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Law Humor

Anonymous Attorney

Stories from the trenches, by a fictional hiring partner at a large law firm in a major city.
By Anonymous Lawyer (Jeremy Blachman)

Post Frequency: 2.3/day

Last Entry: April 07, 2010 at 03:12:00

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...

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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...

The New York Times wrote an article

Posted on May 06, 2009
The New York Times wrote an article yesterday about high-functioning alcoholics. As if it's a problem to be a high-functioning anything. I wish the alcoholics at the firm were high-functioning. The difficulty is that they're low-functioning, sober or not, and the fact that they also happen to be alcoholics is just icing on the cake...

Sad day at a firm much like mine.

Posted on May 01, 2009
Sad day at a firm much like mine. We've had some layoff-related suicides as well, but at least we're competent enough not to let the news get out. Good grief, if you can't even keep secret a suicide in your building, how can a client ever trust that you won't let his dirty laundry out as well? I would never do business with a firm that couldn't keep its own mishaps out of the press...

Happier news today, at least for

Posted on May 01, 2009
Happier news today, at least for incoming associates at one competitor. Stroock is offering $75,000 to incoming associates, as long as they don't show up. Ever. That's a lot of free money for doing nothing. Not that the associates who do show up make us much money anyway...

The firm's Board of Directors met

Posted on April 28, 2009
The firm's Board of Directors met this evening to discuss the recent layoffs and additional possible actions we might take to stem the recent economic losses and put ourselves in a strong position should the recovery take longer than expected. No surprise, the Chairman seems to have turned to the bottle to get him through this crisis, and by twelve minutes into the meeting he was already on his fifth glass of wine and slurring his words...

Anonymous Daughter just forced

Posted on April 26, 2009
Anonymous Daughter just forced me to watch a video on YouTube of an unattractive British woman singing very loudly. Apparently this Susan Boyle video has been seen by tens of millions of people and is captivating the world. This is why we ban YouTube in the office...

I received an invitation today

Posted on April 25, 2009
I received an invitation today to an associate's wedding. I don't know why any of my associates would think I would want to see them socially, or be part of their lives. I don't know why any of them would think I even approve of a wedding when all it will mean is they have less time to spend focused on their work...

None of our peer firms are admitting

Posted on April 23, 2009
None of our peer firms are admitting this -- and we're not admitting it publicly either -- but we're absolutely rescinding some of our full-time offers to last year's summer associates. That's been the one thing people think none of the top firms are doing yet...

An e-mail from one of our offer-rescinded

Posted on April 23, 2009
An e-mail from one of our offer-rescinded summer associates somehow made it through my spam filter and ended up in the pile of e-mail printouts my assistant prepares for each morning for me to read in the bathroom. The unemployed 3L wanted to draw my attention to a recent post on the Volokh Conspiracy and the discussion in an Above The Law post and its comments...

I caught someone this afternoon

Posted on April 22, 2009
I caught someone this afternoon writing Twitter posts during a meeting. I took a peek at her BlackBerry screen and read what she was writing. "In a meeting." "Still in the meeting." "This meeting is really dull." "I wish this meeting were over." "Will this meeting ever end?" Come on, law firm work is dull enough...

To: ALLRe: More LayoffsJust kidding.

Posted on April 21, 2009
To: ALLRe: More LayoffsJust kidding. See, it doesn't always have to be bad news. I assure you, we are doing everything possible to avoid further layoffs. Our recent associate survey confirmed that you would like us to do everything possible to avoid further layoffs...

Oh, Passover, why did you have

Posted on April 17, 2009
Oh, Passover, why did you have to end so quickly? Usually I'm the first one to speak out against holidays, for the way they guilt us into letting people go home for a few hours, or the way they remind us that for some people there are things in their lives besides the job, but Passover's one of the few I like...

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