Lawyer Stories

I Can See Clearly Now

2007-10-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

What a difference a little time makes! I'm energized; I'm enthused; I'm actually back in the management game, and in a big way. Business is good.

How Long?

2007-04-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

Since I last posted? A long time. Since that time, I actually decided to participate once again in Firm management. My partners apparently agreed with my decision, because in some respects my level of participation requires their vote. I hope they do not regret their decision.

I remain frustrated with how cheap decisionmakers continue to be. Making money is OK, but it comes at a great cost if it means eschewing hardware and software that is designed to make practicing easier. I'm convinced that if given the chance, some people would do away with computers simply because pencils are cheaper. My next campaign platform will be to eliminate the Ludites.

How Long?

2006-09-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

will this keep going on? My funk, that is. I haven't gotten anything done at work for months now. I don't want to be there. I've had a bad year. Knowing, and being aware of, those two nuggets has put me in a perpetual apathy loop. It has caused me to, among other things, not post anything here for several months. I'm not posting now because of some sudden moment of self-realization. I have known for some time that my head is not in the right place. The question is, what do I do about it? Medication? A career change?

Too young to reason, too grown up to dream

2006-03-14T19:59:00.000-08:00

I've booked a vacation in a couple of weeks. It will probably end up being the same kind of vacation I've taken in the past--stay at a nice place, throw back some cold beers, and get an unwelcome torrent of phone calls from the office with questions ranging from the mundane to the urgent. 99% of the calls are unnecessary, of course; I believe my office mates and associates call out of a deep seated resentment over the fact that I, unlike them, will actually leave the office and take a vacation.

If it really was a vacation, that is. Back in the early days of practicing, I could be gone for a week and no one would really notice. I'd work myself to exhaustion for two weeks before so that I could leave for 7 days completely guilt free. If you're gone for only week, that is not long enough to create a huge problem for associates. They can get back to the office after vacation, and still usually have at least a week to respond to whatever came in during their absence. Not true anymore, at least not in my practice, and at least not with my experience level. I wish I could say I was bragging when I write that, but I'm not. That's weariness you're hearing.

Happy Loving People

2006-02-20T19:58:00.000-08:00

Cheers to this young man. He did what I, on some base, crude, and evil level, would love to do to some people I have come across during my journey as a lawyer. Shooting a lawyer, ala Dick Cheney and poor Mr. Whittington, is just too obvious, too pedestrian, too expected. Removal of a body part, ala Hannibal Lecter, is far, far more shocking.

Now, if I could just find a can of fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti . . .

Think For Yourself

2006-02-16T06:48:00.000-08:00

Read this and then ask yourself: "Is this the best way to try not to think about something?"

Old Days

2006-02-02T19:22:00.000-08:00

Today I really wished I was a law school student again. My undergrad experience was good, but I really enjoyed law school alot more. I actually found most of my classmates friendlier; the faculty appeared much more interested in the students; and for the most part the courses were more interesting (except for one incredibly dull course about industry regulation). Some days I am so tired of phone calls from opposing counsel or local counsel or clients or witnesses or prospective clients or legal vendors or (worst of all) some of my very own partners. I miss not having to worry about billable hours. I miss not having to worry about committing malpractice. I know that I didn't have much money then, but I always seemed to get by. I vividly remember how I would sometimes treat myself to a bottle of wine or a six pack of good import beer -- things I now take completely for granted.

I wish I could go back.

My Name is Norman Bates, Part II

2006-02-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

The group's name was Landscape.

Color Me Bad

2006-01-30T18:44:00.000-08:00

This is a Coloring Book every lawyer should have.

Keep on Working

2006-01-30T04:20:00.000-08:00

If geneticists can ever work out the kinks, I think I have come up with a great recipe for the perfect associate. Take the DNA of someone who has a total lack of respect for him/herself, and splice in a touch of hamster DNA. If you could then convince the associate that a desk and chair are the human equivalent of one of those wheels you always see in a hamster cage, you'd have it made. The firm could save money on employee perks, as well. Instead of coffee and soda, we could hang a water bottle from the wall in each associate's office. The restrooms the rest of us would use would be cleaner and smell better, too. Each associate would have a small box partially filled with cedar chips that he/she could use. Instead of eating quick fast-food meals three times a day and fouling our nice bathroom, they'd have to use the little boxes in their office.

