professional, dignified, and alive.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
I'm sorry. I received enough negative responses to my April Fools Day post that I've been persuaded to remove it from the site. In retrospect, I should not have named names, even in jest. The attorneys I called out for their behavior in the recruiting process, as litigators, and as representatives of the profession are not necessarily bad people, and the accusations I made were based mostly on speculation and rumor, not fact. The firms I discussed, and the specific people I mentioned, were meant as examples of larger trends in the profession, but I did not intend the post to be taken literally, or those specific individuals and firms to feel wronged by it. I also did not intend to encourage associates at those firms to take the actions they did. I apologize for that.
It was also probably a mistake to discuss actual resumes on the site, and mention the rejected candidates by name. Even if someone is not a good fit for my firm does not mean that there is not a firm out there that would embrace them. I apologize for speculating about what firms those might be, and discussing their hiring standards. I should not have assumed that I was qualified to discuss the hiring standards of other firms and speculate about which of my competitors would feel comfortable hiring felons and other unsavories. While I had reason to believe the information I was working with was accurate, I have since been informed that it may have been outdated. If I gave any readers the impression that there are specific firms that are not bothered by hiring sex offenders and/or other repeat offenders awaiting sentencing, those impressions may be inaccurate. It is possible that some of the firms I mentioned by name used to have more liberal hiring policies than they currently do.
If the April Fools Day post led any current law students to believe that they can be hired without graduating or taking (and passing) a U.S. bar exam, that was a misunderstanding and I did not intend to leave that impression. If any paralegals were offended by the photo illustration that accompanied the post, again, I apologize. If you are a personal acquaintance of the hiring partner mentioned in paragraph three, who I may have insinuated was cheating on his wife, please disregard that paragraph entirely. I did not realize he and his wife are currently separated. And for the readers who took issue with my discussion of clerkships, and the judges I specifically listed, I was unaware that two of those judges are currently in prison.
Normal posting will resume as planned. I hope the offending April Fools Day post did not cause any long-term repercussions.
It was also probably a mistake to discuss actual resumes on the site, and mention the rejected candidates by name. Even if someone is not a good fit for my firm does not mean that there is not a firm out there that would embrace them. I apologize for speculating about what firms those might be, and discussing their hiring standards. I should not have assumed that I was qualified to discuss the hiring standards of other firms and speculate about which of my competitors would feel comfortable hiring felons and other unsavories. While I had reason to believe the information I was working with was accurate, I have since been informed that it may have been outdated. If I gave any readers the impression that there are specific firms that are not bothered by hiring sex offenders and/or other repeat offenders awaiting sentencing, those impressions may be inaccurate. It is possible that some of the firms I mentioned by name used to have more liberal hiring policies than they currently do.
If the April Fools Day post led any current law students to believe that they can be hired without graduating or taking (and passing) a U.S. bar exam, that was a misunderstanding and I did not intend to leave that impression. If any paralegals were offended by the photo illustration that accompanied the post, again, I apologize. If you are a personal acquaintance of the hiring partner mentioned in paragraph three, who I may have insinuated was cheating on his wife, please disregard that paragraph entirely. I did not realize he and his wife are currently separated. And for the readers who took issue with my discussion of clerkships, and the judges I specifically listed, I was unaware that two of those judges are currently in prison.
Normal posting will resume as planned. I hope the offending April Fools Day post did not cause any long-term repercussions.
