tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66640912024-03-28T10:18:19.380-07:00Anonymous LawyerStories from the trenches, by a fictional hiring partner at a large law firm in a major city.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger440125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-68911916194423750462020-07-22T09:48:00.004-07:002020-07-22T09:48:58.770-07:00MasksI was thinking more about status distinctions after my post yesterday, and I realized that I’ve been missing an important insight. It has to do with masks, and how they don’t all have to be the same. It’s boring if they’re all the same anyway, right?<br />
<br />
I mean, we never used to have an opportunity to know just by looking at someone whether or not they were worth our attention, but I’m starting to come up with a plan for once we’re back in the office. It’s hard enough to tell who’s who under normal circumstances — every paralegal looks exactly the same, after all — so without faces to guide us, it’s going to be an even bigger challenge… but not with my new mask policy.<br />
<br />
Support staff, one color. Associates, another color. Partners, I suppose we’ll go with green, for money — or we can just make the masks out of hundred-dollar bills, to highlight how little we care about a few hundred bucks that we’re totally fine tearing the bills apart and using them as face coverings. (We’ll clean them first, both in the sense of hygiene and also because most of the money in my wallet is probably of some sort of questionable provenance.)<br />
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It will make life so much easier to not have to worry I’m mistaking a pointless human walking down the hall for a slightly less pointless human being. Not that I’m going to be talking to anyone in the hall. That’s too risky, right? Safer to ignore everyone, especially when they have some kind of question or concern. I don’t want to risk getting the virus over actually engaging with someone who needs to ask me for permission to leave early. If you have a question, send an email. Then I can ignore it without feeling quite as rude.<br />
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I don’t expect it’s actually going to be sustainable to wear masks in the office, which is why I really don’t think we’re going to end up requiring people to come back, unless someone really doesn’t want to come back, in which case we’re going to insist, just because we can. It’s so much harder to look angry with a mask on, or disappointed, or like you’re questioning how someone ever managed to pass the bar exam. It’s harder to scream, harder to shout, harder to spit. Not that I ever actually spit at someone on purpose. We absolutely reached a confidential settlement on that one that did not require me to admit guilt, so there’s really nothing worth talking about there.<br />
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We’ve thought about ordering masks with the firm’s logo on it, but we ended up deciding there was more potential downside than upside. There are people out in the world who aren’t thrilled with us, and we don’t really want to put our staff at risk in the community. We’d rather just put them at risk in the office. I want to control the risks, adjust the levers to achieve the right behaviors, manipulate people as I see fit. Having strangers trying to attack our people is just too unpredictable.<br />
<br />
Actually, that might be a good line to use in the recruiting video I’m about to put together for law students to watch, as part of our new not-on-campus recruiting process. “At our firm, we’re like family. We don’t want strangers to attack you. We want to do it ourselves.”<br />
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(Want to receive new posts by email? Subscribe at <a href="https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/">https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/</a>.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com184tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-72082134918225164662020-07-21T09:23:00.002-07:002020-07-21T10:37:33.084-07:00Looking for Law Firm Safety Precautions?I mentioned in yesterday's post the loss of my partners-only bathroom -- that's important, but clearly it's only one of the reasons why working from home is unsustainable in the long run. We can't maintain an industry that thrives on hierarchical status distinctions when the only opportunities we have to distinguish ourselves are in the different backgrounds behind us during Zoom calls. We banned artificial backgrounds as a firm-wide rule -- some garbage about honesty and integrity as representatives of the legal profession, I think we said, but the real reason was that I need to see the true squalor in which my associates live in order to remind myself how much better I am. The first thing I did when we moved to remote work, and I realized I would be spending all day on video, is call the landscapers to put in a pond and a touch of mature forest right outside my window. We've got benches now, a gazebo, one of those trained dolphins who pops out of the water every so often, a botanical garden worth of flowers (literally -- I scavenged the assets of a broke botanical garden at a bankruptcy auction just to truck it all over to my backyard and replant it within view of my desktop webcam) and a guy I'm paying to wander around and keep it all looking clean. I haven't actually been outside to see any of it -- I hate nature, I just can't stand anything about it -- but it looks amazing on screen, and that's all that matters. When I see the bare, empty walls of my associates' apartments, the bookshelves filled with novels they'll never have time to read, the IKEA tables they could afford to replace but why bother when you're hardly home... well, it just makes me smile inside. And I think the dolphin's having fun, too -- I can see it in his eyes.<br />
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But there's only so much landscaping one can do, no matter how competitive, and so we have to end up back in the office eventually. And it's clear from everything my news compilation service is sending me that we're going to have to make some changes. We really will have to crack down on elevator usage, first of all. When we say partners only, it's going to be out of a public health need to de-densify, not just an impulse to make things difficult. And maybe it's better that way. I can tell that quarantine has added quite a few pounds to a lot of my colleagues. There's nothing like a walk up to the 37th floor to start shedding that weight. We're not going to be able to put out those bagel platters, either. We used to average about 25% of personnel taking a bagel on any given day, and that's how we managed our ordering. Now, everyone will have a box delivered to their desk each morning with their allotment -- a quarter of a bagel, half an ounce of cream cheese, and one red onion string. No beverage, because we really have to limit bathroom use. In fact, we're seriously considering turning the bathrooms into extra office space and telling people that for safety reasons they can only go at home. It'll save lots of wasted productivity time, too. A win-win.<br />
<br />
As we float the idea of reopening the office, we've definitely been getting pushback from the weak and infirm. We've started a group for them to voice their concerns, called Weak and Infirm Lawyers. We'll collect their comments and consider them at our next partner meeting, just like we do with all of the groups we've formed -- Parent Lawyers, Short Lawyers, Old Lawyers, Dead Lawyers. Collectively, they've managed to get us to lower the height of our closet shelves, allow an emergency family leave half-day per employee-in-good-standing per year, and arrange for free transportation from the office to the morgue if you happen to die at work. We used to bill families for the ride, and I have to admit, it was not always easy to collect, and we felt bad going after people's property to cover it, even though we absolutely had the legal right to, we made sure in every employment contract.<br />
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We're also planning to ban singing from the office, which is a HUGE RELIEF and something we should have done decades ago, especially once a group of employees started their horrendous a capella group, "Bankrupt of Melody." And we can't share supplies, which is great, because people always used to steal my stapler, and obviously that was and will continue to be a fireable offense.<br />
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Oh, shoot. I think the dolphin just died. I guess I'll just have to get the gardener man to perform the tricks until we can replace it. Ugh, this pandemic.<br />