I'll try to work through the other details and give a presentation to the Powers That Be.

My name is Norman Bates, I'm just a normal guy

2006-01-28T11:30:00.000-08:00

Driving down a stretch of I-85 the other day and saw some really, really nice billboards advertising legal services. Why would someone named "Doufus" ever become a lawyer??

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Bonus points for anyone who can identify the 80's group, featured for awhile on MTV, whose track "My name is Norman Bates" got heavy play. I can't remember.

Precious

2006-01-20T04:32:00.000-08:00

See Mike. Mike has large book of business, populated with several large clients who come to him for advice in one specific area, but go to other firms for counsel in other areas.

See Mike run. Mike loves his client -- so much so that he won't introduce his client's decisionmakers to other lawyers in the Firm who are experienced in the "other areas" his client seems to feel other firms can provide better counsel. Mike shuns efforts to "cross-market." He runs from every opportunity to do so. Who knows why?

See Mike bitch. Mike likes to complain about how low and mid-level partners don't carry their own weight because they don't have a significant amount of business. These are the same partners who are competent in, and regularly advise other clients in, those "other areas" Mike's largest clients DON'T come to us for help with.

Mike is a problem. He is an obstacle to the Firm expanding its business, all the while complaining about how the Firm isn't expanding its business. He must learn to change his way of thinking about clients. They aren't proprietary to HIM--they should be proprietary to the FIRM. Mike must be stopped. It may get ugly, but stop him, I will.

A Modest Proposal

2006-01-18T04:26:00.000-08:00

I got another letter the other day from a client, telling me (again) that the client expects my firm to achieve some level of diversity amongst our lawyers, and advising (warning?) that if we don't, they'll pull their business and take it elsewhere. These kinds of letters are increasingly common, but this most recent one got me thinking.

I'm considering writing the client back and inviting the writer to my office to sit in with each one of our lawyers as they interview the next minority candidate. If the goal is to encourage my firm to achieve greater diversity, then I say let the client participate in the hiring decisions. I'm not suggesting that we wouldn't hire a qualified minority unless we got letters like these; we clearly would (and have in the past). I'm guessing, though, that the next salvo of letters we get from the clients will be to tell us that we aren't hiring the right "kind" of minority. Better to nip that in the bud now, by getting the client involved in the hiring process up front.

On a related note, I'm going to send a letter out to my two biggest clients who have sent me these "diversify or else" letters, telling them that I've switched to an alternative hourly rate schedule. Under my new program, a client would be charge a hourly rate that is dependent upon the quality of the legal work they desire -- they just need to tell me at the beginning of each new matter how hard they want me to work, and I will bill them accordingly.

Before anyone gets tied up in knots over my suggestions, re-read the title of the post and understand where I'm coming from.

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

2005-12-30T15:32:00.000-08:00

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Try to post more frequently
2. Try to make the posts interesting
3. Avoid "funks" at work
4. Generate lots and lots of new business
5. Try to get along better with the people I work with

Lots of family related resolutions also, so obviously these are posted in no particular order.

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

2005-12-20T04:22:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Party has come and gone. It was better than usual this year. Last year, at least one person got falling down drunk, probably in celebration of the gi-normous bonus she had learned about the day before. I paid careful attention to her this year, but she was sober. When I got home and looked over the bonus list, I didn't see her name on it, so that explains that.

I was OK with mine this year. Not a great bonus, but still a big help. It wasn't as big as last year.

I've been trying to kick start myself completely out of my work funk with only limited success. This morning, I feel like I can actually go into the office and get alot accomplished. In addition to my lingering funk, there are two other possible obstacles to getting that done: the first is our funky office computer network, which has been less than dependable lately. Sometimes I think the IT people tinker with it on purpose so they can later claim credit for "fixing" it.

