legal humour (1 Viewer)

[Frigid]

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Monday, June 06, 2005

I was making the rounds this afternoon checking up on a few summer associates. There have been some rumors the past couple of days that a handful of summers have been leaving the office early and seeing afternoon movies; we let them know that we'll be doing occasional spot-checks now, to make sure that doesn't happen. After all, even if there isn't enough work for them to do, just like the full-time associates, it doesn't mean they're allowed to leave. Anyway, as I was making the rounds, I noticed one of the summers from a particularly prominent law school was fixated on his computer screen. I asked him what was so interesting. He told me they just released the list of which graduates had earned honors. I asked if I could take a quick scan to see if the names of our incoming first-years had made the list.

One of them had, and the other one hadn't. We tell them it doesn't matter how they do in law school, but we're lying. I have a speech I give on the last day of the summer about how their employment is secure, it's okay if they get D's, it's okay if they get C's, it's okay if they get arrested for second-degree assault. As long as they graduate, and as long as the bar will admit them, we're okay, and we won't ask to see their grades, and we won't concern ourselves with it. It's a crock of baloney, actually. If they don't think we have preconceived notions of who the stars are, they're fooling themselves. We know who we want to have succeed here and who we'd just as soon say goodbye to in a year and a half. We know whose names we eventually want on the letterhead (just a turn of phrase... we stopped putting partners' names on the letterhead a long time ago). And if they don't graduate with honors, then maybe we start to second-guess ourselves. Maybe we made the wrong choice. Or regular honors when we thought they'd do even better than that? Maybe they're slackers. Maybe a distinguished career in the law isn't as important to them as we thought. Maybe they're just like everyone else, and we should just burn them out as fast as we can and throw their carcass to the pile of dogs waiting out back (just a turn of phrase... we got rid of the dogs a long time ago).

If college today is what high school used to be, magna today is what regular honors once were, with grade inflation and all that. We want attorneys with latin words we can put next to their names. We want attorneys with a good pedigree that clients will pay more money to have incompetently service them. We want attorneys able to figure out how to get an A on a law school exam, because if they can't figure that out, how do they expect to be able to fool a judge into believing the law is something other than what the words on the page say it is?

So the one who got honors gets a gift basket. The other one doesn't. They'll compare notes. They'll figure it out. It'll serve its purpose. Like the office assignments do. You, next to the assistant head of M&A. You, next to the bathroom. You think it's an accident? Nothing's an accident.

 

[Demandred]

Sorry Frigid, my head is too crammed into torts decipher what was he talking about. Please explain ?

 

[Newbie]

hahahaha

lol
aye with my pass-average marks
im doomed

 

[Frigid]

Sorry Frigid, my head is too crammed into torts decipher what was he talking about. Please explain ?

it's a blog entry from http://anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com/

more:

Thursday, March 18, 2004

My favorite interviewing story is the time I made the law student totally break down. He was a law review kid, from either Columbia or NYU, I think. He asked me what my favorite thing about the firm was. I told him it was the way everyone was so nice to me after my nervous breakdown. I explained that I'd been in the office for a week straight, doing due diligence on a really important case, as a first-year associate, and the partner I was working for came in and just started screaming at me, throwing things, telling me he was going to throw me right through the window if I didn't get my act together and start earning my salary. So I started crying, and he took the picture frame from my desk, and slammed it into the ground, and glass went everywhere, and I just lost it, and had to be sent away to the hospital to recover for a few days. But when I got back, I explained, everyone was really nice about it. They only made me work 6 days that week, and even let me grab a quick lunch that Friday. So I could tell this kid didn't want to believe anything I was saying, but I kept a straight face through it all. And he asked if I was telling the truth, and I told him I could show him the picture frame to prove it -- that I had the broken picture frame in my drawer, all this time. And I reached for the drawer, to open it, and he quickly said of course he believed me, and wanted to know if things were really that bad. I was the last interview before he went out to lunch with two associates, and when they filed their reports they said he was a mess, couldn't stop shaking and fidgeting, asked all these lifestyle questions, and went to the bathroom right after the main course, and they thought he might have vomited it all up. This is power. Making law students vomit. This is why I like being a lawyer.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

That's really scary

 

[picaresque]

The guy wrote writes that blog recently graduated from Harvard law and has a book deal because of the anonymous lawyer stuff.

It's pretty entertaining when you're procrastinating.

 

[xeuyrawp]

That is so funny.

"we got rid of the dogs a long time ago."

Reading others in that archive is the next "to-do" for tomorrow! heheh love holidays.

 

[santaslayer]

That aint humour.....when it happens to you!

 

[MoonlightSonata]

That site has to be a law student's worse nightmare

 

[xeuyrawp]

That site has to be a law student's worse nightmare

Only if you suck

At this time, I'd just like to point out that I have a week's work experience with an SC.

Edit: This is the funniest one

I've seen some posts on other weblogs about relations with opposing counsel, and how lawyers are often civil to each other even when their clients are at odds. This doesn't make sense to clients, because clients are stupid. Clients don't realize that we know when they're lying, we know when they're the bad guy, and that we're not in this to find justice, to find truth, or to make the world a better place. We're in this because we're getting paid a lot of money to come up with the best arguments, the most unfair (but still legal) contract terms, the most ridiculous interpretations of relatively clear precedent and statute that we can advance so our clients actually pay the bill. So of course we're going to be friendly. We're all on the same team.

 

[Enlightened_One]

Well that was cheerful. Now I can't wait to graduate.

 

[honky tonk]

*Reads thread*

*Withdraws from Law*

 

[MaryJane]

...Its an American site.. maybe its harder in America...

maybe...

 

[xeuyrawp]

Hopefully his site will break those wankers that "Want to do law because I want a nice car".

 

[Meldrum]

...Its an American site.. maybe its harder in America...

maybe...

Law's definately harder in American 'cause every tot has been brought up watching L&O and thinking they can do the same...

 

[xeuyrawp]

Law's definately harder in American 'cause every tot has been brought up watching L&O and thinking they can do the same...

Yeah, of course no Australian tot watches L&O et al.

 

[Frigid]

dudes, as someone said before - it's fictional

any coincidence to any events/persons/places past or present is entirely coincidential.

 

[xeuyrawp]

dudes, as someone said before - it's fictional

any coincidence to any events/persons/places past or present is entirely coincidential.

I don't get your point?

 

[Frigid]

I don't get your point?

there isn't one

the writer of the blog admits that most of it is his outlandish exaggeration, from a few interviews and a summer at a law firm.

so, really, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[xeuyrawp]

there isn't one

the writer of the blog admits that most of it is his outlandish exaggeration, from a few interviews and a summer at a law firm.

so, really, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Of course, but all humour has some kind of real basis, if that makes sense.

I know it's all exaggerated, but it's still funny and holds an amount of truth.

I really wish you'd change your av, I always imagine you as a girl.