<br />
Updated to add: Subscribe to Anonymous Lawyer's revival at <a href="https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/">https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com127tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-38855830852403974462020-07-20T20:43:00.001-07:002020-07-21T10:37:19.652-07:00The True TragediesI appreciated the response to yesterday’s post. I’ve missed you, and as I tell my associates, sometimes it takes a pandemic to get in touch with what’s really important in life. That’s why even before all of this, we were introducing new viruses into the office every couple of years. First, it helped us weed out the weak — always important. But second, it forced everyone to make the hard choices that it’s all too easy to kick down the road during good times. We don’t want you lingering here for years if you’re not fully committed. We don’t want to spend the money to train you, or waste all that printer ink on your documents, if you’re just going to walk away. But if you still come to work even when there’s a mysterious illness spreading through the hallways paralyzing your coworkers, liquifying your insides, and causing hallucinations too frightening to even describe — well, then we know you really do care about the firm, and maybe we should open the vent in your office so you can have some of the air conditioning. Not too much, don’t want you to get too comfortable. <br />
<br />
This is why the move to a virtual workplace is so tragic. It doesn’t take a lot of effort for someone to drag thenselves over to the computer, and there isn’t a lot we can do to make it harder, short of sneaking into people’s homes and booby-trapping their hallways. So the incentive to linger on our payroll longer than you might otherwise is really high. Especially when there aren’t many other jobs around. We’re going to be stuck with the lazy ones, and it’s going to hurt. Not financially, since we’re still billing them out at crazy rates, but in terms of morale. I don’t want to be at a firm that also employs people whose work ethics I don’t respect. Also, people who can’t manage to put on a suit even if they’re only on Zoom. If I see one more open collar, I swear I’m going to send out a very long and harshly-worded memo that no one will read. It’s the least I can do.<br />
<br />
Speaking of clothing, here’s something else that bothers me: I really don’t mind if people’s kids come into their offices while they’re working, but at least they need to be following the dress code when they do. That means suits for the boys, whatever the equivalent is for girls, and babies need a formal diaper, not one of those cheap disposable ones. I will never understand how people let their kids spend the day in pajamas. How do you train work ethic without making them get dressed, clock in, and track their day in 6-minute increments? Sure, take 0.2 hours to play with trucks, you’re only young once — but then you should spend at least 0.6 hours on something productive.<br />
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The other big tragedy of the pandemic is the loss of my partners-only bathroom — my wife won’t allow me to designate one at home — but I’ll have to get more into that next time. I’m late for an 8:30pm Zoom that I could have scheduled during normal business hours, but what’s the fun of that?<br />
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Updated 7/21: Subscribe to Anonymous Lawyer's revival at <a href="https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/">https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com68tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-31910555966207053652020-07-19T12:00:00.002-07:002020-07-21T10:37:06.796-07:00Anonymous Lawyer in a PandemicGosh, it has been a long time. But as I sit here in an empty Zoom room on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of a pandemic, I just couldn’t help myself. These past four months are just proving everything I already knew: no one should ever be allowed to work from home, having a family is the biggest career mistake you can make, and partners shouldn’t have to touch doorknobs. I’ve been trying so hard to keep my associates accountable during this whole mess, and it has just gotten impossible. For the first couple of weeks, it was fine — I told them to leave their cameras on 24/7 so I could watch them work, and, for the most part, they did it. Sure, some of them got up to use the bathroom sometimes, and I’m pretty sure I caught one or two napping at some point in the night, but they knew I was there, so it was just like in the office, where they’re all being watched on closed-circuit cameras, and the work basically got done. <br />
<br />
Then they got lazy. Or something like that. It’s all because one associate thought she was being frugal by living in a studio apartment, trying to save enough to pay back her loans before losing her soul entirely and ending up a slave to us forever. She didn’t want the golden handcuffs of a big salary and big expenses, and so she ended up complaining that it wasn’t fair to have to keep her camera on all day and all night when we could see her kitchen, her bed, and the ridiculous thing she called a toilet. It didn’t even have a seat warmer! I tell young lawyers all the time, my biggest piece of advice, if you’re going to upgrade one thing in your home (and obviously you’re going to upgrade a lot more than one thing!), upgrade the toilet. Mine has an attached bookshelf, a reading lamp, a mini-fridge, and a carefully-positioned video screen for conference calls coupled with the world’s best flush-muter. It is a necessity, and it has come in handy so many times — not the least of which was when I had to fire 16 paralegals in a row and didn’t feel like taking a break. You haven’t really been fired until you’ve been fired by someone on the toilet.<br />
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So, anyway, she got HR to shut my whole surveillance system down, and I had to make it “voluntary.” HR takes all the fun out of everything. Good thing we basically have no use for 90% of them anymore. Now I have an open Zoom room and associates are “invited” to join whenever they feel it might be helpful to have a partner’s supervision. I get a few here and there, but it’s not the same. One guy’s six-year-old somehow figured out how to log on and I helped him with his math homework for a little while. He’s doing document review for me this weekend. With the new talk about not necessarily needing to take the bar exam, I think there’s a chance I could get him admitted by the end of the year. I’ll pay him in home deliveries of gourmet ice cream. Think it might work out well.<br />
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I will say though, there have been a few benefits to all of this. I never liked being within 6 feet of most people, so that’s a huge plus there. Much easier to deal with people when I can mute them. And it has been so interesting to discover that my longtime assistant has a husband and children. Seems like ten or twelve of them, though she insists it’s only two. But can you believe that she worked for me for thirteen years and I never knew she was married? She knew pretty much every detail about my life (not this blog, not unless she finally learned to read), but all I knew about her is that she loved working for me. Never knew she used to have to commute two hours each way to get to work. Never knew she was supporting her elderly parents. Never even knew she had parents, really. Just figured she hatched as a fully-formed assistant, ready to schedule my calls and lie to clients about my availability to discuss their latest bills. She is such an interesting person, good-hearted, devoted to her family, homeschooling her kids while still catering to my every nonsensical whim. I have no idea why she kept that from me for so long. Anyway, I fired her last week because my grocery delivery was an hour late and I figured there probably should have been some way she could have prevented that. My new assistant is OK, too. I might ask her name next week sometime.<br />
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It is going to be a long road to recovery. Half of my clients are out of business. No one is willing to go into the office, get my desk chair, and deliver it to my door. And I still can’t find my favorite hand sanitizer anywhere. I should have stocked up when I just assumed everyone was infected with something terrible, before it turned out that was actually the case.<br />
