National Be Kind to Lawyers Day - Today! (Joe)

It might not be a "real" holiday, but still.  "This is the first legitimately nice thing to happen to [the] legal profession in 2009."

Indeed.  Especially when firms are leading the pack in innovation by finding new and improved (read: more efficient, more brutal) ways to take flamethrowers to associates.

Comments

[Ruchira]

Since lawyers are well represented in my family (grandfather, sister, daughter) and on this blog, I am always nice to lawyers. But I still enjoy an occasional lawyer joke. Like this one for example:

God decided to take the devil to court and settle their differences once and for all. When Satan heard this, he laughed and said, "And where do you think you're going to find a lawyer?"

[Anna]

My routine response to people who take it upon themselves to tell me how much they hate my profession (in comments usually delivered with cheeky false apology, e.g., "No offense, but I really can't stand lawyers") is, "Don't worry, I won't hold it against you when you need my help."

That said, I feel no need to be kind to the private associates wallowing in self-pity over on Above the Law. People of my years out of law school and, frankly, far less useful legal experience (given the redundant work and lack of responsibility that the billable hour system encourages)are still getting paid in some "desperate" quarters to do nothing for a year, at roughly the amount I am paid to work very long hours on cases in the public interest: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/nyregion/13bigcity.html

And judging from interactions I've had with some of the folks now considering "slumming" in the public or non-profit sector, they still feel an enormous sense of entitlement, and have been unshaken in their basic equation that the importance of the work and by extension the case and client, is one and the same as the amount of money the lawyer is paid to represent that interest.

Whether the sickness is a permutation of the general disease of our corporate culture, or an independent pathology, I don't know, but it's an easily traceable phenomenon of the last thirty years. There are forests of literature and legal profession soul-searching out there on the fact and impact of the radically increased disparities in pay between the private sector, on one hand, and the government and non-profit sectors, on the other, since the 1980s. Like the value of real estate, the value of attorney labor in the private market has been rising at a pace that anyone taking a step back would say could not possibly be sustained, but many nonetheless insisted was part of some undoable new order. It's been a nice ride for some people (though not for middle class folks who needed lawyers they couldn't afford; nor for students taking on drastically increased law school debt), but it had to give.

Lawyers, even young associates, are hardly a disempowered group on the general scale of things. Now could be a time for private associates to stop willingly marching their well-paid, well-trod path into the britch, start aiming for more livable, meaningful goals in their professional lives, and/or acknowledge and push for a trade-off in the terms of their current employment that would create a more sustainable system of compensation with more job security. Others have made similar observations: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/opinion/02thu4.html?em

But read the posts, and even more so, the comments over at blogs like Above the Law, and the lack of introspection or internal mechanisms for valuation is stunning...though, unfortunately, not surprising to anyone who went to law school in the past few decades.

I'll be as kind to lawyers as I would try to be to anyone else. I have to admit though, as a larger group, we don't exactly make it easy.

[Anna]

That's "breach," not "britch," and something like "unassailable" instead of "undone."

At the office, and tired. Going home.

[Ruchira]

Anna, that is an honest appraisal.

[Joe]

Speaking of the (sometimes) awfulness that is ATL, there's now a post up in which the author mocks Boalt, accusing them of cutting costs by asking students to be janitors, because a professor sent out an email asking students to stop being such slobs (apparently they were making a huge mess in a study room).

Putting aside the distinct possibility that a lot of ATL commenters are the dregs of humanity, though, I do think some of them have it a bit rough at the moment. The Skadden deal -- 1/3 salary, don't work for a year -- is pretty sweet, but plenty of firms are firing people. Which sucks for them, because (I assume) it's tough to find a job right now, especially for them (since corporate is mainly where the cuts are coming, and they [I guess] don't have the transferable skill set that, e.g., litigators do).

I'm probably inclined to be sympathetic because for my classmates graduating this spring, this is largely a pretty tough time (I'm fortunate to be sitting it out). A lot of people (with excellent credentials) are looking for jobs, and are pretty discouraged (both those looking at public interest and private practice). One friend had an offer rescinded; others have had start dates pushed back significantly. Maybe it's different for people who've been out of school and had a chance to make career choices -- maybe it should be -- but from my vantage, it's not good out there. (It also undoubtedly helps that I simply haven't had to deal with the souring experience of interacting with said attorneys who reek of entitlement.)