I enjoyed reading this book, it was very easy to read given its format (blog posts). I could also relate to a few characters in the book, given the rigors of trying to fit in the legal profession. Not bad at all.

It's hilarious! A very fun read.

3 = 3 1/2

There's some language in here (which I don't care to read), but an otherwise interesting look at the life of a hiring partner at a big law firm. I read sections of it out-loud to a lawyer that I know and we laughed together about close to the truth many parts of this book hits!

Warning: do not drink hot coffee whilst reading this book. Snorking and dirty clothes will result.

How many stars? 27! At least! for being the funniest of all possible books about lawyers. It's the sort of book you pass on to all your friends. However, something very odd, although my son and his law student friends enjoyed it, neither of the lawyers I sold it to did. Perhaps they felt it was a bit like a mirror and it wasn't the one which told them that yes, they were the fairest of them all. Pure and lily-white they ain't, no more than Mr. Anonymous.

This is office politics taken to the absolute limit and ten paces past that too. And then another ten. OMG how far, you think, reading it, can he go... further, further, further.


I actually read this years ago, but it was about time it got more than a one line review, because it really is one of the funniest, pee-yer-panties books I have ever read.

The cover photo overplays it. Really, it's a hilarious look at our inner ambitions. Told through a unique writing device--the character's e-mail and blog posts.

This is one of the funniest books that I have ever read. I'm not sure if non-lawyers would appreciate it, but I've never worked in a law firm before, and I was in stitches. The premise started as a blog by the author who later turned into a novel. It's about how much it sucks to work at a law firm and what he says has so much truth to it (based on what I've heard) that I really don't how so many people go that route of practice.

It tells a lot how is life when you're a lawyer(have money but no life ;p..of course in a funny way).

Not to worry about the title. It's an easy reading.

Based on a real blog (still extant) by the no longer anonymous lawyer at a large firm, the novel is in the form of a series of emails and blog postings from the Hiring Partner to his niece, an aspiring lawyer, but not of the same ilk as her uncle.

Our partner despises Daylight Savings Time because instantly a full sixty minutes of billable hours are lost and no one bothers to make it up in the fall, instead, just sleeping in. He hates holidays, why should we celebrate Memorial Day when we could all be earning money and still wearing little flags in the lapels? He considers himself quite reasonable honoring Jewish associates by scheduling their meetings in between services or over the phone. And why would anyone want Easter off? Jesus would surely be better honored by increasing the client's bill.

There is a very funny scene in which the Chairman is suffering a heart attack while simultaneously sending an email about his attack and how to take over the case and not lose any billable hours. As Anonymous Lawyer says, this is the only time you want to have your secretary like you, as otherwise she might delay just a little in calling 911. Otherwise, secretaries are only there to bring in food. Immediately his blog gets email from lawyers all over the country insisting they know who he is because numerous firms had Chairmen who had suffered heart attacks or strokes that very day.

And the way to save money is to have the annual associate thank you luncheon on Yom Kippur (at the firm of course) and serve a roast pig.

A brilliant satire that most lawyers will want to read in a brown paper wrapper. My only complaint is the ending. Abrupt doesn't begin to describe it. The other issue I have is that the book highlights some very real issues in these law firms that need to be addressed. Clients are routinely screwed. And it's not funny in the long run.


Sample from a very recent entry to the blog:

"I've been following the news this morning about the Ropes & Gray associate accused of insider trading as part of an investigation into the Galleon Group hedge fund.

Ropes & Gray released a statement, saying in part: "We are deeply disappointed about this situation, which suggests an extreme breach of this person's duty of trust to our clients and to the firm."