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Been good catching up. Hope you’re all doing well professionally. When this is all over, make sure you don’t have any regrets about the hours you put in. You do not want to look back on this time and wish you’d done more to satisfy the partners of the firm, it would really be a waste of an opportunity to impress with your commitment to the profession.<br />
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All best,<br />
Anonymous Lawyer<br />
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Updated 7/21: Subscribe to Anonymous Lawyer's revival at <a href="https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/">https://jeremyblachman.substack.com/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com66tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-3234210413813571192016-06-14T06:01:00.000-07:002016-06-14T06:01:02.486-07:00Folks, my firm is hiring new associates. Finally. Business is turning around. But we're only considering you if you have a degree from <a href="http://www.seemanhattanlawschool.com/">Manhattan Law School</a>. Check out the site, and if you really want to give yourself a chance to get hired, you'll need to check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1634253264/jeremysweblog-20">The Curve</a>, my brand new novel all about Manhattan Law School and the antics over there.<br />
<br />
Above The Law <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2016/06/fast-times-at-fake-law-school/">calls the book</a> "hilarious and highly recommended," and, really, just check out the <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2016/06/fast-times-at-fake-law-school/">website</a> and see for yourself.<br />
<br />
I did not intend to go so long between books. If you were a fan of Anonymous Lawyer, please do check out the new one and spread the word. Amazon reviews, Facebook posts, and all of that are very much appreciated. Thanks for reading.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com439tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-38151228636314429622016-01-14T20:01:00.001-08:002016-01-14T20:01:16.115-08:00News articles like one I read today about a doctor who allegedly ejaculated on a patient's face (http://jezebel.com/mount-sinai-doctor-accused-of-ejaculating-on-sedated-pa-1752808252) remind me that medicine is so much more civilized than the law. A doctor does something like that and it's news. A law firm partner does it and it wouldn't even rise to the level of elevator gossip. It's almost standard operating procedure around here. I can ejaculate on pretty much anyone and it would be a non-issue. Except maybe the chairman of the firm. He might have a problem with it. Anyone else is fair game, though. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com138tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-3989791154368763692016-01-13T18:50:00.001-08:002016-01-13T18:50:58.674-08:00There are moments I remember why I let New Wife talk me into letting her have a baby. Like when the kid nestles into my arms, curls up like a little animal, and falls asleep for an hour or two and I can catch up on some reading on my phone without feeling guilty that I'm not working on something more important. It's like bonus time, that baby-sleeping-on-you time, where the world can't expect anything of you so if you do anything at all, it's like you beat the system. And, sure, it's annoying when you accidentally hit the kid in the head with the corner of the phone, or you realize you've been aiming the light directly into his eyes, but, hey, I read almost the entire NY Times today-- and it's been a long time since I've been able to do that (which is why I generally have an associate send me a memo summarizing all of the articles).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com195tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-42625548882877321482016-01-12T15:02:00.001-08:002016-01-12T18:34:50.928-08:00To coincide with the President's State of the Union address, I gave a couple of my own little speeches today: a State of the Firm at the office (we're good, but we can always be better, and that means more hours, more networking, and less fiber-- fewer bathroom breaks that way), and a State of the Family at home over breakfast this morning. I woke New Wife up from her between-night-feedings nap to put something special together to make it a real event (pancakes, eggs, homemade jam) and I held court in front of the Nespresso, announcing that the state of our family is strong, but someone needs to start sleeping through the night already, and someone else needs to stop with the every-other-week $300 hair appointments, and, okay, I guess I can be a little more affectionate and try to put away my phone when I'm rocking Anonymous Baby to sleep. Or at least I can turn off notifications. Maybe. Unless I'm expecting something important to happen. I really don't know how people had babies before smartphones. I mean, I guess I did it, but I was never home so it doesn't really count. Just can't believe people used to use both eyes to watch their kids instead of merely peering over the screen. Crazy. Anyway, New Wife gave her response and basically disagreed with all of the proposals in my speech, but I control every branch of government in the house (and all the bank accounts), so it's all just meaningless rhetoric. Can't wait to present her with this year's budget. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com226tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-17686599638384916712016-01-11T08:46:00.005-08:002016-01-11T08:46:59.628-08:00The older I get, the more entitled everyone else in the world seems. Obviously, I'm entitled to feel entitled -- I'm a law firm partner after all, with almost a full head of hair, and if I can't feel entitled, who can? But whether it's associates expecting free water bottles in the office, assistants expecting the freedom to leave their desks without a written pass, students in my course expecting me to show up every time, or ordinary people expecting special treatment just because they think people in this world should be civil to each other, it really seems like things have gotten worse and worse over the past couple of decades.<br />
<br />
Last night, for instance, New Wife and I took our baby out to dinner with us, to a medium-fancy French place, not like the fanciest in the city but also not like a casual night out kind of place. And of course whenever we bring our baby somewhere, we also bring the nanny just in case he cries or needs to be changed or someone looks at him funny and we think it would be better to have them wait outside until we're finished -- but next to us was this other couple, and they had a kid with them who was probably 18 months, maybe 2, maybe 6 -- it's so hard to tell how old someone else's child is -- and I hear them asking the waitress for a straw for him, so he can drink his wine, or champagne, or whatever it was they were giving him. It was pale, so I think maybe it was a vinho verde, or maybe it was just mineral water, who knows what people are giving their kids, but hopefully if it was a vinho verde, it was a decent one because you don't want to screw up your kid's palate by giving them lousy wine before they even have a baseline sense of what a good one is like. So, they ask for a straw, as if a nice French bistro is supposed to be able to accommodate children like that. Sure enough, they actually gave the kid a straw, and it even seemed like they comped him a serving of foie gras after they saw him eating off his dad's plate. I have nothing against kids eating in fancy restaurants as long as they're using the right flatware, but the entitlement that this couple must have, to ask for a straw -- a straw -- was really quite astonishing to me. And it turns out the parents didn't even have professional degrees -- if I was overhearing accurately, he was a graphic designer and she was -- of course -- in marketing. So what they were doing at a restaurant with tablecloths, I'm really not sure.<br />
<br />
