Beyond the Underground

Advice to Young Lawyers #31

Editor’s Note: “In an Awful Bind in Birmingham” first wrote Legal Underground last week. Unfortunately, in order to protect his identity, he’d changed so many details about himself and his situation that his problem wasn’t understandable. After being asked if he could try again, he did. – Evan Schaeffer

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

You were right. I fudged a bit in my first letter. Frankly, it happens every time I find myself under incredible stress. It’s not that I lie, exactly, it’s that I slip into a comic writing style invented by Woody Allen in his 1972 book Without Feathers. I promise not to do it again. That’s my intention, anyway--although to be perfectly honest, I might be distracted by the wild parakeet that just landed on my shoulder, told me it was the latest addition to Arianna Huffington’s stable of bloggers, and asked if I had any good posting ideas.

Oops. There I go again. I apologize. It’s parrots that like crackers, so this thing must be a parrot. While I’m looking for something to feed it, let me get right to the point. My problem is that the partners at my law firm have a number of habits that are frowned upon in the business world. One of them is that they require me to work an inhumane number of hours. Another is that they’re willing to penalize me if I don’t. While this is also true of other professions--the profession of being a garment worker in a third world country, for example--those other professions don’t require you to take on a huge amount of debt in order to get into the club. But my profession did. For me, it meant a boatload of student loans, a new Mercedes for my wife for having to put up with being married to a lawyer, the mortgage on our large house that says to all my relatives that I used to be a schmuck but now I’ve made it, and my extensive wardrobe of silk dresses that complement my very hot feminine side. 

No, no. Not the dresses. That’s just the stress talking again. And my relatives still think I’m a schmuck, especially after one of them found out I often go to a club across the river where I pay women to smack me in the rear end when I get down on all fours and hee-haw like a donkey.

Oh, God. That’s not true either. Your patience must be wearing very thin. Here’s my question: Do you know a way I can tell my bosses to go to hell without taking on the risk of losing my job? Even though I hate my job and would love to lose it, I have my family to think about, not to mention the traveling circus of Iranian midgets who wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves without me. I love them all like children and carry their pictures with me in my Palm Pilot. Can you help?

Signed, Still in an Awful Bind in Birmingham

Advice to Young Lawyers #30

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

Please help me. The attorneys I work for seem way too eccentric. I first realized something was wrong when I was assigned to work with Mr. Talonsmith, a partner who entertains clients by removing his eyeballs and letting them soak for fifteen minutes in a glass of Alka-Seltzer. When the clients are distracted by this silly trick, he reaches into his desk drawer and adds an extra hour to their bills. This seems wrong, especially since Mr. Talonsmith cannot write legibly without his eyeballs.

Mr. Talonsmith’s oldest friend at the firm is a partner named Mr. Halworthy. Mr. Halworthy keeps a rhesus monkey in his office which entertains clients by lip-synching Ashlee Simpson songs. During the noon hour, the monkey sits on a table in the firm lunchroom and checks the secretaries' scalps for head lice. Six months ago, while investigating the scalp of one of the larger secretaries, the monkey discovered a large sapphire and four ripe plums. He turned these items over to Mr. Halworthy, who baked the plums into a pie that was served at the firm dinner. As for the sapphire, it was given as a birthday present to Mrs. Halftone-Jones, the firm’s wealthiest client. She was very happy about the gift until the sapphire was discovered to be missing from a museum in Paris. When Mrs. Halftone-Jones was arrested, she fired the firm and took all her legal business next door to the Traffic Law Center. It was a huge embarrassment for all of us.

If you’re wondering how I can recall all these details with such great accuracy, it’s because I record everything that happens at the firm in a small notebook I keep hidden inside my stovepipe hat. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to keep working here. Last week, when another associate told the partners about my notebook, they held an emergency meeting in a coat closet where they insisted that I switch my headgear to a bowler like all the rest of them.

I think bowlers look horribly old-fashioned. What should I do?

Signed, In an Awful Bind in Birmingham

Advice to Young Lawyers #29

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

My problem is a lawyer from New York named T. Hadley Stevenson III. I’ve changed his name and his state of practice, but you get the idea—he’s typical of a certain type of lawyer who could be practicing anywhere. This particular T. Hadley Stevenson III is making my life miserable. He deliberately sets depositions on dates he knows I’m not available. He sends letters “confirming” things I've never said. He objects to every discovery request I make, no matter how innocuous, daring me to see the judge about it. He knows I probably won’t, since just last month the judge told us he’s “not our goddamned babysitter” and that he “doesn’t want to see us again until the morning of the trial.” The trial won’t happen for at least two years. Meanwhile, T. Hadley Stevenson III won’t return my phone calls. When he does, he’s condescending. “You’ve sure got a lot to learn,” he told me yesterday, adding, as an afterthought, “You little weasely punk.” When I threatened to put his name-calling in an affidavit, he said, “Go ahead and do it. I don’t care. I’ll deny it.”