The second, and more vexing, obstacle is a drop-dead gorgeous secretary outside my office. She isn't my secretary, but still sits just outside my door. Some days she wears a tight shirt or sweater and it is just too much to bear. She knows she is beautiful and loves to tease. I sometimes think that there should be some kind of rule against hiring beautiful secretaries. Not only can they cause problems at home, but they can also be a distration at the office as well. One problem with such a rule is how to administer it--who would decide who is "too pretty"? We could adopt a rotation program that would allow a different attorney every month to be the final arbiter of beauty, but we'd eventually end up with someone in the tax department and that would be an absolute disaster. Another problem is that if we were adopt such a rule, and apply it rigorously, other firms in town would end up with the best looking secretaries. That would violate another of my firm's rules: we are better than everyone else, in every way.

So, on balance, we should keep the pretty secretaries and continue to pity the other firms that don't have them.

Listen to what the man said

2005-12-14T12:27:00.000-08:00

I just received an email from someone in another office advising of the sender's doctor appointment schedule for the next several months.

Word of advice to all new or impending lawyers: Think carefully --- very carefully --- before sending an email to "all".

My Sharona

2005-12-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

Tom Delay: Evil and opportunistic
Al Franken: Funny, but only when teamed with Tom Davis in the early Saturday Night Live days (anyone remember the skit where Al had just had brain surgery?)
Hillary Clinton: Thunder thighs
Halle Berry: Unbelievable
The Judge in the Saddam Trial: Spineless (put a muzzle on the defendant, for Christ's sake!)
Best TV Talking Head: Jeffrey Fieger (sp?) -- what other talking head can claim his brother was lead singer for the The Knack (responsible for one of the best songs of all time--My Sharona)

discuss

Lawyer Stories

2005-12-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

I found a way to refer back to some of my earlier posts that I deleted. Enjoy them, if you will.

Desperado

2005-12-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

I went to a CLE recently that turned out to be a repeat of most of the other CLE's I've ever been to. Someone standing in front of a bunch of board attorneys, either reading directly out of a manuscript that everyone has already, or who proudly announces that he/she won't read out of the manuscript, so he/she can tell one story after another about how brilliant he/she is.

So--here is my situation: I'm not motivated at work; and when I'm at CLE, I can't stand that, either. Kind of feel like I'm running out of options

Thank you for being a friend

2005-12-01T14:01:00.000-08:00

First: Thanks to anyone who includes a link to me on their blog roll. I'll reciprocate--I promise.

Second: Based on some queries that have gotten some visitors directed here, I'm guessing that people want to know what kind of bonuses attorneys earn. That is a good question. The answer is, "it depends." Where do you live? How big is your firm? What is your "book of business" work? For good or for bad, I've come to expect a gross year end bonus of over 100K. That's a floor. What's the ceiling? Who knows. How many people am I willing to trample over to maximize the bonus?

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me the common thread the runs through the post titles.

Playlists

2005-11-29T19:26:00.000-08:00

What I'm listening to lately, for example:

Cibo Matto: Sugar Water
O'Jays: Love of Money
Carl Carlton: Everlasting Love
Three Degrees: When Will I See You Again
Gladys Knight and the Pips: Midnight Train to Georgia
The Tymes: You Little Trustmaker
Joe Tex: Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)
The Who: The Song Is Over
Pre Fab Sprout: When Love Breaks Down
Rufus and Chaka Kahn: Tell Me Something Good
Romeo Void: Girl In Trouble
Kraftwerk: Anything
John Stewart: Gold

Tell me what you think

The Song Is Over

2005-11-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

Well, ok; it's not the song that is over. It's my funk. The funk I've been in for about two months. It's over. For two months, I've been going to work, getting minimal amounts of work done while appearing to be buried under an avalanche of paperwork. No motivation. Little desire. Now, I'm far enough behind that I don't have any choice but to get back into the groove. Quickly. Or else.

I suppose one consequence of this is that several associates will soon find themselves with lots of short-fused assignments. I hate it when that happens. Not because it ends up happening to "them," but because I let it happen in the first place.

Why do I let this happen?

