It shouldn’t seem strange that a profession such as law, with all of its dull, earnest subject matter and buttoned-up disciples, produces as many professional funnymen as it does. After all, you hopefully read on this site every day how well a Bitter Lawyer can translate into a comedic one.

For whatever reason, there’s something about a Juris Doctor degree that draws closeted stand-ups into its tractor beam.  Some become lawyers just to make their mamas proud. Others are lured by the promise of a more lucrative career—or at least one that doesn’t (usually) include the word “struggling” in the job title. But every year, for better or worse, a handful of brave souls ditch the prestige of law to pursue a life in the two-drink-minimum spotlight.

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Top 3 Comedians Who Were Lawyers is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Top Three Stand-Up Comedians Who Were Lawyers
2. From the Archives: Six Lawyers You Meet on the Unemployment Line

If you’re not buried in homework or constantly drunk (and still buried in homework), you’ve probably heard of the string of law students bringing suit against their former law schools.

Most are about graduated students who cannot find jobs and are suing their law schools, typically for falsification of employment and salary data. New York Law School is facing a class action suit for 200 million, Cooley  is facing another class action suit for 250 million, and Thomas Jefferson is being sued by a single student for 50 million because she couldn’t find a job. And those are the front runners, filed last summer.

This article from last week summarizes all of the suits and indicates that the law-students-turned-plaintiffs trend isn’t going away- it’s growing. We’re up to 15 schools across the country for falsification of employment or salary data.

What I’m wondering is, whose law school decision was such a close call that it hinged solely on the employment and salary statistics? Further, if that data was so critical for someone, why wouldn’t that person, at a minimum, do some background research to figure out how those numbers came to be?

Last week one of my professors commented on the job market saying, “It’s a mess out there. It really is. I feel sorry for you. Gone are the days where you would graduate with a degree and people would be waiting to give you a job.” That wasn’t news to me, or any of the other 60 people in the room. It wasn’t news to us a year and a half ago when we started law school and the school imposed “professionalism” seminars on us, where no one tried to hide the bleakness of our career path and employment prospects.

While common sense and law don’t often seem to go together, on a basic and practical level, this shouldn’t have been news to anyone in any profession. The U.S. economy tanked while many law students were in college. Before we graduated, we watched our older friends put off “the real world” in favor of grad school because they couldn’t find jobs. When it was our turn, we watched our classmates send out dozens of résumés and consider themselves lucky to get a handful of calls for interviews in return.

All jokes aside about why people go to law school or the type of mental deficiencies we must have, we all applied for it knowing it would cost us three more years and tens of thousands of dollars.

What do these plaintiffs hope to gain? If pressed, I’d bet their cases were taken on a contingency basis, and if the litigators were smart, contingent on the money left after costs and fees were covered. The payout on a class action suit of that size with that fee arrangement that isn’t exactly speeding through the system won’t be anything to write home about. It seems like there’s more to lose than gain, especially when winning won’t get these people jobs. In fact, as a potential employer, I think I’d be a little weary of hiring someone whose solution to his failure to obtain his law school’s projected employment and/or salary is to sue the school.

At the risk of oversimplifying, maybe it comes down to personal responsibility from day one. Making the effort to make an informed decision should have been the first step. If they skipped that beginning, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that this is how their law school story ends.

Post image from Shutterstock

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Wait. You Mean It’s Hard to Find a Job Right Now? is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. I Work Hard, but My Law School Grades Suck
2. Six ShitLaw Job Terms You Find On Craigslist
3. Hard (Not) at Work

“No other profession inspires so many intelligent, articulate, and dynamic people to work hard and succeed like law does. It’s just that it often inspires them to succeed in some other profession.” — Lawyer and Comedian Greg Collett

It’s hard to pin down Greg Collett, whose career as a lawyer has moved from Sidley & Austin to big-time banker to political campaigning. He’s currently a stand-up comic and one of the founders of Comedians-at-Law, a group of six lawyers turned comedians who are set to launch the national comedy tour Lawmageddon 2012. Lawmageddon begins tonight in Washington D.C., and continues on to five other cities, including Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York. On day one of the Lawmageddon tour, we sat down to talk shop with Collett.

Law school and year of graduation?

George Washington, Class of 1997. But I mostly attended a satellite campus called the Toledo Lounge in Adams Morgan.

Did you do the whole law review thing or were you one of those closet legal clinic dudes?

I wasn’t on law review. I think I might have done a legal clinic, but I can’t really remember because I was having such a good time with my friends. Just like you’d expect in law school.

