f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

alienating the associates?

Bruce MacEwan at Adam Smith Esq explains why BigLaw

associates — even “across the pond” — have such a high

rate of attrition and dissatisfaction. “The fundamental problem

is simple:  It’s taking longer and longer for fewer and fewer

associates to make partner.”  We all knew that, but Bruce

and Bill Henderson developed a correlation analysis based

on last year’s AmLaw associate satisfaction survey.  And:

“What we found is that, across the board, PPP (profits

per partner) is strongly negatively correlated with every

measure of associate satisfaction—at highly statistically

significant levels.”

That’s right: the more partner-vampires suck blood from

their young, the fewer of them survive.   Because associates are

the future of the legal profession, Bruce prays the profession will

find a solution.   I’d like to suggest to BigLaw associates feeling

queasy over their career choice that hoping partners will become

less greedy is foolish.  Start taking stock of your life and values,

and take control of your career, younguns.   If you need more

motivation see prior posts here on Ivan Illy Esq, the Road to L,

and Prof. Schiltz.  If you think alternative billing will save your

bacon, check out “chronomentrophobia“.

the tethered dog

watches the guide dog

enter a deli

John Stevenson

from Quiet Enough

complimenting lawyers?

Prof. Marc Galanter of U. Wisconsin Law, wants us to belive that 

it is “a badge of status for lawyers to be seen as able to ‘withstand

this firestorm of jokes'” that engulfs us. (St.Louis Post-Dispatch,

“Get used to jokes, author tells law students, Oct. 3, 200; via jb2b).

The professor also links the supposed increase in lawyer jokes to

the fact that “the percentage of cases that actually led to a trial fell

precipitously, he said. That cuts laymen – the juries – out of the

picture and adds to a public perception that lawyers control every-

thing.”  I think we came a bit closer to the nub here.  If the rest of

his upcoming book, “Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes & Legal Culture,”

is similarly misguided, I think the f/k/a Gang will resist the urge to

purchase it.  We do, however, agree with him that law students

should just get used to lawyer jokes, and join in on the laughter.

That’s far preferable to the  suggestion of John C. Keeney Jr.,

then president of the D.C. Bar,  that the Bar “all join me in refusing

to laugh at lawyer jokes” (Washington Lawyer, November 2004).

their laughter

is not about me

but would sound

just like that

if it was

John Stevenson

from Quiet Enough

elitist?

Ann Coulter wrote “Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University

Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school

reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report.”  This

made Temple U’s Law professor David Hoffman over at PrawfsBlawg

speculate:

Which “serious law school reports” don’t rank SMU?

Could it be that Ann Coulter reads Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports?

Maybe that’s why she apparently has turned on the President.

I must admit, that SMU wasn’t on my East-Coast elitist mind when

I was looking for a law school in the early 1970s.  Does any one know

how SMU was ranked/perceived back then, circa Miers’ matriculation?

Full Professor

putting another syllable

between us

John Stevenson

from Some of the Silence

uncovered?

I should have seen it coming, when I named this photo image on my

sibs-now-and-then page twins swingers:

It came in as the #4 result in the Google search for twins swingers>.

I wonder if the querist was actually thinking about Minnesota baseball.

Here are some other recent search engine results that need to

be added to our Inadvertent Searchee page:

Oct. 4, 2005

jobs  skills  needed  to  be  a  wrestler>  A Yahoo Search

choose our post Career Advice: Be Hands-On Problem Solvers

(about the New Job Market created by conputers and the internet)

as the #1 and #2 results, out of 79,000, for this query.  Naturally,

it was a haiku about a sumo wrestler that created the connection.

Oct. 1, 2005

empty cookie tins>  We don’t usually bother mentioning 5th place

results in Google Searches.  But, this one was kind of cool, and links

to a dagosan senryu, in a post about the Texas Cookie Monster suing

her neighborly teens:

empty cookie tin —

the hermit

heads to bed

dagosan

“everythingMovie”  Sept. 29, 2005

everything is eliminated movie>  #1 of 1,390,000 results in this Google

query was our post “everything was eliminated,” about the movie Everything

Is Illuminated.  I still don’t understand how the movie review from the New York

Daily News, captioned “The Novel had depth, but bverything is elminated,” came

came in #2, and my post #1.  Weird algorythms, dude.

September 13, 2005

Is paying tickets online unconstitutional> #1 result out of 226,000 for this (very

strange) Google query was a combination of two posts on the same page, one on

fees for indigent criminal defendants and the other, titled “A Better Fix Than Parking-

Ticket.com?” about an online parking ticket fixing service.   By the way, I don’t

know if you or Harriet found your answer, Mr. President, but I’d say “no”.

heading toward sunset —

the migrating geese

make a left turn

dagosan

learning from the President?

Well, check out the non sequitur cartoon from Oct. 10, 2005.