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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: 0.3/day

Last Entry: November 05, 2009 at 13:22:00

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...

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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...

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...

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...

We'd been trying to avoid this,

Posted on April 16, 2009
We'd been trying to avoid this, but we finally had to do some layoffs today at the firm. It's a sad day for the handful of attorneys and staff... who remain employed. I'm kidding. It's actually a sad day for the people we laid off, since we didn't give them any severance, and we didn't let them go back to their offices to collect any personal belongings, not even the family photos and personally-owned electronics we had asked them to bring in today for "Family Photos and Your Personally-Owned Electronics Sharing Day...

Like a lot of firms, we've been

Posted on April 14, 2009
Like a lot of firms, we've been trying to find a way to push the start date of our incoming class of new associates, since there isn't a great deal of work to go around, and the last thing we need is more people roaming the halls, making idle conversation...

The New York Times wrote an article

Posted on April 13, 2009
The New York Times wrote an article today about one of our competitor firms paying associates one-third of their salary to take a year off. Obviously inspiring some negative reactions from people who don't make close to a third of a big firm lawyer's pay but still have to show up at work all year to get the checks...

Anonymous Lawyer (Free) Yahoo Fantasy

Posted on February 11, 2009
Anonymous Lawyer (Free) Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League: 2009. A bunch of spots left.Only sign up if you can make the online draft Saturday, March 14, Noon Eastern.http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1League ID#: 28687League Name: Anonymous LawyerPassword: anonymous

Hey, out of character for a minute

Posted on March 01, 2008
Hey, out of character for a minute here, I kind of want to respond to some of the comments on the last few posts (even though I know I probably shouldn't). I'm as frustrated as you are that I don't post more often. I'm not trying to screw around with my readers, obviously if people hadn't been reading this, I wouldn't have had the awesome opportunity to write the book, and I'd still be flailing around looking for something to hit the way Anonymous Lawyer somehow managed to...

Anonymous Lawyer (Free) Yahoo Fantasy

Posted on February 24, 2008
Anonymous Lawyer (Free) Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League. 8 Spots Left.Only sign up if you can make the online draft Sunday, March 2, 5 PM Eastern.http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1League ID#: 117375League Name: Anonymous LawyerPassword: anonymous

I've missed you.But my absence

Posted on February 01, 2008
I've missed you.But my absence was unavoidable. Part of the settlement. The head of the firm discovered the blog -- more specifically, an associate, who obviously didn't have nearly enough work to do or he wouldn't have had time to be dicking around on the Internet, thought he could get some brownie points by passing it along -- and got the partnership to force me out because of it...

NEW POSTS COMING FEBRUARY 1...

Posted on January 27, 2008
NEW POSTS COMING FEBRUARY 1...

I've been burning to post these

Posted on November 20, 2007
I've been burning to post these past couple of weeks, but the secretary who usually transcribes my words (from my state-of-the-art personal voice recording device to the computer) has been on strike, along with the rest of the support staff at the firm...

Some of my associates are just

Posted on November 01, 2007
Some of my associates are just arriving after last night's firm-wide Halloween party. As it got late, I told a few of them they didn't have to come in until 11 this morning. That's the 'treat'. The 'trick' is that it's going to count as a vacation day...

Sorry for the long delay between

Posted on October 23, 2007
Sorry for the long delay between posts. I was trying to paper-train this new dog Ellen DeGeneres gave me. And then the media got involved, took the dog away, my kids were in tears, it's been a rough past few weeks. Ellen's dog controversy makes sense to me...

Today was our first annual Volunteer

Posted on September 21, 2007
Today was our first annual Volunteer Day at the firm, orchestrated by the new Outreach Committee, organized as part of a settlement after a few of our neighbors sued us for some bogus charges they couldn't prove. But instead of dragging it out and fighting them in court, we decided to pay a little bit of money and commit to being a "nicer corporate citizen" and "giving back" to the community...

I just sent an e-mail to the firm's

Posted on September 05, 2007
I just sent an e-mail to the firm's associates regarding the recent removal of the water cooler from the 17th floor. I haven't been a member of the water committee since '96, but since I'm seen as one of the more approachable and reasonable partners here, they asked if I would send the note:"Recently there has been an outcry regarding the removal of the water cooler from the 17th floor...

I was in the restroom today and

Posted on August 28, 2007
I was in the restroom today and I saw an associate in the stall next to me wiggle his fingers under the partition between stalls. I ignored it, like I do whenever associates do anything besides work. He did it again. I thought maybe he was holding his hand out for an assignment, thinking perhaps I'd brought one with me to the bathroom...

An associate invited me to his

Posted on August 20, 2007
An associate invited me to his wedding this past weekend. I assume he was hoping that actually being at the wedding would make me more willing to give him a half-day off for his honeymoon, but no such luck. I made up for it by giving him a fairly substantial gift certificate to the firm cafeteria as a wedding present...

I've been asked by multiple readers

Posted on August 02, 2007
I've been asked by multiple readers to post about the Michael Vick dogfighting situation. And I've been reluctant to do so thus far because Vick is actually one of my clients. I've strayed from my usual practice and taken his case pro bono because I want to make a difference in the world, and stand up for people like Vick, people who hold other people (and animals) accountable for their actions and discipline them appropriately when they don't meet the standard...