I don’t just hate the man, I abhor him. Next week, he’ll be in town for a deposition. Do you think I’d be justified in having him killed?

Signed, Willing to Risk Everything in Englewood

Advice to Law Firm Partners #8

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

Not long ago, I introduced my fairly ordinary wife Nancy to my newly-divorced friend Bert who went to business school back when I went to law school. Was my introduction a mistake? Apparently so. Bert, who became very rich during the dot-com boom, is planning a ski trip for early next year and has invited me, Nancy and our three kids to go along. Even though Nancy has never skied in her life, Bert and his ski trip is all she talks about anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter that Bert is fat as a hippopotamus and rarely washes his hair. Did I mention I didn’t get rich in the dot-com boom? Excuse me if I sound bitter, but I’m a lawyer, not an entrepreneur.

Maybe I am bitter. In fact, I’ve decided I must put a stop to the ski trip. I’m just not sure how to do it. Yesterday, it occurred to me that I might be able to appeal to Nancy’s motherly desire to keep our three children safe. If she’s anything like me, the whole idea of skiing, once she really starts to think about it, should leave her feeling too nervous to care about Bert anymore. While it’s easy enough to avoid the danger posed by trees by simply wearing a helmet, I'm concerned about the ski lifts. Don't they regularly crash to the ground? Frankly, I’m not sure, but it occurred to me that since you seem to have an opinion about everything else, maybe you know something about the safety record of North American ski lifts. Do you?

Signed, Losing a Wife in Los Angeles

Advice to Members of the Public #1

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I have a very simple request. Can you point me towards the cheapest accredited law school in the U.S.? If that same school is of the correspondence or on-line variety, all the better. I’m 45 and went through a nasty divorce a decade ago and I’m still broke and my children hate me. I’m considering the law not as a corrupt racket but as a corrupt racket that will allow me to get back on my feet. I think I can do it. I already know a lot from ten years ago when I ran out of money and had to represent myself in my divorce and figured out how to make my then-wife’s attorney turn circles by filing silly motions and absurd, though perfectly legal, discovery requests. Of course, I lost anyway. But now I’m thinking: if I can’t beat them, why not join them? And if there’s a way to join them by paying a small but reasonable amount to a fly-by-night law school that would give me a degree without a lot of work, I’d sure be appreciative. I’m also hoping that once I’m out, you can direct me to some sort of lawyer job that’s easy but still pays a six-figure salary. Why should everyone but me get all the breaks?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Signed, Feeling Bitter in Boston

Advice to Young Lawyers #28

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

This is a question about billable hours. Recently, I switched law firms. At the old firm, we billed in 6-minute increments, meaning that if I worked for 8 minutes on a case, I was supposed to round up to 12 minutes. Since each 6-minute increment was worth .1 hour, I would write “.2” on my timesheet. At my new firm, we bill in 15-minute increments. This means that if I work for 8 minutes on a case, I round up to 15 minutes and write “.25” on my timesheet, which is the minimum billing increment for any entry.

Recently, I learned a neat trick. Once I work for 7 ½ minutes on a case, I can stop what I’m doing and spend the next 7 ½ minutes reading weblogs. Due to the rounding effect and the minimum billing increment, I still get to bill 15 minutes to the case. By working all day like this, I can work for half the day and read weblogs for half the day and still bill as many hours as I was billing at the old firm. Do you think this practice is ethical?

Signed, Feeling Ill at Ease in Illinois

Advice to Young Lawyers #27

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I'm a 37-year-old lawyer from Kansas who seems to be lost in the Central-European city of Prague. I think I came here with my family but now I’m not so sure. Each day, I sleep in a small hotel room on the outskirts of the city. The room smells of mold and stale cigarettes. At about 7 p.m., an indescribable yearning to visit Prague’s Old Town draws me there. All night long, I walk the mazelike cobblestone streets, shadowed by a tall, dark-haired woman who disappears whenever I get close to her. The one time I stopped her, she smiled at me as if in pity and reached out to hand me a flyer. It was only when I saw what the flyer was advertising—a strip joint located in a narrow street near Wenceslas Square—that I realized that she wasn’t my dark-haired pursuer at all.

That was two nights ago. Having nothing better to do, I visited the strip club, where a Czech girl in an aqua skirt and matching half-top sat in my booth and explained the “menu” of services that were being offered that evening. Across the dark room, two more girls and a man I took to be the owner talked loudly over the rock music. The menu was printed on a card that stood on my table. There was the strip dance, the contact strip dance, the exotic massage, and the exotic massage with oil. All of these choices only heightened my feeling of isolation, so I interrupted the girl.

“Can you tell me," I asked, "how I can get back to America?”

“I explain to you the menu of services now,” she answered. “You sit and listen.”

