Q) I’m not a regular reader of Bitter Lawyer but a friend passed on a recent post from “Chank.” Who is this guy? What a crock, providing “SmallLaw advice for BigLaw.”
I’m an associate at a large firm and I eat pieces of solo shit like him for breakfast. Seriously. Every solo attorney I’ve come across as opposing counsel I’ve pummeled into submission, either by burying them with work or out-maneuvering them with various requests and objections. They sue a corporate client thinking there’s a stream of easy money. Once the firm lets me loose, it’s all over. Tell Chank to go back to whatever countrified hicktown he came from. We don’t need him.
A) I can’t help but steal a line from your favorite movie, Happy Gilmore, and ask “You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?” Honestly? While you may not be a “regular reader” of BL, you are as full of shit as any of us. If you are an associate at a large firm—or at least a reputable large firm—you are not “let loose” on cases involving a “corporate client.” That’s crap. Unless you are confusing your day-to-day search for typos with the piddly pro bono cases you take on, thinking they’ll be easy and you can use your overmuscularized ego to “pummel” some unlucky attorney—but unlucky because you happen to be an asshole. Let me guess. Your cases? One is a housing court case against a pro se landlord who thinks of himself as a wannabe attorney. You feel like a trial warrior because you draft fifteen pages of meaningless interrogatories when all the court needs to know is whether you client paid rent or not, a yes-or-no question. The other is a small claims matter you took on for a friend and you’ve managed to remove it—somehow—to federal court. Great. Nice work, General Cardozo.
Knock off the large firm cock walk. I’ve come across plenty of solo or small firm attorneys who, if I didn’t practice carefully, would clean my clock. You’re no different as an attorney than any other. You just work as an associate at a big firm. Which means you are probably fed up with document reviews, dealing with a stifling dress code, and scooping up the regular crap the partners dole out. But a guy can dream, can’t he?
(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulsoap/5269331843/)