Monday, July 28, 2008

Thuggish Miserly Law Firm Partners



Well, it happened again. Apparently, one of my fellow bloggers became a victim of a witch-hunt and was silenced after she criticized the poor working conditions and pathetic pay at several Boston area law firms:

"The time has come to say goodbye to Wicked Words. I wish it was under more fortuitous circumstances, but it is not.

First of all, I made a large error in not starting a new blog when I decided to transition to a commentary on how difficult it can be for entry-level attorneys While I knew how nasty lawyers could be and the threats they can make when challenged, some excellent replies from attorneys and practitioners gave me false hope that the blog could be a sounding board for young attorneys and more seasoned veterans to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of one another. The dialogue could be contentious; I don't mind criticism, even harsh critique, and I have posted it here and responded to it, choosing not to moderate comments here.

And I am no coward. While I decided not to post my full name here, people knew who I am and continue to know who I am. Wicked Words was the name of my opinions column in college. The fact that I was semi-forthright about my identity was in order to ward off assertions that I was attacking without giving others a proper opportunity to attribute and critique.

Obviously the name of my newest feature, exposing firms who pay first year associates next to nothing for their work, has struck a nerve. And it should. I still believe, deep in my heart, that if you pay people the equivalent of a cafeteria worker's salary, people whom you know are saddled in a large amount of student debt, it is unconscionable, despite the level of "real" legal experience. Do entry-level employees have to start somewhere? Absolutely. But should the mass deflation of white collar wages be discussed with merely a whimper? I don't believe it should.

Let me make one thing clear, I'm not scared off by threats that have been made to report me to the bar for my writings or charges of libel. Those claims are silly, frivolous, and false, and a partner in a law firm should realize that making these threats in print with one's name attached, can be just as damaging to one's own reputation if exposed.

Today, an established, well-educated attorney spent a grand total of five hours of his day reading this blog and making concerted efforts to "out" me, threatening my economic livelihood and to "track" me for years to come. It is solely because of this blog's history, and my mentions of personal details, friends, and family, that I have decided to end my time writing here. It is simply not fair for them to be the subjects of any targeting that might follow from any efforts to drag my name through the mud.

So, for now, the big guys may have "won," but I will continue my fight elsewhere, at another time, and most likely in a completely different media. I sincerely hope that the attorney who has decided to "cyber stalk" me and make the aforementioned threats decides against retaliation for any offenses he believes I have committed.

I write this post because I feel as though I owe my longtime readers an explanation, but this entire blog will be taken down within a few days' time as well as any email addresses associated with it. If you wish to contact me for the last time, you may write me in the moderated comments (I will not publish any names or email addresses and will merely reject the comment) and I will make every effort to keep in touch if I can."


http://wickedwords.blogspot.com/

45 comments:

Anonymous said...

They want sheep, not rabble-rousers.

Anonymous said...

there is a new blog for solo practitioners
http://ncsolopractice.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Another blogger telling the truth bites the dust. Telling the truth is a very dangerous business.

Anonymous said...

But necessary. We have to bring this to light for our own survival, and maybe we can help others in the process of looking into ttt law schools avoid the mistake we made!

Anonymous said...

Doubtful. Kids are still flocking to law school in droves. The message hasn't reached them. It hasn't reached them for years. It's not like this problem appeared this year or even a few years ago. It has been around for over ten years...probably a lot longer. During the 1980s, supply of lawyers finally exceeded demand. That's probably when this problem began. Over the years it has only intensified. Today, it's worse than ever, and yet they still are stampeding from college to law school by the thousands.

Anonymous said...

The law schools are selling a dream and the kids buy into it, year after year. In a down economy, more students go to law school to weather the bad times.

I think we've stopped a few people from destroying their lives, but many more are plunging unwittingly to their doom this fall by signing their first loan application and plunking down 1L tuition. The difference between now and 10 or 20 years ago is the staggering cost of a legal education. The vast majority of students borrowing $100k to attend law school will categorically regret it. Many lives will be ruined and
more lemmings will fall off the cliff.

Anonymous said...

Is this anita's article?

Anonymous said...

Roach Girl - your obgyn able to help that little problem?

Phew! I guess not.

Anonymous said...

150 grand to work for a bunch of unprofessional slut Update Hooter girls. Let me shoot myself.

Anonymous said...

If you are roach girl 10:52 please do!

Anonymous said...

It's amazing that this browbeating partner can muzzle this fine young lawyer's voice.