Perhaps you can understand why I want to return home so badly. This was supposed to be a quick trip with my wife and eight-year-old daughter for some R&R, but it has become a nightmare from which it seems impossible to awake. Although I lost my daily planner weeks ago, I distinctly remember that I have a trial starting sometime this month. Each day, I grow more worried. How can I find the dark-haired woman who seems to be hiding behind every corner in Old Town? I have a feeling she is some sort of powerful witch who will know how I can get back to Kansas before my trial begins. If I find her, should I offer to buy her a drink, or what?

Signed, Stuck in Central Europe

Advice to Young Lawyers #26

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

How naïve I was when I started working at this damn law firm! Somehow, I got the idea that the partners would care about me as a person. But to them, I’m nothing but a machine. Even worse, I get the same treatment at home, where my wife barely acknowledges my existence except to tell me to take out the trash. Not too long ago, I had an idea that President Bush was screwing things up in Iraq. But I got shouted down by Bill O’Reilly while I was watching TV. Could I have been hallucinating? Maybe so. But when I shut my eyes to find out, I saw fifteen Swedish swimsuit models. They were all turning around in circles and leering at me. Did I tell you there’s nothing I hate more than Gatorade? It’s true, but lately, I’ve seen so many commercials hawking the junk that I find myself buying it anyway.

Something’s gone horribly wrong. Where’s the “me” in me?  People say you’re kind and understanding, but I bet that even you will change this letter around fifty times before you publish it.

Signed, Feeling Worthless in Washington

Advice to Young Lawyers #25

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I’m writing to you about a partner named Mr. Schmidt. I don’t work for him, since I've been assigned to the bankruptcy department and he's a litigator. That’s why I thought it was a little strange the first time he came into my office and offered me the newspaper. But since I hadn’t read it yet, I thanked him and took it. About thirty minutes later, I carried it into the bathroom with me and read it in there.

Do you think that’s strange? As far as I know, I’m the only female lawyer who takes reading material into the bathroom with her. All the men do it, of course, but that’s another story. Back to Mr. Schmidt. The next day, he brought me the newspaper again. Just like the day before, I took it into the bathroom with me, only this time, I turned around just before I went in, and Mr. Schmidt was standing at the end of the hall watching me!

I’m no prissy-girl, and I’m not a whiner, so I wrote the incident off as some sort of horrible misunderstanding. But I still had some lingering doubts. To make sure I was right about Mr. Schmidt, the next day when he brought me the newspaper, I waited about ten minutes and then carried it with me to the restroom on the 57th floor--eight floors up. 

On the 57th floor, I felt like I was all alone, but just as I was heading into the restroom, I noticed the end of Mr. Schmidt’s nose and the right half of his forehead poking out of a secretarial bay about halfway down the hall. As soon as I looked up, both the nose and the forehead disappeared.

Rather than going into the restroom, I ran down the stairs to my office and started writing you this e-mail. I don’t know what to do. Having a stalker is bad enough, but Mr. Schmidt’s a litigator too. Double gross! What do you think I should do?

Signed, Being Followed in Philadelphia

Advice to Federal Judges #3

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I am a federal judge who has a weblog. That fact in itself might make me seem quite unique, but you must consider that there are over 4 million other weblogs. For this reason, even though my weblog is quite popular and receives many stimulating comments, the time that it would take to identify my weblog from among the 4 million others imposes a very high cost, or barrier, to any enterprising reader who might be inclined to try to identify me. That is why I think I have a comfortable curtain of anonymity to write to you from behind. It is also why I am prepared to explain my problem to you in the exceedingly straightforward, unadorned, and simplistic style to which I have grown accustomed since I began my venture as a weblog author.

Here is my problem. When I embarked on my weblogging experiment, I was hoping that it would make me, if you will excuse my use of the vernacular, quite a bit more “cool.” Although in my own mind, I rarely concern myself with my public image and consider myself cool enough already, in my weaker moments I often long to alter the negative popular impression that I am a “cold fish,” an impression fostered by a profile of me in a magazine called the “New Yorker,” which is a weekly news periodical that your readers may or may not be familiar with.

In short, Mr. Schaeffer, what I failed to understand when I began my weblogging experiment was the “snarkiness” of the “blogosphere”—both terms which, as a federal judge, I rarely have an opportunity to use, either in my court opinions or in my many published works of non-fiction. Since I started my weblog, in fact, far from being “cool,” I have been met with nothing but criticisms about my writing style and my choice of blogging topics and the “implied author” that my weblog supposedly conveys—someone who is cold as the vast Antarctic, unsentimental to the point of being cruel, too one-dimensional to be hanging around with Nobel Prize winners, etc. etc. etc.

Is it me, Mr. Schaeffer, or is it my weblog? And if it is the latter, what can I do to fix it?

Signed, a Federal Judge Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous