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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: 0.6/day

Last Entry: July 22, 2020 at 12:48:00

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...

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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...

The New York Times is reporting

Posted on April 17, 2009
The New York Times is reporting that a man is suing the New York Yankees and the City of New York, saying his civil rights were violated when he was not allowed to go to the bathroom during the playing of "God Bless America" after the seventh inning stretch...

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...

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