Anyway, we survived the night out, and, look, I have to give the other couple credit because their kid did accurately steer us away from the tarte tatin when he told us it seemed like it had been microwaved, so, kudos to them for giving him a good gastronomic grounding, and I gave him my card and told him to look me up if he ends up interested in the law, but, still, then I show up back in the office at 10:30 to finish up some late Sunday work, and one of my associates is in the conference room with his shoes off. Even on Sunday night, come on, you have to wear shoes. There is no excuse. Not even the foot surgery he had on Thursday.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com456tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-36073283937492726072016-01-08T11:35:00.003-08:002016-01-08T11:35:46.154-08:00I was going to write about paid family leave today, but I got distracted by stuff at home. Ha, funny, right? I'm making a joke. Because obviously no serious human being should ever be getting distracted from something they need to do. I suppose I sympathize with people who believe that paid family leave should be a no-brainer for a company that values its employees -- I mean, I'd like to get money for not working, too. We all want to get as much money as we can while doing as little as we can get away with. I understand the impulse. What I don't understand is how a business is supposed to justify the expense, and the kinds of incentives it creates. I mean, in a world where everyone works for him or herself, there is no paid family leave. If you're self-employed and you want to be home with your baby for six months, that's fine -- but no one's going to pay you, and if your clients need someone to do work for them while you're not available, then you're taking the risk that they're going to find someone better, and not be there for you whenever you decide to come back to the real world. If you have an emergency where the nurse taking care of your demented parents jumps off a bridge, or a piano falls on your husband's head and you have to stay home to change the bandage six times a day, I feel for you -- but I'm also managing a business, and our clients don't really want to hear about your personal problems. They just want someone to dig through 23,000 e-mails by Monday, looking for the one that gives them cover for firing the old guy so they don't lose the age discrimination suit, that's all. And who can blame them? If we can't do the work, they're going to find a law firm that can. And they should.<br />
<br />
So when someone comes into my office and asks about paid family leave, I just wonder if they really understand the nature of the work we do, or the nature of the work anyone does, and why they think they should get special treatment just because they happen to have chosen family members who aren't self-sufficient, or decided to prioritize their child or their spouse or their parents over their job. You can always have more children, I tell people -- but there isn't always going to be an associate position open for you. You can take time off -- we can't legally restrain you. But we might find someone better to fill your spot, and that person might not be saddled with dependents. That's just the risk you take.<br />
<br />
All of that said, though -- I am proud to say that I did stand up at a partner's meeting and fight for equality for moms and dads. I thought it was totally unfair that we didn't offer paternity leave, especially when we give women four months of paid leave after they give birth. I said that in this day and age, it's shameful to treat men and women so differently -- and not to give fathers any time off at all. And so we changed our policy. Men get two weeks now. And so do women. I mean, not two actual weeks off -- it's three days off and then you can work from home for a week and a half, just until you can sleep-train the kid and wean her onto formula, and go to a couple of doctor's appointments, and get the kid a Social Security number, or whatever it is you have to do in the first couple of weeks of life so the government doesn't take the baby away. I don't really know how it works. New Wife let me go back to work right from the hospital anyway. Her mom was in town, and she knows I can't be in the same room with her, so she just told me to get back to the office. That's why we're a good match.<br />
<br />
And entitlement is starting earlier and earlier these days. A kid in the class I'm teaching e-mailed me the other day and said he needed an extension on the doc review project I assigned, because his aunt died. Is an aunt even a real relative? And you can't bring a laptop to a funeral? If students are already thinking about time off for family situations, then no wonder it's an even bigger issue once they're adults in the workplace and have actual problems. My mom's nursing home burned down last year. I made a couple of phone calls, got an Uber car to pick her up and move her to another facility without me even having to leave the deposition I was in, and that was it. Her burns were totally superficial, and she was just as happy to talk to the taxi driver about the fire as she would have been to tell me, so what did I need to be there for? And now she's wherever it is I sent her, I think I have the address in my e-mail somewhere, and she's probably doing fine. I didn't need paid family leave, unpaid family leave, or any leave at all. When you're forced to solve your problems, you find a way. You find a way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-90097816144849691312016-01-07T08:04:00.001-08:002016-01-07T08:04:04.497-08:00If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it... can I still make an associate go clean up whatever mess it made? Hey, I know it's been like six years since I last posted on this thing, but surely I'm important enough that you've all been checking it daily. So I can just jump right back in, yeah? Hopefully people still read blogs. I'm not actually sure what people do anymore. Man, I remember when I was just a "people," before I became too powerful to do much of anything that I'm not billing for. Worrying about life and stuff like that, ha, what a crazy time that was. It is really great to be able to pay people to do things for me that I don't want to do, and to use work as an excuse for avoiding anything else I don't feel like dealing with.<br />
<br />
But I should catch you up on what you've missed these past six years. First of all, I'm at a different firm. Smaller, but just as indifferent to the needs of the people who work for us. You know, I used to wonder if smaller firms really were selling something different to prospective associates, the whole work-life balance thing, more access to clients, more interesting work, personal attention, all of that junk. But now I realize all those purported advantages were just trumped-up ways to paper over the truth. There isn't a smaller firm out there that wouldn't love to be a big firm, if they could manage to procure enough work. Smaller just means they aren't good enough to be big, that's all. Anything else is just a story we're telling to try to convince you -- or ourselves -- of something else. No one makes a deliberate decision to stay small. No one.<br />
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The other update for now is that Anonymous Wife made a wonderful miscalculation about how easy it would be to get around the antenuptial agreement I made her sign before our wedding, and she now lives with a VP of marketing -- ha, marketing, the idea of that being a respectable career always makes me laugh -- in an ungentrified neighborhood that I'm almost scared to be driven through when I pick up our kids for a visit every fifth weekend. I, of course, found someone better, almost instantly, and she was even able to convince me to let her have a child. So we have a baby, who is some number of months old, and his half-siblings hate him, of course, because I get to do everything over again and make time for him the way I never did for them, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, he is a demon around bedtime, so I've started teaching a class as an adjunct at a terrible law school around here just so I don't have to be home when my wife is dealing with that. I thought I knew terrible law schools from the years I've spent recruiting mindless drones to come be my slaves -- but I never really thought about the fact that there was a whole tier of law schools far beneath even the ones we thought were far beneath our targets. It's one thing to con people into taking a job that'll kill their souls. At least we pay them. It's quite another thing to con people into spending $200K to get a "degree" that is completely and utterly valueless. So those are the people I'm screaming at a few nights a week, about whatever comes to mind, since, honestly, they are not paying me enough to prepare material, they're really not.<br />
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I'm sure I'll have more to say about all of that, especially since I told New Wife that this blog is what I "need" to be working on during bedtime the rest of the nights of the week. She thinks it's a law review article that I'm working on. Yeah, I married someone who thinks that someone like me would have to write law review articles in order to justify his professional standing. I didn't say she was a genius. So, there we are. My return. For real this time.<br />