Well, no kidding. It's damn well a breach of the duty of trust to the firm. If an associate here found out some insider information we could use to make a killing, they better not be keeping it to themselves. They ought to tell a partner, tell the whole executive committee, give us all a chance to get in on it. If we can't trust our associates to bring us valuable opportunities to increase our own personal wealth, what do we really need them around for? I've spent years digging through client paperwork looking for information that I could use to make better investment decisions. And for an associate-- not even a partner-- for an associate to be running with this, without making the opportunity available to his superiors.... Well, it was a pretty easy decision to fire him. And it should serve as a warning to everyone else at the firm-- you find a good deal, you bring it up the chain of command and let us all have a piece.

Hey, it's not like I don't tell my associates when I go to mortgage foreclosure auctions and try to feast on the corpses of evicted homeowners. They're welcome to come along and join the fun.

As long as their work is done.

And they carry my briefcase. I hate carrying my own briefcase."

Praise the good lord for this book. At the time I picked it up, I was wallowing between jobs, and my mom was cranking up the pressure on me to attend an "open house" for the paralegal program at a local university.

I kept thinking, "I will design the shingle to hang outside the lawyer's office; I will design the business cards, the letterhead, the website. I will decorate the lawyer's office. But there's no way in hell I'm going to go to work EVERY DAY in that lawyer's office."

Still, it was a very very close call. Especially as I learned from my friend, Doug, that my long-ago scores on the LSATS would have gotten me into some quite decent law schools & then I was bitter that lawyers weren't in fact much smarter than me. Especially if they did so poorly on their LSATs. They might be quite average & boy, did Harvard really screw up my brain because I got my LSAT scores back & since they weren't PERFECT, I figured I was a loser.

Well, so I serendipitously read this book and the world of corporate law was revealed as worse than worse. It was revealed as a place I wanted nothing to do with. Then Doug read it and, due to him being on the brink of passing the Bar, confirmed everything in the book. And then I was free! Free at last. And then I got a job designing signs & business cards & letterheads & exhibitions & never gave the damn business another thought.

Anyway, the book: is hysterical. The main character is soooo unlikeable, you feel a little uncomfortable reveling in his evilness. I love all the inside details: how he keeps track of who goes to the bathroom too much (because they're cutting into billable hours), how at the yearly party the associates are allowed only on the back patio while the partners are in the front... It's all gloriously disgusting.

I ate it up until the end, and then I felt the writer may have not known quite how to end it. Perhaps another editing pass could have yielded a more satisfactory resolution-- though the actual resolution was inevitable. It could have been more effectively written, though Blah blah.

Oh! And when he feels sorry for the poor lawyers in Hurricane Katrina who might be without post-it notes! Glorious.

If you are an attorney who has worked at a large firm (and especially if you're one of the many who just got laid off), I encourage you to read this. It's pure humor, but extremely satisfying. Non-lawyer discretion is advised. ;-)

The novelization of a popular (and hilarious) blog, ostensibly by a hiring partner at a major LA law firm. The titular lawyer, whose obsessions with quality and power are much akin to the protagonist’s in American Psycho, is here made less venomous through a series of emails to his niece. At the firm, he vies for the Chairmanship with a rival he dubs “The jerk,” and worries after an associate finds out the blog is his. Thus a few plot conflicts are presented, and it climaxes when “Associate X” offers him dirt on The Jerk, which may (or may not) catapult him to the top.

It’s a pretty funny novel, but severely lacking in the truly nasty bits the blog offers (in the blog, AL evinces no empathy for cleaning crew, paralegals, or his wife, and delights in torturing them in small ways; that’s true here, but he’s a pale shadow of his online self, because the reader must sympathize with him over the course of a story). Also, a lot of the “plot” points are dropped along the way, as in the budding romance between the niece and an associate, or online flirting between AL and Associate X, which had no relevance to the main plot. And, I must admit, the final page is less than satisfying: AL is not only passed over as Chairman, he’s fired; but then he appears to be continuing to blog as if he became Chairman. I suppose he’s just keeping up the pretense, but it isn’t a very remarkable ending.

Interesting and funny. I felt so sorry for the narrator and hate the bastard all at the same time.