Perpaps it is this partner that needs to be outed. Does anyone have his name?

Anonymous said...

Tower is pathetically soliticing resumes for jobs they dont and never will have:

Upcoming Document Review Projects (New York, NY)

Date: 2008-07-29, 9:49AM EDT


In anticipation of upcoming document review projects, Tower Legal Staffing, Inc. is actively recruiting admitted attorneys with some previous document review experience. If you have already registered with us, please send us an updated resume. Strong preference for New York bar admission.
Thank you,
Tower Legal Staffing, Inc.

Anonymous said...

Score another one for the DeNovo Ho!

Anonymous said...

Looking to jump on a project in NYC. What are the current rates now?

Anonymous said...

Tower has become one of the biggest sweatshop operators in New York and is quickly turning into another Update. Avoid them.

Anonymous said...

It's run by Leslie. What did you expect it was going to become?

Anonymous said...

leslie may even be more a more disguisting human being than anita.

Does anyone know why the law attracts the ugly people?

Anonymous said...

Relax, kids. You'll survive your 20s.

Anonymous said...

Tower is also like the Will & Grace show of the legal temp world.

Anonymous said...

You are all a bunch of unprofessional whiners. Go out and get a full time job like the rest of america and stop acting so entitled. Nobody's going to cry because you can't find a job doing monkey work in the temp world for $30 plus an hour. Your all the reason why america is going to collapse - waaaaa no one will pay me $150 a year to code -waaa no one will hire me because I went to flunky 5th tier school and didn't study....

Your parents should be ashamed they raised you...you all went to college and had the opportunity look at the numbers. Your not children no grow and act like adults and make something more of yourselves..

Anonymous said...

fk u

Anonymous said...

After we "avoid" all the agencies and recruiters, can we strike?

THAT'LL SHOW THEM WHO'S BOSS!

RIGHT?

Anonymous said...

exactly! After we avoid:

Paul Weiss
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Quinn Emanuel
Kirkland Ellis
Dechert
Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto
Tower
Spherion
E.P. Dine, "Frankendine"
Update Legal
Lexolution, "Lex-Pollution"
Hudson Legal
Clutch
HireCounsel
Peak
LSP and,
Leslie...

we will still be able to pay our loans fo shizzle. Who needs them?

Anonymous said...

Oh never mind, it's just the roach troll back to abuse temps. If you click on the "anonymous said" links you can close his/her messages out.

So then you don't have to see the seething, ignorant hatred that spews from his/her mouth. This blog must be doing something right to provoke such anger from this idiot.

Anonymous said...

I don't see any so-called abuse. Sounds like someone is trying to put the words of wisdom written here into solid action.

Anonymous said...

So does anyone know the name of the guy who outed Wicked Words? He deserves a taste of his own medicine............

Anonymous said...

This is a post from WW via google cached results...it references an attorney...he would seem to have cause to out WW.

Gerald Hamelburg: Douchebag at Law
Gerald Hamelburg, facing up to the law. Douchebag. Credit: Boston Globe


Is it even surprising that it appears that attorneys are the biggest abusers of using your dead mom's disabled parking tag to get free parking?

He is guilty of many of the S-words often use to describe attorneys, according to the Globe article:

Slippery...
Hamelburg, who has two Mercedes vehicles, a Lexus, a BMW, and a Jeep registered at his address, was a target of the original probe, but kept eluding investigators, the inspector general's office said. Investigators observed him illegally using the placard about six times, but he was able to move the car before State Police arrived to ticket him, the office said.

Slimy...
The Boston lawyer, they say, uses his deceased mother's handicapped placard to park his Mercedes convertible, free of charge, at meters near the High Street firm that bears his name.

Sleazy...
"He denied that he was 'displaying' the placard," wrote the investigator, who videotaped this week's exchange, "and stated that it was merely 'hanging there.' He questioned why he was being sanctioned for the use this time, saying that he had used it 'half a dozen times' before that and 'no one' had ever had an issue with his use of the placard before. [The trooper] asked him why he believed that was an appropriate defense to his having committed a serious violation by using the placard illegally. Hamelburg had no response to his question."


Gerald Hamelburg: Classy guy, active member of the Massachusetts bar, and a partner at the firm Greenbaum, Nagel, Fisher & Hamelburg. But was once sued for malpractice for bilking mortgage investors and misappropriating funds. And seriously, how ghetto is this firm in the first place that the named partner doesn't even get a free spot at the clients' expense without resorting to his dead mama's hangtag?