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Oh-- I'm just putting this here as a placeholder for my next post-- I need to remember to write about the funniest thing that's happened to me in a while. An associate popped her head into my office the other day and asked me about our paid family leave policy. I don't even know which of those words is the funniest-- paid, family, or leave. Probably leave, because I think that's what she's going to do. Wow, I've missed having this outlet, I really have. Talk to you again soon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com278tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-12486072383467001602009-11-05T09:22:00.000-08:002009-11-05T09:34:04.688-08:00I've been following the <a href="http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/11/ropes-gray-lawyer-arrested-in-insidertrading-probe.html">news this morning</a> about the Ropes & Gray associate accused of insider trading as part of an investigation into the Galleon Group hedge fund.<br /><br />Ropes & Gray released a statement, saying in part: "We are deeply disappointed about this situation, which suggests an extreme breach of this person's duty of trust to our clients and to the firm."<br /><br />Well, no kidding. It's damn well a breach of the duty of trust to the firm. If an associate here found out some insider information we could use to make a killing, they better not be keeping it to themselves. They ought to tell a partner, tell the whole executive committee, give us all a chance to get in on it. If we can't trust our associates to bring us valuable opportunities to increase our own personal wealth, what do we really need them around for? I've spent years digging through client paperwork looking for information that I could use to make better investment decisions. And for an associate-- not even a partner-- for an associate to be running with this, without making the opportunity available to his superiors.... Well, it was a pretty easy decision to fire him. And it should serve as a warning to everyone else at the firm-- you find a good deal, you bring it up the chain of command and let us all have a piece. <br /><br />Hey, it's not like I don't tell my associates when I go to mortgage foreclosure auctions and try to feast on the corpses of evicted homeowners. They're welcome to come along and join the fun.<br /><br />As long as their work is done.<br /><br />And they carry my briefcase. I hate carrying my own briefcase.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com574tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-45948928548541961852009-11-01T06:42:00.000-08:002009-11-01T06:56:20.669-08:00Just read about <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/10/legal_secretary_of_the_day_pep.php">a lawsuit against PepsiCo</a>, regarding Aquafina water, where the plaintiffs won a default judgment of $1.26 billion because a legal secretary forgot to respond to the complaint.<br /><br />This is why we have the associates do our secretarial work.<br /><br />Gosh, what a lesson for firms that actually expect their secretaries to do anything. Of course secretaries can't be trusted to do anything, that's why they're secretaries. That's why we need eighth-year associates, supervising sixth-year associates, supervising fourth-year associates, supervising second-year associates, supervising first-year associates whose only job it is to stamp numbers on papers and sort things in the right order.<br /><br />If we relied on secretaries to do important things like get me a highlighter or clean my shoes, they'd never get done and we'd lose billion dollar cases.<br /><br />I don't know what PepsiCo was thinking having a secretary responsible for something. Everyone knows secretaries are only good for bringing in food and taking up space in the cubicles. And sometimes having affairs with, but only when extremely desperate and all of the associates are busy stamping numbers on papers and sorting things in the right order.<br /><br />I once gave my secretary a task. I was filing a motion, and had woken up the morning it was due with an incredible idea -- instead of numbering our 135 exhibits A through EEEEEE, we should use the Greek alphabet instead, since the judge was Greek, and he'd probably get a kick out of it and therefore be much more likely to rule for our side despite the evidence completely favoring our opponents. So I needed someone to switch all the pages out and replace them with pages labeled with the Greek alphabet. Plus I needed all the references in the brief to be amended. Plus I needed the city's best gyro for lunch, just to get me in the mood.<br /><br />After an hour of serious deliberation, I decided to send the associate for the gyro, and have the secretary do the re-labeling, because even though the brief had a 5:00 deadline, the gyro needed to be in my office by 1:30 or I'd be eating too late to still be hungry for dinner. So clearly the gyro was priority number one.<br /><br />Sure enough, down to the wire, the secretary is running around trying to figure out whether beta comes before or after theta, and the associate is dripping tzatziki all over the exhibits binder... and then the secretary threw up, all over exhibit Eta. She claimed it was because the yogurt sauce had gone bad -- I mean, of course I had her taste the gyro before I ate it, just to be sure it wasn't poisonous, that's just part of the job -- but she could have at least avoided vomiting on the papers.<br /><br />So we missed the deadline, our clients received a default judgment against them, and I had to come up with a phony excuse about how we did everything we could but the evidence just wasn't on our side. They paid the bill, so no harm no foul, but it taught me to never put secretaries in charge of anything, ever again.<br /><br />Lesson learned.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com305tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-21326887993704593612009-10-18T12:43:00.000-07:002009-10-18T20:35:05.361-07:00You may have caught a glimpse of the firm on national television this past Thursday, when we locked an associate inside the compartment of a hot-air balloon and sent her flying across the Colorado landscape. Unfortunately, she somehow escaped before the balloon took off, and when the craft finally landed, she was nowhere to be found. We were hoping she would stay in the balloon, and upon landing take the hint that we wanted her to relocate to the middle of nowhere. Instead, she's still here. And the firm is facing felony charges of attempted kidnapping and unlawful use of a balloon.<br /><br />In all seriousness, I have to applaud the Heene family for pulling off its plan and getting live news coverage, across the nation, for what was apparently just an elaborate publicity stunt. Back when we were hiring associates, we did everything we could think of to get people to pay attention to us, to find a way onto the national radar screen. And all it would have taken was a hot air balloon. The money we wasted on pens and stress balls and recruiting fairs and full-color brochures. All we needed was a balloon.<br /><br />I'd hire the father as marketing director in an instant, if we had any marketing budget left, or anything we were still trying to market. I wouldn't hire him as a summer associate (too entrepreneurial), but I might think about hiring him as a litigator (great liar), if only he had a law degree. Or even if he can pretend he has one and convince the state. Hire his son to do document review; he seems excellent at sitting in a confined space for five hours without going to the bathroom.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com170tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-456968116164342192009-09-29T07:50:00.000-07:002009-09-29T07:56:37.862-07:00A very successful annual firm luncheon yesterday.<br /><br />We've been trying to figure out how to cut costs in a way that most associates won't recognize as cost-cutting. Trim some expenses that would otherwise be a little too much to bear in this economy.<br /><br />Killing the annual luncheon would have been obvious. It's a longstanding tradition that every fall we officially promote the associates to the next class with a celebratory lunch. First-years become second-years, second-years become third-years, ninth-years become tenth-years. It's partly our way of apologizing that not everyone can make partner. It's partly our way of making them think we value their contributions.<br /><br />But lunch is expensive.<br /><br />So I had the idea to do it on Yom Kippur. With a quarter of the firm observing the holiday (although still in the office of course -- we certainly can't have them taking the day off), we'd save 25% on food costs. Easy. It gave us enough flexibility in the budget to upgrade from the usual Italian buffet to an entire roasted pig. Everyone who was able to eat loved it. And everyone else had an enjoyable time watching, I'm sure.