Shed a little light

2005-11-23T04:05:00.000-08:00

What do you do when your blog lurking is "outted" by a blogger who has a statcounter? If you surf at work, this can be a bad thing. A very bad thing. I don't think the statcounter can actually identify you by name, but it can identify you by your firm's name, or whatever name your firm has its internet access under. On the other hand, it is kind of fun to think about the blogger looking up the firm(s) that visit, and scoping out the individual lawyers to try to guess who it is that addicted (addicted?) to her sight.

Fortunately, a torrent of comments from concerned visitors resulted in removal of the visiting firm names.

Boogie Wonderland

2005-11-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

Hip, Hip, Hoorraaayyyyy! The Firm's Christmas Party is coming up! Good Times! My chance to select from one of my many fine tuxedos, go to an area dining hall, and whoop it up with other lawyers in my Firm like they are all my best friends. I always approach this with somewhat of an "out of the body" attitude, because it helps me see the jockeying that goes on with the beggars who try to suck up to the bonus committee members.

We used to invite staff to the party. But, after about ten years or so, some genius realized that the attorneys ended up sitting on one side of the room, got drunk and made fun of the each other or the people on the other side of the room. The people on the other side of the room also got drunk, but for some odd reason they spent more time making fun of the people on the other side of the room than they did making fun of themselves. Lesson number one: attorneys can make fun of themselves, but when the staff does, they no longer get an invite to the Christmas party.

Now, they just get a coupon for a turkey. A frozen turkey.

Watching the Wheels

2005-11-18T04:15:00.000-08:00

I am always fascinated by many of the shareholders at my firm at this time of year, for we are now deep into the decision-making process for determining year end bonuses. I think this time of year exposes three kinds of shareholders: those who know there is no possible way they will get any bonus at all, or at least not one big enough to get excited about; those who will do anything to suck up to the decision-makers and trample over others in an effort to assure themselves the largest possible bonus; and the final group, members of which are supremely confident (sometimes, with good reason) they will receive enormous bonuses, and therefore they sit back, do and say nothing, and enjoy the gi-normous checks they pick up on December 31. I fit into one of those groups, but I won't say which one.

The machinations and politicing that some people will undertake this time of year is sometimes unbelievable. In some cases, it's absolutely embarrassing. The good news is, the more embarrassing it is, the more entertaining it is.

On a completely unrelated front, the holiday seasons are upon us. Family, family-in-law, family-in-law, family-in-law, family-in-law, family, family-in-law, family-in-law, etc. Maybe you get the picture. The anxiety I feel at this time of year just gets worse and worse.

I Remember

2005-11-17T04:18:00.000-08:00

Do you know who wriring on this blog makes me feel like? Harriet the Spy. It's odd when you think about it, mostly because Harriet was a girl, and I'm a guy. But, for the most part, I think it is a realistic parallel. Harriet committed her personal observations about friends and those close to her onto paper, just as I do (or, at least, just as I did, before deleting a couple years worth of posts some time ago). Unlike my earlier posts, which did not identify co-workers and others by name, Harriet's frequently did, which of course got her into big trouble when her journal was discovered.

I recall some of my earlier posts with delight. I wrote about one particularly irritating lawyer in the Midwest who had sued my client, alleging his client was entitled to a million dollars, blah blah blah, due to my client's malfeasance, stupidity, blah blah blan. He was very difficult fellow to talk to, mostly because he was interested only in hearing himself speak (he probably still understand much of what he heard), and not at all interested in anything I had to say. The confidence he had in his client's case came across as smugness and obnoxiousness (is that even a word?). Anyway, imagine how some parts of his body must have contorted and puckered when the appellate court reversed the trial court's summary judgment in favor of his client, and then the state supreme court refused to accept his pitiful request that it accept jurisdiction. I really wanted to call him up, tell him to take roll up the appellate court's decision, and shove it somewhere. I resited the temptation and my life is better now that I haven'd had to speak to the guy in a while.

The other end of the spectrum are the truly professional lawyers who do not take disagreements personally. They understand how to voice a disagreement without being disagreeable. They can separate their client's problems from their own, and truly represent the client without becoming the client. I'm working with a such a lawyer now. What makes this situation a little unique is that while the lawyer is very easy to deal with for the reasons I just mentioned, he is not the "sharpest stick in the bunch" -- not by a longshot. Just goes to show that you don't have to be smart in order to be lawyer-even a lawyer you don't mind working with.