Scum, pure scum.

Anonymous said...

But there are also a couple of other attorneys that she criticized as well (I won't repost them here) so they could also be good candidates for outing WW.

Anonymous said...

Here's a list of pretty good temp coding opportunities. I've worked for all of these, and found them very professional. I actually work when I get there, and I sincerely enjoyed many of them. Paul Weiss and Tower were wonderful with long projects, and that helped me earn over 100,000 last year (before taxes.)

Paul Weiss
Hughes Hubbard & Reed
Quinn Emanuel
Kirkland Ellis
Dechert
Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto
Spherion
E.P. Dine
Update Legal
Lexolution
Hudson Legal
Clutch
HireCounsel
Peak

Anonymous said...

Supply and demand . . . If a firm can get an attorney to work for low wages they will. And if you can get a job that pays better – you will. Sorry, but firms do not base salary on what an employee owes on her loans.

Anonymous said...

Oh, don't dish out that supply and demand shit. If you are here to argue that the legal / law school pyramid scheme is anyway fair and transparent, you are delusional.

Anonymous said...

it doesn't appear to be a smart use of labor. if it were they wouldn't add yet more layers, which serve no actual function toward reducing costs or increasing their profit.

I suppose in a wasteful billable hours sense it makes sense for law firms to have this bizzare structure of firm, then agency, and now new layers of third party intermediaries (ie, the tech companies, the outside project management companies, etc).

if you paid a temp 50, but no OT and offered them benefits you still would make out better than what you get with agencies and the additional new layers being added. i suppose that's why they are outsourcing. to cut out the contract attorney element while still controlling the pricing with the other intermediary layers they convince the clients they need.

however, even the outsourcing abroad to me in the long run doesn't make much sense because you face the increased risk of malpractice. but at least with that i guess they can argue the reduced cost (so higher profit) outweighs the risk?

Anonymous said...

oh- i just thought of another way they could be making money off of all the intermediaries- they are somehow financially connected through family or friends with these intermediaries?

Anonymous said...

Right on the money, 11:07. Look who owns some of the agencies. They kickback profits and share profits with the firms. It's who you know and who you blow.

maynelaw said...

Don't worry, 7:43, you will, in the end, be OK.

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Anonymous said...

Oh behave roach boy. All work and no play makes Jack a very dull roach boy indeed!

You are really going over the edge now, time to regroup and focus on the more positive aspects of your life.

Your hatred of temps is making you crazy.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know why 10:05 (Roach Girl?) is always defending the bad people in this industry like the sleazier agencies, leslie, anita, etc?

Who is Roach Girl anyway? Someone from Tower? Constantine? One of the other agencies? Perhaps tom himslef playing devils advocate to stir up some controversy on a dying site?

In any case, she must be really pathetic if she thinks she can change peoples' views to support the people who do bad in this industry!

Anonymous said...

It is bothering that a partner gave up five hours of his life to an obsession to out this person. Neither article said if she was fired at all. It was alluded that she was moving on! He probably never thought, "They is this stuff true?" or "Am I so tyrannical that they can't come to me in person with these problems?" Welcome to modern business!

Anonymous said...

no 10:11 - you are the abusive roach infested moron that keeps posting here. The only one that is dying is you, this site is stronger than ever.

Go away roach boy! There is no roach girl or whatever your imagination has cooked up. It's just you, the sad and bitter fool that spends his/her entire day posting a temp attorney blog site.

You are a miserable loser!!!!! Go back to work!!!

Anonymous said...

I think that Wicked Words exposed one of the sleazy attorneys and they fought back. She it did not affect her job status (she's a temp looking for her first perm gig), but rather she wanted to leave the blog behind so she could move on and hopefully leave this abusive attorney behind.

It seems she wants to focus on her career now, rather spend her time blogging about assholes.

Anonymous said...

Roach Girl just quiffed again. I know because it smells like the back of a garbage truck on this site.

Anonymous said...

Then I met a bitch named Anita. Anita, Anita, the Tom the temp beater.

Anonymous said...

poor poor roach boy. No such thing as roach girl, just a miserable, slimy cockroach boy.

you are pathetic and ridiculous. You spend your entire life abusing temps on the Internet. You have no life, you miserable slob. Crawl back under the sink, roach boy!

Anonymous said...

his name wuz roachboy
he hated temp attorneys
he loved to abuse them
whenever he could

he was demented
so mentally ill
he did not how to behave
or conduct himself
as a professional