<br /><br />Cost-cutting doesn't always have to be painful. It just takes some creativity.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com143tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-63313753665163518202009-09-03T11:42:00.000-07:002009-09-03T12:05:48.440-07:00Above The Law <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/09/sheppard_mullin_toilet_watch.php#comments">leaked a memo</a> from Sheppard Mullin about problems in the firm's bathroom. Apparently a few weeks ago, someone urinated on the floor of the women's restroom. Today, "the perp struck again but this time the act was even more disgusting." They've got security cameras to narrow down the suspects.<br /><br />Reminds me of a similar situation here that prompted a memo I thought I'd dig out of the archives.<br /><br />FROM: Anonymous Law Firm<br />TO: All Associates <br />RE: Mandatory Urinary Catheterization<br /><br />As many of you are aware, there has been a string of incidents this past week prompting attention from the managing partners. On Monday, we found what we believe was an associate's urine inside a Partners-Only toilet on the 18th floor. On Tuesday, we once again found associate's urine inside the same Partners-Only toilet, as well as evidence that three squares of toilet paper from the very same bathroom had been used without authorization. On Wednesday, we believe there were as many as three instances where associate urine was deposited into the Partners-Only toilet, and up to thirteen squares of toilet paper used. On Thursday, we received a report that there was not only associate urine but also associate feces in the Partners-Only toilet. We deployed a bowel-sniffing dog to match the odor in the bathroom with the odor of each associate, but were unable to find a match.<br /><br />As we began our investigation, multiple associates made us aware that on the days in question, the Associate Outhouse on the 18th floor balcony was closed for repairs, and they offered the theory that some associates, rather than use the working outhouse on 26, decided to sneak into the Partners-Only bathroom instead.<br /><br />While we understand the desire for convenient bathroom facilities, and the potential annoyance of walking up eight flights of stairs** to reach the alternate outhouse, this does not excuse the behavior in question. As you are all aware, bathrooms are a privilege not a right.<br /><br />Thus, while we continue the investigation, we will be issuing mandatory catheters to all associates and closing the 26th floor outhouse until further notice. We have also installed scanners at the door of each Partners-Only facility. You will need to place your genitalia on the scanner before entering the stall. If the scanner recognizes your genitalia as belonging to a partner, the door will unlock and you will permitted access. If the scanner does not recognize your genitalia, it will trap you in position and an alarm will sound. Security agents will be automatically summoned to the restroom and you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.<br /><br />Thank you for your cooperation.<br /><br />**The associate elevator is still under repair. We expect it will be another 8-12 weeks before it is operational. In the meantime, we ask that you walk up and down the stairs in silence and single-file to avoid creating unnecessary interruptions.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com233tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-64204736536710648892009-09-01T05:13:00.000-07:002009-09-01T05:27:25.856-07:00There was a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/lweb31law.html">letter to the editor</a> in the New York Times yesterday:<br /><br /><blockquote>By taking away the possibility of easy employment in high-paying jobs, the economic downturn may end up helping the current crop of law students.<br /><br />Very few law students at elite schools make meaningful explorations of the broad array of career choices available to law school graduates. Instead, lured by prestige and a high salary, they march through on-campus interviews to large urban law firms, where a great many end up leading unfulfilled lives.<br /><br />As the jobs with large salaries disappear, law students will draw on the thoughtfulness, intelligence and perseverance that got them into law school in the first place in order to find employment that they actually find rewarding. They will also find creative ways to pay their loans and other expenses.<br /><br />Most law graduates already do not expect a starting salary of $160,000 and yet are able to make ends meet. Graduates of elite schools will adjust to the new financial realities and come out better for it.</blockquote><br /><br />What an insane, paternalistic point of view. Anyone intelligent enough to read this letter should be offended by it. Poor law students! They used to have so many employment choices! Good grief! First of all, no matter how you feel about law firms, how can you possibly make the argument that a law firm job, at $160K/year, is worse than no job, poverty, and sitting in front of your computer all day desperately sending out resumes? Second of all, is there a SHORTAGE of lawyers for all these other amazing jobs that this guy wants lawyers to find? No! The places people can find rewarding employment? Those jobs are already filled! And when there's a vacancy, you know who ought to get them? The people who would have wanted them enough in the first place not to be seduced by the lure of a law firm job that wasn't right for them. Why should an abundance of choice be blamed for people making bad choices. People who make bad choices deserve the outcomes they get. People who are intelligent enough to get into law school should be intelligent enough to live with the consequences of their decisions. If you can be swayed to come work for a law firm, you deserve the law firm life. And if we hire you even though you won't like it here, we deserve to have you, and to have to deal with you complaining all day.<br /><br />Here's the problem. What about the law students at "non-elite" schools, who don't have these choices, and have long had to do what this author says. Who had to use their intelligence and resourcefulness to find a job. These graduates who have long been "able to make ends meet."<br /><br />Well, they're shit out of luck now, because all of those jobs they really wanted are going to be snapped up by "elite" law school graduates who'd rather be working at firms. So all these jobs that probably ought to be filled by people passionate about doing them (instead of just upset they can't work for a law firm and settling for an inferior backup choice) will be filled by the "elite" and everyone else can go sit on the unemployment line.<br /><br />Taking away choices is great! Law firms are worse than poverty! The recession has vanquished evil from the face of the Earth!<br /><br />Ridiculous.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com167tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-34300700015505139602009-08-20T08:05:00.000-07:002009-08-20T08:15:48.445-07:00Above The Law <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/trial_lawyers_for_justice_defe.php">writes about</a> a legal organization that asks for a family photo along with a resume.<br /><br />We tried that.<br /><br />We stopped.<br /><br />Most of the people we hire? I don't want to see a picture. Have you looked around law school recently? Sitting in front of a computer all day doesn't exactly do wonders for the physical appearance. I don't want to have nightmares. The less I look at the people around here, the better.<br /><br />And their families? That's the last picture I want. I don't want to know what your kids look like as I'm forcing you to cancel your family vacation. I don't want to know what your wife looks like as I'm telling you to stay late on her birthday. I don't want to know what your dog looks like as I'm forbidding you to go home and feed her even though you had no reason to think you'd be here all weekend and there's no one with a key to your apartment who can go in and give her some food. I don't want to know what you look like in casual clothes. I don't want to know what you look like when you smile. No one smiles here. I haven't seen a smile since 1993. I don't want to see it in a picture.<br /><br />The only picture I want with an application is a picture of your acceptance letter from a top-10 law school.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com182tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-18645814728544889932009-08-18T07:57:00.000-07:002009-08-18T08:17:57.406-07:00There's been some <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/08/13/the-19-year-old-law-student-to-be-doesnt-care-what-you-think/">news</a> <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/teen_prodigy_smart_enough_to_g.php">recently</a> about Kate, a 19-year-old heading to law school at Northwestern.