Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground

GADGET UPDATE: Antitheft Slippers . . . You know it's a slow gadget week when these ugly beasts make an appearance on a weblog--

What are they? They're the original Anti-Theft Slippers, which are guaranteed not to be stolen either because they contain a loop at the back that goes around a chair leg and sets off an alarm if anyone gives the slippers a tug, or because they are so ugly that no one will want to steal them.

Probably the latter. Definitely not suitable for stylish lawyers, including the ones who lounge around with high-class call girls on their a big-ass yachts.

THE STANKOWSKI REPORT #29: How the Stresses of the Job Can Turn Law-Firm Associates into Full-Fledged Lawyers

by Stan Stankowski

Well here we are again. It has been too long since I threatened the foundations of Ted’s reality. Therefore, I need to reappear on the scene.

As best I can tell there have been two main reasons for the absence: (1) I have been traveling more than a damned hobo in search of his next can of baked bean goodness; and (2) I think that you eventually reach some area of numbness in this job that deadens the senses a little bit. That stifles writing to some degree.

I don’t think that Opinionista or Blachman really hung on long enough to get to that point, so let me explain it to you. At first, you get yelled at a lot and people are generally unpleasant. You are doing a bunch of shit that is pretty intimidating and you are under extreme time pressure. It is very harrowing.

MUCH DEBATE ABOUT THE LEGAL "GENDER GAP" . . . This week, the Coast to Coast podcast is taking on the "gender gap in the legal profession." The show follows last week's New York Times article, "Why do so few women reach the top of big law firms?" According to the article, just 17% of partners at large law firms are women.

The Times article generated a lot of blog-talk last week, but the most interesting response was from Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle. She notes a problem with the entire genre of gender-gap-in-large-law-firm articles:

[T]hey make it seem as if biglaw is the "be all and end all" of a legal career.  In truth, only a small percentage of lawyers practice at large firms and real law is made day by day by solo and small firm practitioners and the clients we serve.  But for some reason, when a woman heads her own firm, it's still regarded as an inferior position to serving as one of dozens of partners at a large firm.  In fact, these articles almost never make mention of the hundreds of women making it on their own as heads or partners of solo and small law firms.

Elefant's right, isn't she? The notion that big-firm partners are the most successful lawyers--and, by extension, the rest of the bunch didn't quite make the cut--is a flawed way of thinking about the legal profession. On the other hand, it's not surprising to see it repeated in the newspapers, since it's the way most people think about the legal profession, including some lawyers and almost all law students.

If it means some lawyers aren't getting the respect they deserve--well, I don't feel too bad about that. But the myth that the world's best lawyers are all large-firm partners has other, more serious ramifications. It leads some people to choose the wrong lawyer for the wrong reason. It leads some lawyers to make bad career choices. It leads some lawyers to think they're failures when they're not.

Why not stomp out the large-firm-partnership myth? It's a good idea, but I don't think it's going to happen. Too many people have a vested interest in keeping it alive. Can you name them?

FROM THE IT-TAKES-ONE-TO-KNOW-ONE DEPARTMENT . . . David Giacalone knows something about Italian hand gestures, and he has an opinion about Antonin Scalia's gesture to the press after Sunday Mass. Scalia, says Giacalone, acted like a "tasteless gumbah."

We all know what "tasteless" means, but what's a "gumbah"? Does it foreclose the possibility that Scalia's gesture makes him "way cool"?

Whatever the answer, this much is clear: Justice Scalia is still perfectly-suited for reality TV.

LEGAL WEBLOGS, AS SEEN BY THE CONFERENCE INDUSTRY . . . Next month, Law Seminars International is hosting a conference in San Francisco called "Blog Law and Blogging for Lawyers." It's being advertised as "the first comprehensive conference" on the topic ever. The LexThink folks might disagree. Here's part of the the pitch from the conference website:

Blogs (short for "Web logs") are fomenting a wide variety of legal issues. Legal blogging, also known as "blawging," has become fully mainstream. No longer just for a few hip IP lawyers or a forum for law firm gossip, blogs are quickly replacing conventional Web sites as the key marketing tool for large and small firms alike to increase their visibility via the Internet.

