Beyond the Underground

From the "Continuing the Discussion" Department #1

First Post: Jeremy Blachman's of April 29, discussing the odd phenomenon of Harvard 3Ls wishing their fellow classmates good luck, including the luck of not ending up with permanent careers as lawyers.

Second Post: Scheherazade’s post of the same day, admitting “another reason I am still a lawyer is that it lets me have a life that makes me very happy.”

On this blawg, I've shared a little bit about my early inspirations for becoming a lawyer. I also wrote a post about what I think is one of the great things about having a law degree: play your cards right, and you can fashion a career that will suit your personality. Finally, I’ve had some things to say from my perspective as someone who worked for six years as a civil defense lawyer in a large firm, and for slightly longer as a plaintiffs' lawyer who now has his own practice with his wife.

Advice to Young Lawyers #7

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I’m a fifth-year associate at a large silk-stocking firm. The firm has a “three strikes” policy for its associates, i.e., three screw-ups and you’re fired. According to the management committee, the dumb thing I did yesterday cost me all three strikes. I hope you can help, because otherwise I’m toast.

Here’s what happened. Do you know the rap singer “Eminem”? Although many lawyers mistake him for the chocolate candy, I’ve been a big fan ever since he found a way to rhyme a line with “orange,” something that was widely considered impossible by every great poet who’s come before. That includes Shakespeare, which is why I have no qualms about listening to Eminem in my office. Yesterday, however, the firm’s managing partner walked past my door with an important client at the penultimate moment of the song “White America”--that is, the part when the great bard hurls the f-word directly at Tipper Gore and Lynne Cheney.

Believe me, it wasn't pretty. I got hauled up for an inquisition on the 57th floor faster than you can say “Timbaland & Magoo.” As all those balding, wrinkled partners stared me down, all I could think to do was apologize for having my stereo turned up so loud. But now it occurs to me that I might have a First Amendment defense. Can you help?

Signed, Feeling Awful in Atlanta

A (Short) List of (Long) Book Lists

It was during my adventures in arts blogging that I learned about the popularity of book lists in the blogosphere. Here's how they work: you read the lists, count the books you've read, and then decide whether you're entitled to feel superior to the next guy. I am, but only if the next guy is this guy. See how you do.

1. The all-the-rage-list-of-100-classics. I saw it first at Collected Miscellany. My score: 49 (all the short ones, plus War and Peace).

2. The Crescat Sententia Alternative 100. Does it only seem to contain more books that were made into movies? My score: 20 (all the long ones, except for the Harry Potter Series).

3. TPB's List: "Neenan's Canon." This list contains 120 books, many of them nonfiction. My score: 12 (embarrassing, I know, but all but two were read while soaking in the bathtub).

4. The Modern Library's List of "100 Best Novels." I'm a Modern Library sort of guy. My score: 41 (most, believe it or not, while waiting my turn at Supercuts).

5. The Burgess 99. This list was compiled by Anthony Burgess in the 1980s. My score: 19 (half while barbecuing for my family at holidays, half while mowing the lawn).

So there you have it. Now turn off the TV, light up the barbecue, and start reading!

UPDATE 5/3/04. Mutiny at Crescat concerning its booklist! Follow the link for the details. (Meanwhile, I'd like to say that I concur with Greg Goelzhauser about Gravity's Rainbow. My fondness for Pynchon has been expressed more than once on this blawg. I've read GR twice, by the way, but only counted it once on my "Burgess 99" score.)

Remember to Get Your Daily Fix of Arts Blogging

What’s “arts blogging”? Blogging about the arts, of course, as practiced by those like Terry Teachout and his compatriot, Our Girl In Chicago, at the weblog About Last Night. Terry's a skilled self-promoter, and recently posted this polite request, which I pass along as a favor to Terry:

A message to everyone out there: Tell your friends about us. We don't advertise. Instead, we count on you (and our fellow bloggers) to spread the word. This blog isn't just for New Yorkers, or big-city types in general. It's for everyone, everywhere, who's interested in the arts...and tonight it's being read more than halfway around the world.

A subgenre of arts blogging is called "lit blogging"--that's blogging about literature, folks. An example is The Reading Experience, in which Daniel Green posted the following statement of purpose:

I would like to test the proposition that the internet, in the form of the so-called "blogosphere," can provide a forum for a new kind of literary criticism, more compacted and concise, perhaps, than conventional print lit/crit, but serious criticism nonetheless.

The blogosphere is very interesting indeed . . .

UPDATE 5/1/04 On re-reading the quote from Terry, it occurs to me to point out, in my usual smart-ass way, that not only is this blawg being read halfway around the world, but it has also been linked to by bloggers from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and most recently, Japan. (The link from Japan is quite unique if you've got the Japanese fonts; it is also intriguing--what's the writer saying? Probably something about the need for tort reform in Madison County, Illinois.)

An Examination of the Lawyer’s Briefcase, One of an Ongoing Series of Essays on "Things Important to Every Lawyer"

Part I: Introducing the Lawyer’s Briefcase

A lawyer’s briefcase is, first and foremost, a sturdy bag designed to contain a lawyer’s stuff. This “stuff” might include, for example, a notebook and pen, which a lawyer can use to take a witness statement when he stumbles fortuitously upon the scene of an auto accident; a digital camera, which he can use to produce graphic representations of the accident scene for use at a later trial; and a calculator, which can be used after the trial to make his fees even more extravagant simply by multiplying by two.