Twisting by the pool

2005-10-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've been a major funk for the past 5 or 6 weeks. I don't know why this happens, but it does and I've found that I just have to wait it out and let it pass. It is starting to pass and I'm getting to be a little more productive at work. I guess a vacation would be nice, but that probably won't happen until the end of the year.

The firm is having another good year, despite some major changes that have already occurred and are upcoming. I'm optimistic there will be a large year end bonus. My personal book of business was the largest it has ever been (although, not nearly as big as some others in the firm, including a couple of my contemporaries). Since I refuse to play the political, suck-up, kiss my ass and stroke my ego game with the people who make year end compensation decisions, it is alway a bit of a crap shoot to see if I get treated well, or poorly (but not poorly enough that I will leave). I think that is a big factor in such decisions--what is the least amount we can bonus up someone, and avoid having him/her leave. The machinations of it all confound me.

2005-09-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

I still regret deleting my two years worth of previous posts. Oh, well.

Year end is coming up, and the sharks are circling the water. Unfortunately, my numbers are a little down this year. On the other hand, the number of inappropriate IE links in my favorites folder is way up this year. I can't imagine there is any connection.

2005-08-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

I wish now that I hadn't deleted all my original content about a month or so ago.

2005-08-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

VACATION!!!!!

Finally--a vacation. Busted my hump to be able to do it; unfortunately, this one isn't going to be long enough (only one week--I prefer ten days; don't ask me why).

See you later

2005-07-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

Highlights of the Day (so far):

1. My peanut butter toast this morning was good. Unusually good.
2. Feel a major funk coming on, so the possibility of skipping out of work this afternoon is real, and growing.

A banner day, so far.

2005-07-26T03:59:00.000-07:00

My Firm's recruiting program is broken, perhaps beyond repair (absent a change in "leadership"). I've always thought that recuiting is simply an excuse to spend way, way too much money trying to lure students into the fold by presenting a completely unfounded and entirely misleading picture of what the Firm is like. News tip for law students: we don't have regular Firm-wide dinners; the Firm doesn't pay for every lunch we eat out of the office; we aren't (always) the collegial group that you are lead to think we are.

What is particularly galling to me this year is that, even if there is a consensus that the two clerks that we hired are "can't miss" prospects, we won't hire them. The work load simply can't (and doesn't) justify it. So, at the end of the summer we'll ask how they liked the Firm, what we can could do better during the summer intern program, and then we'll say how much we liked them but that they should have spent their summer somewhere else because we are not going either of them.

Why did this happen? The answer isn't immediately apparent, but I suspect that it is because the recruiting heads have been doing it so long that they are now on auto pilot, simply repeating everything they have done in past years without giving any thought to whether it makes sense to do it the same way (and with the same numbers) as last year, or the year before that, or the year before that. . . .

I'm not an advocate of change for sake of change, but I think now is the time for a change.

Incidentally, my two years worth of previous posts were deleted intentionally. I noticed some suspicious traffic. Big Brother may be watching.

2005-07-24T04:05:00.000-07:00

I did something a while ago that I rarely do anymore: I attended a recruiting function. The only reason I did it was because I really like the venue where the function took place -- I couldn't care less about doing anything to actually recruit newbies to the Firm, so that some (those that join a certain practice group) can be chewed up and spit out, and others (who join any other group in the Firm) can be lambasted over the course of the next several years for not being profitable.

What struck me most about the event was the number of summer associates who I did not know. I pulled a couple of them aside, individually, and introduced myself. When they asked the inevitable question ("What do you do?"), I told one of them that I am an entertainment lawyer, another that I did SMIFTAS compliance work (an acronym that I made up, but the summer nodded knowingly when I mentioned it), and another that I just biding my time until retirement. I laughed when I said that, but never gave her a straight answer. Now I'm just sitting back waiting to hear if any of them are interested in working with me for part of the summer; but I doubt that will happen. Oh well, at least I tried.