Does this paragraph accurately describe how some lawyers think about weblogs--that they're mostly for gathering IP-law hipness or law-firm gossip? Maybe so. If you're in San Francisco on April 21, you can learn what weblogs are really all about, including whether they're "a passing fad or here to stay." Since the conference will set you back about $1,000, you'd better hope they're here to stay. At least you'll get to hear from a couple of legal webloggers with top-notch credentials, including Denise Howell, Dennis Crouch, and Kevin O'Keefe.

AT MY TRIAL PRACTICE WEBSITE . . . "Preparing Executives to Testify."

LEGAL UNDERGROUND PODCAST Episode #47 . . . On today's show:  It's the un-anniversary show, which celebrates (or doesn't) a year spent podcasting. Running time: 8.5 minutes.

Remember, you don't need an iPod to listen to podcasts! Here are two alternative ways to listen: 

• Direct from the Feed. Follow this link to my Feedburner page, which contains a list of all my podcasts in reverse chronological order. From there, you can simply click on the link you want to hear. As long as you have speakers, your computer should be able to play the show.

• Through Apple's iTunes. If you have Apple's free iTunes version 4.9 or higher, click on the button below to take you directly to the Legal Underground page to subscribe for free, or search in the podcast section of the iTunes Music Store for "Legal Underground."

Since we're talking about podcasting anniversaries, here are a few Legal Underground podcasts that I remember somewhat fondly from the past year:

• Law-Related Things that Suck: Having to Hire a Lawyer from the Yellow Pages. This one made a couple of lawyers very angry, but I'm not sure why.
• Law-Related Things that Suck: Too Few Frivolous Lawsuits. Do you think that in choosing a title, I engaged in a bit of irony?
• Law-Related Things that Suck: State Court Judges. More irony! Some have said my podcasts are never what they seem.
• Law-Related Things that Suck: Getting Accepted into Law School. This short podcast has been listened to more than any other.
• Law-Related Things that Suck: When a Lawyer You Don't Know Shows Up at Your Birthday Party. Pure pointless whimsy!

I've also done some longer, in-depth shows that include a discussion of the Vioxx litigation and the possibility of bankruptcy for Merck; Supreme-Court nomination failures from 1789 to 1987; and my criticisms as a plaintiffs' lawyer of the law drama "The Insider."

Once again, you can see all my podcasts (and listen to them) directly from this Feedburner page. You can also see them with the original posts and show notes by looking at the podcast category on this weblog. Though I admit that podcasts are still way too difficult to listen to, they have come a long way in the past year.

THE WEEKLY LAW SCHOOL ROUNDUP . . . For those who haven't caught on, the Weekly Law School Roundup alternates between this weblog and Will Work for Favorable Dicta, where Energy Spatula has posted Weekly Law School Roundup #12. The next installment will appear here next Sunday, so be sure to check back.

GADGET UPDATE: The Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium . . . Are you one of those trial lawyers who's so self-absorbed that you think you've been placed at the center of the entire universe? Then perhaps you need this--

It's the Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium. Point it at the night sky and its tiny computer will instantly tell you what you're looking at. Since its database contains over 6,000 celestial objects but not a single trial lawyer, the SkyScout is an invaluable teaching tool for any trial lawyer harboring a belief that the entire universe revolves around him. About $400.

(Special concluding note to federal judges: Sorry, but the Celestron SkyScout doesn't contain you in its database either. As a consolation, I can direct you to a previous post on this weblog: even if you weren't stars, you still came off looking pretty good.)

THE UNNAMED ASSOCIATE SPEAKS #5: Things They Didn't Teach Me About Depositions in Law School

by the Unnamed Associate

This week I don't have any funny new experiences to discuss, or any piercing insights into the practice of law. Instead, I have gripes about law school, and the fact that I never learned anything about dealing with witnesses there.

I know we've all heard and said it a thousand times before, but it bears repeating--law school did not teach me the practical skills that I need for lawyering. I took a trial advocacy class, I even appeared in court as a certified law clerk. But none of that really does much to prepare you for all of the ups and downs of practice.