As some of you already know, anonymous lawyer voluntarily outed himself as Harvard law student Jeremy Blachman in a New York Times article. My blog stalkee rufus discusses the experiment in a way that reflects some of my impressions--which makes sense because we share certain past and current workplace experiences and most likely share a healthy cynicism about our shared profession.
i don't have much to say myself about the unmasking itself, but i thought that AL was a neat experiment. however, i also question the contributions that were made by other people who were "in on it" and helped perpetuate the construct. i loved the character of AL, but having recently left the private practice and having participated in the recruiting process, i feel that he went a little overboard in including too many stereotypical qualities in one person to make it believable. yes, there are partners who cheat on their wives. yes, there are partners who make hiring decisions based on looks. and yes, favoritism is extremely rampant in that particular context (but a wise associate learns to game the system in order to become successful within it). however, to manifest all of these things in one person makes the character "too bad to be true."
the other thing about AL is that the actual details of his work were negligible to non-existent. true, to spill the blood-and-guts details of transactions would result in breaches of any number of privileges (and yes, there are more than just a-c and awp (although technically that is a doctrine)), but your reactions to your work and descriptions of the experiences of working with a brainless co-associate or trying to get necessary documents from a client is the best stuff, the--dare i say it?--real stuff. it's the type of thing that law students really should be interested in. the details that i often liked to provide to eager, fresh-faced law students jockeying for "coveted" spots on a summer associate roster. yet sadly, a lot of them would sit through these diatribes of mine with typical glazed over expressions. i never had the heart to tell them that their "i've decided that i really, really, really want to work for a firm" pleas never made a difference to me, and that my eyes glazed over whenever i heard those words.
i have a handful of acquaintances and friends who exemplify the best parts of the practice of law, and they give me hope when they talk happily about their work or when i see them working through fact patterns. but really, they are few and far between and the only reason that i know them at all is pure, dumb luck. but i like them, and i like my profession. more importantly, i like that they remind me that you can do this job and have your wits about you. they give me a lot of hope.
Posted by equilibrium-girl at December 28, 2004 01:01 PM