ANONYMOUS LAWYER
by Jeremy Blachman
FROM THE BOOK JACKET:
He's a hiring partner at one of the world's largest law
firms. Brilliant yet ruthless, he has little patience for
associates who leave the office before midnight or steal
candy from the bowl on his secretary's desk. He hates
holidays and paralegals. And he's just started a weblog to
tell the world about what life is really like at the top
of his profession.
Meet Anonymous Lawyer. The summer's about to start, and
he's got a new crop of interns. But he's also got a few
things bothering him: The Jerk, his hitter rival, is
determined to beat him out for the chairman's job. Anon-
ymous Wife is spending his money as fast as he can make
it. And there's that secret blog he's writing, which is
just a perverse bit of fun until he gets an e-mail from
someone inside the firm who knows he's its author.
*New to the book club? Just click on the Missing Read
link below for any emails you may have missed. Go to:
http://www.emailbookclub.com
=====TODAY'S BOOK=====================
Today We Begin a New Book!
ANONYMOUS LAWYER
A Novel
by Jeremy Blachman (fiction)
Published by Picador
ISBN: 9780312425555
Copyright (c) 2006 by Jeremy Blachman
To reference this email: ANONYMOUS (Part 1 of 5)
==============================
*This book contains adult language.
WEEK ONE
Monday, May 8
I see you. I see you walking by my office, trying to look like you
have a reason to be there. But you don't. I see the guilty look on
your face. You try not to make eye contact. You try to rush past me as if you're going to the bathroom. But the bathroom is at the other end of the hall. You think I'm naive, but I know what you're doing. Everyone knows. But she's my secretary, not yours, and her candy belongs to me, not you. And if I have a say in whether or not you ever become a partner at this firm--and trust me, I do--I'm not going to forget this. My secretary. My candy. Go back to your office and finish reading the addendum to the lease agreement. I don't want to see you in the hall for at least another sixteen hours. AND STOP STEALING MY CANDY.
And stop stealing my stapler, too. I shouldn't have to go wandering the halls looking for a stapler. I'm a partner at a half-billion-dollar law firm. Staplers should be lining up at my desk, begging for me to use them. So should the young lawyers who think I know their names. The Short One, The Dumb One, The One With The Limp, The One Who's Never Getting Married, The One Who Missed Her Kid's Funeral--I don't know who these people really are. You in the blue shirt--no, the other blue shirt--I need you to count the number of commas in this three-foot-tall stack of paper. Pronto. The case is going to trial seven years from now, so I'll need this done by the time I leave the office today. Remember: I can make or break you. I hold your future in my hands. I decide whether you get a view of the ocean or a view of the dumpster. This isn't a game. Get back to work. My secretary. My stapler. MY CANDY.
'#Posted by Anonymous at 1:14 PM'
Tuesday, May 9
I can barely do anything this morning knowing there's a living creature in the office next to mine. Usually it's just the corporate
securities partner, and he hasn't moved a muscle since the Carter
administration. But today he brought his dog into the office. Ridic
ulous. As if there aren't enough animals here already. We had fish
once. Piranhas. We overfed them. We threw The Fat Guy's lunch in the tank one day because he showed up to a meeting fifteen minutes late. The fish devoured it--turkey sandwich, brownie, forty-eight-ounce Coke--and then exploded. It made the point. No one shows up late to my meetings anymore.
But the dog arrived this morning and immediately everyone was in the hallway instead of where they belong, staring into their computer screens. Associates were getting up, out of their chairs, to go chase the dog, pet the dog, talk to the dog. Someone gave the dog a piece of his muffin from the attorney lounge. The muffins aren't for dogs. We don't even let the paralegals have the muffins. The muffins are for client-billing attorneys. They're purely sustenance to keep the lawyers from having to leave the office for breakfast. They're not for visitors. I made a note of the incident and I'll have a dollar-fifty taken off the guy's next paycheck.
The dog barked once. I told his owner to keep the dog quiet or I'd
lock him in the document room with the junior associates who've been in there for six weeks, searching for a single e-mail in a room full of boxes. There's an eerie quiet that normally pervades the halls of the firm, punctuated only by the screams of those who've discovered they can use the letter opener to end the pain once and for all. I'd like to keep it that way. We don't need barking to drown out our inner turmoil. Noise is for the monthly happy hour and the annual picnic. Not the workspace. The workspace is sacred.
I overheard The One Who Doesn't Know How To Correctly Apply Her Makeup say the dog really brings some life into this place. "I don't feel so alone," she said. I gave her some more work to do. She's obviously not busy enough. She's supposed to feel alone. This isn't the kind of business where people can go into their co-workers' offices and fritter away the morning chatting about the weather or the stock market or their "relationship issues." Or playing with a damn dog.
We're a law firm. Time is billable. The client doesn't pay for small
talk. Every minute you spend away from your desk is a minute the
firm isn't making any money off your presence, even though you're still using the office supplies, eating the muffins, drinking the coffee, consuming the oxygen, and adding to the wear and tear on the carpets. You're overhead. And if you're not earning your keep, you shouldn't be here.
The dog shouldn't be here, except he's probably more easily trained than some of my associates. If I get him to eat some incriminating evidence we need to destroy, I can bill the client a couple hundred dollars an hour for it. If I can get him to bark at some opposing counsel and scare them into accepting our settlement offer, that's probably billable. If I can get him to pee on a secretary, it won't be billable, but it's entertaining nonetheless. Hardly matters. Having a dog in the office is almost as ridiculous as holding the elevator for a paralegal. Inappropriate, undesirable, and it WILL NOT HAPPEN when I become chairman of this place, I guarantee you that.
'#Posted by Anonymous at 9:25 AM'
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