Law Humor

Masks

Posted on July 22, 2020
I 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?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...

Looking for Law Firm Safety Precautions?

Posted on July 21, 2020
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...

The True Tragedies

Posted on July 20, 2020
I 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...

Anonymous Lawyer in a Pandemic

Posted on July 19, 2020
Gosh, 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...

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Folks, my firm is hiring new associates.

Posted on June 14, 2016
Folks, my firm is hiring new associates.  Finally.  Business is turning around.  But we're only considering you if you have a degree from Manhattan Law School.  Check out the site, and if you really want to give yourself a chance to get hired, you'll need to check out The Curve, my brand new novel all about Manhattan Law School and the antics over there...

News articles like one I read today

Posted on January 14, 2016
News 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...

There are moments I remember why

Posted on January 13, 2016
There 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...

To coincide with the President's

Posted on January 12, 2016
To 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...

The older I get, the more entitled

Posted on January 11, 2016
The 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...

I was going to write about paid

Posted on January 08, 2016
I 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...

If a tree falls in a forest, and

Posted on January 07, 2016
If 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...

Am in the hospital, on overnight

Posted on April 07, 2010
Am in the hospital, on overnight call.In theory, there's a cot for me to sleep on. In practice, there will be no sleeping. Partly because too many of the patients are going downhill fast, and partly because the cot is filthy. There's either chocolate pudding on the sheet or...

I've been following the news this

Posted on November 05, 2009
I've been following the news this morning about the Ropes & Gray associate accused of insider trading as part of an investigation into the Galleon Group hedge fund.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...

Just read about a lawsuit against

Posted on November 01, 2009
Just read about a lawsuit against PepsiCo, regarding Aquafina water, where the plaintiffs won a default judgment of $1.26 billion because a legal secretary forgot to respond to the complaint.This is why we have the associates do our secretarial work.Gosh, what a lesson for firms that actually expect their secretaries to do anything...

You may have caught a glimpse of

Posted on October 18, 2009
You 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...

A very successful annual firm luncheon

Posted on September 29, 2009
A very successful annual firm luncheon yesterday.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.Killing the annual luncheon would have been obvious...

Above The Law leaked a memo from

Posted on September 03, 2009
Above The Law leaked a memo 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...

There was a letter to the editor

Posted on September 01, 2009
There was a letter to the editor in the New York Times yesterday: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.Very few law students at elite schools make meaningful explorations of the broad array of career choices available to law school graduates...

Above The Law writes about a legal

Posted on August 20, 2009
Above The Law writes about a legal organization that asks for a family photo along with a resume.We tried that.We stopped.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...

There's been some news recently

Posted on August 18, 2009
There's been some news recently about Kate, a 19-year-old heading to law school at Northwestern.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...

I was on a panel this morning,

Posted on August 12, 2009
I 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...

Day Pitney beat us to it. They've

Posted on August 05, 2009
Day Pitney beat us to it. They've got a "new definition" of their summer program --"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...

Jones Day apparently thinks it's

Posted on August 04, 2009
Jones Day 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...

I wish Sarah Palin were a lawyer,

Posted on July 07, 2009
I 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")...

We at the firm are mourning Michael

Posted on June 26, 2009
We 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...

I have been meaning to explain

Posted on June 24, 2009
I 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...

I'm out of town this weekend at

Posted on May 23, 2009
I'm out of town this weekend at an associate's wedding. I hate when my associates get married, but I hate it more when they're engaged. At least once they're married it's all done and they can turn their attention back where it belongs. When they're engaged, they're worrying about planning a wedding (and fake-planning a honeymoon they're never going to get to take) and for months nothing important gets done...

It's extraordinarily frustrating

Posted on May 14, 2009
It's extraordinarily frustrating when things don't work out the way you hope they will. I thought swine flu was going to be a real issue, something that was going to become an actual epidemic, and potentially solve some of our problems here, but apparently no such luck...

New plan. We don't want to lose

Posted on May 12, 2009
New plan. We don't want to lose out on young legal servants should the economy turn around and clients actually decide they want to waste money on our fancied-up busy work that they could do in-house for a tenth of the cost. So instead of paying our first years to go away, we're merely going to slash salaries and turn the first-year associate job into a comprehensive curriculum to train them to be good associates once everything gets better...

To: All AssociatesRe: Summer Lunch

Posted on May 08, 2009
To: All AssociatesRe: Summer Lunch PolicyPlease note the following changes to our summer lunch policy. Be aware that these changes are unrelated to the firm's current economic situation, which, as we discussed during everyone's "salary realignment meetings" last week, is quite excellent, and our unwillingness to back that up with any sort of documentation is entirely due to our new environmentally-motivated "paper(and printer)less office" policy and not due to the numbers on our balance sheets, or the fact that we can no longer afford toner...

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