A reader pointed me to a Slate

Posted on July 18, 2007
A reader pointed me to a Slate article about one of our competitor firms and its program, "Chow For Charity." Under the program, if a lawyer takes a summer associate for a $15 lunch instead of a $60 one, the $45 difference gets donated to Legal Aid. The Slate piece takes the attitude that it's absurd for the firm to have the attitude that a $15 lunch is a sacrifice, and pathetic for the firm to trumpet a program that will end up donating practically nothing to charity, as compared to the profits the firm makes...

I received an e-mail asking me

Posted on June 25, 2007
I received an e-mail asking me to comment on age discrimination in law firm hiring:"A few weeks ago, there was a terrible article in the National Law Journal about how 'older' or second-career lawyers most often end up as solos, prompted by some NALP statistics about the paucity of grads 36 and older in BigLaw...

I'm feeling a little guilty today.

Posted on June 16, 2007
I'm feeling a little guilty today. Not too guilty, but a little bit. It's not really my fault, but an associate died in a train mishap this afternoon. She was trying to make it back to the office with a box of documents we sent her across town to pick up, and she drove through the railroad crossing right as the bar was coming down, and got plowed down by a train...

I'm very excited for this afternoon.

Posted on June 05, 2007
I'm very excited for this afternoon. We've set up our first-ever summer associate "afternoon movie break" to go see "Knocked Up." In my e-mail to the summers, I set it up as a cautionary tale of what can happen if any of them have sex. A career is too important to risk...

We lost another associate today.

Posted on May 31, 2007
We lost another associate today. Apparently he's annoyed that I ran him over with my car last month. I was late to a deposition. He was in my way. I had to get out of the parking garage as quickly as I could. It's not that I didn't see him. I just didn't think the firm needed him as much as it needed me to be at that deposition, and even if he'd be on medical leave for a few weeks, he wasn't getting much done anyway and me being there a few minutes earlier was going to end up being much more beneficial to the firm...

Our new crop of summers started

Posted on May 23, 2007
Our new crop of summers started yesterday. I added a couple of recent movie clips to my orientation speech. Thank You For Smoking, to show it's okay to defend people who, at first glance, seem to be doing bad things. Bridge to Terabithia, to show the summer associates that sometimes even when life seems dreadful, you can always invent a fantasy world where you get to go home sometimes and see your family...

Roger Clemens reminds me what's

Posted on May 06, 2007
Roger Clemens reminds me what's right about the world. In case you missed it, this afternoon he announced that he's signed with the Yankees. Most players sign with teams during the offseason, go to spring training, and then try and play the whole season...

I just left a message on an associate's

Posted on April 21, 2007
I just left a message on an associate's cell phone. He was supposed to meet me in the office this morning to work on some document review, but he didn't show up. He sent me an e-mail that his wife is in the hospital, but apparently she's still alive...

Another quick post, not in character:

Posted on April 16, 2007
Another quick post, not in character: I'm going to be out in LA for the next couple of weeks, for some TV-writer staffing meetings my agent is setting up. I had an Anonymous Lawyer sitcom pilot script in development at a network earlier in the year, but they decided not to go forward with it...

A reader alerted me to an article

Posted on April 14, 2007
A reader alerted me to an article in today's New York Daily News about a lawyer who leaped to his death from an office on the 69th floor of the Empire State Building. "He was interviewing a client," said a man who works in the suite. "He just got up, opened the window and jumped...

I'm sorry. I received enough negative

Posted on April 05, 2007
I'm sorry. I received enough negative responses to my April Fools Day post that I've been persuaded to remove it from the site. In retrospect, I should not have named names, even in jest. The attorneys I called out for their behavior in the recruiting process, as litigators, and as representatives of the profession are not necessarily bad people, and the accusations I made were based mostly on speculation and rumor, not fact...

I've received a number of e-mails

Posted on March 27, 2007
I've received a number of e-mails asking for my thoughts on Aaron Charney's sexual orientation discrimination suit against Sullivan & Cromwell, an undistinguished law firm with only seven graduates of Ivy League law schools in their Los Angeles branch office...

A reader sent me a link to a Washington

Posted on March 22, 2007
A reader sent me a link to a Washington Post article from a couple of weeks ago about a law student who's finding it hard to get a job and thinks it might be because of some negative things written about her on a message board. Apparently, the student interviewed with 16 firms, got only 4 callbacks, and no offers...

I received an e-mail this week

Posted on March 18, 2007
I received an e-mail this week from a real go-getter. I'll reprint the e-mail below. I wish I could help him, but ever since an incident with the Labor Department a few years ago, we've been unable to secure work permits for anyone under 16 years of age...

There's a blood drive going on

Posted on March 14, 2007
There's a blood drive going on in the lobby of our building today. One of my colleagues e-mailed the firm offering to buy dinner for whoever gives the most blood. Predictably, it's started a string of e-mails among the associates (I'm only getting a chance to read them because I make it a habit of tapping into some of my associates' e-mails to keep up-to-date on firm gossip and stop complaints before they escalate into rebellions) about how they already give enough blood to the firm, and they shouldn't be asked to give any more...

I just set up an Anonymous Lawyer

Posted on March 10, 2007
I just set up an Anonymous Lawyer fantasy baseball league on Yahoo.Similar to last year, but a couple fewer teams, since the free agent pool became pretty dire. Also, this year I'll win.The Yahoo Fantasy Baseball link is here. Click to get a team > Join League > Join Custom...

Slate has an article about the

Posted on March 09, 2007
Slate has an article about the $200,000 bonuses that most firms offer to lure former Supreme Court clerks to their offices, and how that's a lot much more money that those folks would make if they go teach or become a special prosecutor or a public defender...