<br /><br />Much of the reaction on the Internet has been negative -- she doesn't have any life experience, she's too young to be deciding she wants to be a lawyer, she'll find it difficult to make friends....<br /><br />I say good for her, and we'll save a place for her here at the Firm (assuming, of course, we're hiring again by 2012, and that we've already let the classes of 2009-2011 have their start dates). Getting someone in here whose mother is still making her lunch and picking out her clothes means it's like we're getting a free secretary along with her. Hiring someone without previous work experience means she won't realize working 24 hours a day is unusual. And, she's close enough to an age where spanking is appropriate that it'll be much easier for us to throw office supplies at her without getting an earful in return.<br /><br />It'll also be easier for senior associates to order her around, since they'll actually be older than her, in contrast to the usual awkwardness of having chronological peers as your boss. And since she probably won't have many friends, she'll be fine with working nights and weekends, and won't have any social obligations pulling on her.<br /><br />The downside is that (at least as a summer associate) she won't be old enough to drink, which means she'll have to find a new vice to take the edge off. I recommend anti-depressants, but that's just me.<br /><br />We'd go as young as we can find law school graduates. Want to come work here at 13, 14, 15? Great. Young people have energy. They're still optimistic about the world. They adjust to difficult circumstances. They like to please adults. They're not jaded. They don't care about making a difference in the world. They have good computer skills. They take orders. They don't eat as much. They don't need quite so much salary. Better health-- means lower health insurance premiums. They (usually) don't get pregnant. They're good at text-messaging. They (usually) don't have sex with clients.<br /><br />There are no drawbacks I can think of. We'd even hire an eight-year-old if she could do the work. Which, of course, most eight-years-old can.<br /><br />Welcome to the firm, Kate!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-37393916687004574762009-08-12T10:30:00.000-07:002009-08-12T10:48:36.061-07:00I was on a panel this morning, a breakfast for unemployed lawyers through some organization that sprouted up sometime during the recession to help unemployed lawyers network with other unemployed lawyers so they can all pretend they're accomplishing something by talking to each other about unemployment. I like to go to these panels, collect resumes, and sprinkle them around the firm on the desks of associates slightly less qualified than the people whose resumes I collect, just to make the associates a little nervous. "See, there are people out there who we could hire, with just a little more experience than you, just a little better GPA, just a little higher LSAT score (yes, the LSAT score is on a good number of these resumes)." No, seriously, networking is great, I've seen a lot of my former associates at these events and I'm absolutely thrilled to run into them and find out they've had no success in the job market. Perhaps I shouldn't be happy about it-- perhaps it means our firm isn't respected in the industry, that our former associates aren't valued, and that we need to work on our image. But maybe I shouldn't overthink it. It probably just means there aren't any jobs out there, and it's not anyone's fault that they can't find legal work. Except it's no fun to think about it that way, no fun to believe it's all just about the economy, and the fact that all these specialists we trained to do securitization deals and real estate transactions just don't have much value in a world where those deals aren't happening. No, I choose to blame the individual.<br /><br />That's what I talked about on the panel this morning. "Blaming yourself for the economy, and what you should have done better." That was the title of my talk. 74 slides, where I itemized out a series of things lawyers should have been doing before they got laid off. Not sleeping. Gaining experience in every other area of the law. Going to school at night for an additional degree. Training to be an expert in social media and search engine optimization. Inventing Facebook. And so forth. There were lots of things lawyers could have done to prevent being laid off, or to set themselves up for a fine career even once the legal industry imploded. Not my fault they didn't win that million-dollar Netflix prize for improving their who-likes-what-movie algorithm. Could have been working on it in their spare time. Not my fault they didn't win the lottery. Not my fault they didn't invest in land that ultimately proved to have oil beneath it. None of these things are my fault, or the firm's fault. <br /><br />For some reason, no one seemed to like my speech.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-49357887481819882092009-08-05T13:03:00.000-07:002009-08-05T13:18:51.074-07:00<a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/day_pitneys_new_definition_of.php">Day Pitney</a> beat us to it. They've got a "new definition" of their summer program --<br /><br />"The summer apprenticeship program will be an eight-week course designed to prepare law students for the practice of law through practical, day-to-day applications and on-the-job training. Apprentices will learn by shadowing Day Pitney lawyers and working with firm professionals in one-on-one coaching scenarios."<br /><br />Yeah, that's called "we're having summer associates replace our secretaries," and we're doing it too. Every summer is shadowing an associate from the distance of, oh, about fifteen feet, in a cubicle, with a phone and a message pad. One-on-one coaching scenarios? Absolutely. "Here's how to pick up my dry cleaning and order my dinner."<br /><br />Day Pitney says: "The newly designed program expands beyond reading, research, and writing assignments. We want a program that revolves around the key values that we stress for our attorneys."<br /><br />Exactly. And over here, those key values are obedience, deference, and silence.<br /><br />In fact, we're expanding our summer program to create year-round apprenticeship opportunities for all of the unemployed law school graduates seeking work. We'll be offering "apprenticeships" in document review this fall, in proofreading this winter, and in janitorial services this spring.<br /><br />And the great thing about an apprenticeship? We don't have to pay anyone. If you're a summer "associate," we're compelled to give you market pay. If you're a summer "apprentice," we'll give you bagels every Friday and a voucher good for dry cleaning in the firm's laundry center (which will be staffed, of course, by our apprentices).<br /><br />"We have decided to move beyond the traditional assignment-based summer associate program," says Day Pitney.<br /><br />Well of course you have. Because there are no assignments to be had.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-41377305356686173122009-08-04T09:56:00.000-07:002009-08-04T10:15:38.489-07:00<a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/jones_day_slams_competitors.php">Jones Day</a> apparently thinks it's better than we are. Or at least one of their partners wrote a memo claiming so. Didn't name us personally, but I'm sure we're one of the firms he's referring to. "[P]rotecting partners' incomes on the corpses of associates and staff," "slash[ing] and burn[ing]" -- I'm pretty sure that's us. Describes our behavior in this economic downturn pretty accurately.