These specific examples of what’s contained in a lawyer’s briefcase are drawn from the typical needs of a “plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyer.” Lawyers with other specialties will by necessity choose to carry other things, though this choice may not be made until the end of the day. As with other highly-paid professionals, it is at the end of the day that a lawyer often selects several time-sensitive documents to carry home, where he can remove these critical items from the briefcase, set them on a nearby coffee table, and then neatly replace them at the conclusion of the evening’s major television sporting events or really funny sitcoms. The lawyer’s briefcase has a magical quality in this regard. Frequently, once the most important items get back into the lawyer’s briefcase, they never get out. Many lawyers have been surprised to discover a forgotten briefcase after a year or two, still filled with documents but now hiding in a corner of the laundry room or perhaps sitting on the rafters that hold up the roof of the garage.

It’s Only a Thriller, But It’s Taking Over the World

When I first started hearing about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code a year ago, I thought it was a scholarly work for the general reader along the lines of, say, Guns, Germs, and Steel. Then I learned it was just an ordinary thriller that’s easily polished off in an afternoon.

But maybe it's not so ordinary. On its first anniversary, there are now 6.8 million copies of The Da Vinci Code in print, according to this article from the Christian Science Monitor, making it one of the fastest-selling novels of all time. Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, a number of religious thinkers fear the book "may be sowing doubt about basic Christian beliefs,” and are taking active steps to rebut it.

I remember when Tom Clancy thought he was something. As Dan Brown sits back and rakes in the dough, perhaps educators should consider hiring him to recast all those dry, boring history texts into really cool legal thrillers. Retold as fiction, students might begin to think of history as something that really happened. They'd remember it better, too. (Links from Notes in the Margin.)

. . . The Birth of a New Feature: The Legal Underground Virtual Retreat

I know a lot of lawyers, and they’re always telling me, “Evan, I’m just too busy. I can't get caught up. What's worse, no one appreciates me. I'm burnt out. I lie awake at night and think, ‘Why did I become a lawyer?’”

Sometimes the answer’s simple. “Have you been reading overlawyered.com again?” I ask. Usually, however, the solution is more complex, and I end up suggesting a vacation. The troubled lawyer invariably replies, “I’d like to, but I’m just too damn busy.”

It got me thinking: Why not use this blawg to conduct a “virtual retreat” for lawyers who are too busy for real vacations? They may not have time to travel, but surely they have time to read my blawg. I’ll choose the dates (sometime in June, most likely); I’ll plan and post the itinerary; I’ll choose the events; I’ll be responsible for making sure everyone who wants to attend gets there safely, drinks responsibly, and stays away from my wife.

You won’t even have to sign up. When the time comes, all you’ll have to do is read as I describe in excruciating detail what’s happening hour by hour on our virtual retreat.

I promise to keep everyone updated about the plans. In the meantime, it might help to have suggestions as to the choice of a location. I’m thinking San Francisco, Miami or New Orleans. Tell me what you think, or suggest a location of your own—the only caveat is that the location must be somewhere I’ve been before. Otherwise, how can I describe what's happening?

More details coming soon . . .

“Ordinary Blog Day”: A Discouraging Recap of a Failed Experiment, Though Leading To . . .

In hindsight, I can see why it was a mistake to turn this blawg over to our yardman Al, even if just for a day. For anyone who was reading on March 31, the experiment didn’t go very well. It ended, in fact, with Al being led away in handcuffs. I won’t soon forget the way he shouted at me from the back of the police car as it pulled away: “You’ve got only a fourth the traffic of Bainbridge, you little moron! And only an eighth that of How Appealing!”

The words still sting. The next day, another nightmare ensued when I spent an hour with the prosecutor trying to explain the meaning of the word “blog.” I was urging him to put Al away for at least a month or two, and I thought I was scoring a few points. But in the end, I only angered him.

“I don’t know anything about computers,” the prosecutor said. “And I don’t like the way that word sounds. I oughta put you away for a month or two.”

And that’s how it ended. As unbelievable as it seems, Al walked away unscathed, holding tickets for the following week’s baseball game. I hear he and the prosecutor are now best friends. It’s discouraging, to be sure, but perhaps we can all learn something from my fiasco: something about the soul-deadening nature of “ordinary” blogs; something about the way truth can be hidden or revealed not only by one's choice of words, but by one's manner of expression; something about the surprising incompetence of yardmen as guest bloggers, even when they do have some experience with computers.

As a public service, I’m going to provide links in the continuation to all the posts from last month's Ordinary Blog Day, so that you can identify the lessons for yourself. The posts were, in order of appearance:

Belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny Also Held Steady; Belief in the Tooth Fairy, However, Declined Slightly

From the Independent, and based on a poll conducted by the University of Maryland: "A majority of Americans still believes Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al-Qa'ida." Details here.

The Pathetic Desperation of Comment Spammers, Trying to Sell Their Crappy Stuff On My Blawg

There was a post here this morning about SBC, which was up for about three minutes before I took it down. It concerned the following corporate puke that was attached to a post from January 7, 2004:

My Charter Communications bill jumped from $72.82 to $100.76 for the same service in one month. That's a 28% increase!

Check with [SBC website] to see if DSL is available at your address. It's the same 384k speed for only $29.95 per month. Charter's not the only "game in town"!

In my original post, now deleted, I accused SBC of comment spamming. Anyone with a weblog is familiar with this practice, which I define as the practice of posting advertisements for products or services, unrelated to the weblog itself, in the weblog's comments. The typical comment spammer is an Internet drugstore, a porn site, or some similar detestable leach. Getting comment spam from a "reputable" company is unusual, in my experience. The way I see it, if it was SBC that was responsible, posting comment spam on this weblog is no different than driving to Godfrey, Illinois, and attaching the SBC web address to the side of my law firm's building with spray paint.