<br /><br />I'd like to argue in our defense. What's wrong with firing staff and associates? What's wrong with protecting partners' incomes? What's wrong with using the recession as an excuse to trim the dead weight and put the firm in the best position to thrive not only when the economy recovers, but right now? <br /><br />Why not protect our partnership above all else? <br /><br />Our value is in our partnership, entirely-- sad to say, but staff and associates are fungible. No firm in the top 50 can stand up and say its associates are any better or any different from anyone else's. No matter how discerning the hiring partner wants to think he is, no matter how many times you read a resume or how carefully you evaluate a second-year law student's ability to eat lunch at a fancy restaurant without choking, we're all interviewing the same pool of students and making offers based on four or five twenty-minute interviews and a cursory glance at a transcript. <br /><br />We're all making the same offers to the same students, and they're choosing us based on whatever intangibles they can pretend set one firm apart from the next, but, really, if you switched our first year associate class with Latham's or Jones Day's or any of the top firms, it's a crapshoot. And once the economy recovers, we'll be able to go out and pluck a whole new batch-- a whole new, younger, cheaper, hungrier batch-- of associates to do the scut work. You think law students are going to be in a position where they're turning down offers anytime soon? You think they're going to care which firms laid people off and which didn't? They're going to be grateful for the jobs. And it's not like they all can't do this work. We're not asking our associates to do rocket science. Any graduate of a decent law school can do everything we ask them to. That's why offer rates for summer associates are 95%+, everywhere. And that's why in good economic times, no one ever gets fired. We can pretend we have the best associates, the best training, the best whatever-- but it doesn't matter even if we do. We just need bodies. Bodies to bill out to clients, bodies to do document review, bodies to burn out and throw away when we're done with them.<br /><br />So if the associates don't matter-- and, sorry to say, they don't-- why not dump them when we don't need them, save the money, and hire some new ones back later? <br /><br />The alternative is a fair bit worse. Jones Day may be proud of lowering partners' incomes to save associates, but how happy are the partners about it? How many wouldn't be just as happy keeping their old salaries, or even getting bigger ones after we cut expenses by 30% by firing the idiots we don't need anymore? Truth is, not everyone is so giving. For a lot of us, there's a number we're waiting for-- a number in the bank account that tells us we can finally leave and not worry about our future. The faster you can get me to that number, the more I'm willing to stick around. So why not move over to a firm that's willing to fire people to protect my partner income?<br /><br />And as far as clients? What do they care? We're service providers. We provide good service, what difference does it make whether or not we're laying off staff and cutting summer programs? In fact, we lower our overhead enough to trim 10% off the bill, and I think they'd be mighty happy with that trade-off.<br /><br />Associates felt no loyalty to us when times were good. They left in the middle of projects, they went in-house, they switched firms at will. Why do we need to be loyal to them now? How about we reward the people who make the business run, who bring in clients, who actually add value through their own competence and hard work? Partner vs. associate, I choose the partner, every time.<br /><br />Take that, Jones Day.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-83442444817994636692009-07-07T12:08:00.000-07:002009-07-07T12:21:09.157-07:00I wish Sarah Palin were a lawyer, because I'd hire her in an instant, despite the "hiring freeze" that's been keeping us from doing much hiring at all lately (as well as the "salary freeze," the "bagel freeze," and the "no more air conditioning non-freeze"). I know she's been getting battered in the media lately, since her surprise resignation announcement, but she's shown exactly the kinds of skill we like to see in our associates: she's chasing the money. To hell with reputation, to hell with honor, to hell even with sanity. To be a good lawyer, you have to smell the money and get it no matter what it takes, no matter the tortured excuses you have to give, no matter the discomfort and tortured awkwardness of the public statements you have to make. Sarah Palin could see the future: two more years as governor and she would have run her reputation far enough into the ground that the $11 million book deal wasn't going to be there anymore. The offers to host a show on Fox News would be replaced with offers to host a show on Alaska Public Access Television. The speaking opportunities would have moved on to the next obscure public official thrust into the spotlight. No, to capitalize, and to really cash in, she had to act now, not in 2011. She had to jump on the money while it was still there. That's what we did, when we signed forty-six securitization deals in the days before the deals were made illegal. That's what we do, when we secretly slaughter terminated associates before they get a chance to deposit their severance checks. Sarah Palin can smell money. And she's not afraid to come out publicly looking like a fool when privately she can clean up. I'd even give her a couple days of maternity leave next time she has a secret baby. (So what if she doesn't have a law degree? It's not like anyone here has any work left to do anyway.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-70291112222368193042009-06-26T06:51:00.001-07:002009-06-26T07:09:14.599-07:00We at the firm are mourning Michael Jackson's death this morning. We were one of his many creditors, and are hoping for a speedy liquidation so that we can get our money back. Michael's songs inspired a generation of associates at this firm and others. We've often used his music in corporate presentations to inspire and motivate our attorneys. The messages were, in many cases, quite appropriate to the work we do. Like "Smooth Criminal," which describes many of our corporate clients. And "Beat It," which served as an anthem for partners throughout the firm, when associates would knock on our doors. It's impossible to ignore the relevant words of P.Y.T. (Pay Your Taxes) and Jackson's huge hit concerning the importance of document review ("Black or White"). And finally, of course, the lyrics to his hit song "Billie Jean" inspired countless associates to stay in their offices working for as long as six and a half weeks without a break: "For forty days and for forty nights. The law was on her side." Who could argue with that message?<br /><br />Of course, it was some of his less-renowned album tracks that were the hidden gems in the Michael Jackson oeuvre. Songs like "Working Day and Night" from his Off The Wall album: "You got me workin' day and night / And I'll be workin' / From sun up to midnight." <br /><br />And "Lady in my Life" off the Thriller album -- it was obvious to any careful listener that "Lady" was a metaphor for an appellate brief: "While the world goes spinnin' by / And in the glow of candlelight / I will show you you're the lady in my life." <br /><br />Of course, my very favorite Michael Jackson song was from his later years. "Is It Scary" off his Blood on the Dance Floor album, which described my job as hiring partner with almost savant-like precision:<br /><br />There's a ghost down in the hall <br />There's a ghoul beneath the bed <br />Now it's coming through the walls <br />Now it's coming up the stairs <br /><br />There's a spirit in the dark <br />Hear the beating of his heart <br />Can you feel it in the air <br />Ghosts be hiding everywhere <br /><br />I'm gonna be <br />Exactly what you wanna see <br />It's you who's taunting me<br /><br />>>> Yes, it's me who's been taunting you, worthless associate. It's me. Now get back to work and stop listening to your iTunes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664091.post-89728052318993945402009-06-24T13:47:00.001-07:002009-06-24T14:18:50.080-07:00I have been meaning to explain this past month-long disappearance. I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. I mean, I was visiting a South American country. I mean, I am having an affair. With another law firm. I know it probably doesn't look good for the hiring partner of one firm to be dancing in the arms of a competitor, but I couldn't resist. It started out, as these things often do, with a casual e-mail back and forth about places to hide associates' bodies when you don't want them to be found. But it soon escalated into more than that. Much more than that. And in the end, I hurt my firm, I hurt my readers, and I hurt as many as 40% more associates than I usually hurt in the normal course of business.<br /><br />I apologize on behalf of all hiring partners, who seem to be particularly prone recently to bizarre behavior. Like my colleague in our New York office, "Partner #9," as the expense reports like to call him, who was busted as part of a ring of attorneys doing unauthorized pro bono work on the firm's time. And my colleague in Illinois, who tried to sell a junior partner promotion to the highest bidder. It's a bad time to be a hiring partner, and I apologize for this indiscretion, along with my other indiscretions which have yet to come to light.<br /><br />Back to work.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com19