Any comedy work back in law school?

I agree 100% with something I’ve heard Jerry Seinfeld say. When asked if he was always funny, he said that, when he was younger, he and his friends were all funny. He just kept it up.

How did you end up at Sidley & Austin?

The back door. After law school, I went to work for a government agency called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and learned about the laws governing the commodity futures markets. When you know obscure stuff like that—stuff that’s really useful to a small handful of banks and hedge funds—a big firm will take you even if you weren’t Order of the Coif.

After Sidley, where’d you end up? Straight to comedy or something in between?

I’ve done a lot since Sidley. I was an in-house lawyer for a major multinational bank. And then I worked as a banker for the bank. And then I left to manage a campaign for Congress. And then I said to myself, “I’ve worked in law, banking and politics. I think I’d like to finally work in a profession that people don’t hate.” So I started doing stand-up.

What’s Comedians-at-Law?

It’s is a group of current and former practicing lawyers who are also professional stand-up comedians (Yes, some of us have fully escaped!) On our own, we all do stand-up on all sorts of topics. But, as Comedians-at-Law, we perform for lawyers, law students, and bar associations, and we talk about law, politics, current events and the world of work. I think we’re what you’d get if the staff of The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher show all went to law school.

Who came up with Lawmageddon Tour idea?

Comedians-at-Law is really a group effort. We all work hard and contribute equally. With that said, Lawmageddon was my idea.

Are you doing a set in all six cities?

I’ll be doing the show in all of the good cities, but I’m skipping the ones that suck.

So, basically nothing west of Columbus Avenue?

Funny! You’re hired.

So, let’s say all of you Comedians at Law are hanging out backstage. How do you fit in with the group? Are you the rebel? The suit? Something else?

I’m definitely The Suit. Mostly because I wear a suit.

So what do you call yourself now? A former lawyer? A stand-up comic? Something else?

The great irony of all this career-switching is that, after going from lawyer to banker to political operative to stand-up comedian, I recently started my own law firm. I don’t want to work in a profession that people hate, but I REALLY don’t want my family to live under the Brooklyn Bridge. So now I’m both a lawyer and a comedian.

What’s your practice focus?

I mostly represent defrauded investors. There’s absolutely nothing funny about that.

Advice for law students or lawyers who want to break out and do something else?

Absolutely. Here’s the key: When you’re doing a lot of one thing (like practicing law), it’s hard to think of other things you might like to do. So if something looks remotely interesting to you, just do it. I hate to use a Nike-sponsored cliche, but it’s true. The best way to find new things you might like to do is just to try those things.

In my experience, lawyers are awful at trying new things because their schooling and training have made them too risk-averse.

First, they were the good students in school, so they’ve mostly succeeded by being told what to do. When they grow up, they continue to be really good at being told what to do, which is a horrible trait if you’re trying to find things that you’d really like to do. In short, stop being a wuss!

Second, lawyers are risk-averse because they spend so much time buried in minutia and occasionally getting burned because they’ve failed to perfectly comply with all the minutia. Again, that’s a horrible way to be if you’re trying to break into something new because, when you try something new, you’re not going to be very good at it. So, you need to be tolerant to making all sorts of mistakes and not doing things perfectly. To summarize, stop being such a wuss!

Just curious, what happened in the political campaign you managed?

My candidate got killed. Here’s a tip: If you’ve never managed a campaign for Congress, and a candidate asks you, of all people, to take over his ailing campaign, he’s not going to win. The race was in a district that covers Brooklyn and Staten Island, and it was a Democratic primary. There’s nothing democratic (small d) about New York politics. Elected officials are essentially appointed. So, the campaign was like being handed the controls of the Sully Sullenberger jet that went down in the Hudson . . . after the plane had hit the geese.

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Greg Collett: Lawyer, Comedian and Lawmageddon Conspirator is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Interview with Matt Ritter: Comedian, Former Lawyer, and Creator of the Bottom Rung
2. Interview with Eugene Volokh, Un-American Legal Conspirator
3. Meet Dave Adler, UPenn Law Grad (and Comedian)

Like many smart and independent single girls, I like to outwardly project an air of indifference toward the concept of Valentine’s Day. But that’s all a big show, passive-aggressively calculated to increase the chances of being showered with gifts by whichever guy I happen to be involved with when the middle of February rolls around each year.

Unfortunately for me, I had gone on only three dates with Mr. February 2012, as of Valentine’s Day Eve, so it was damn-near certain that I wouldn’t be receiving an understated, yet still cute and thoughtful, surprise token of affection from him. I was correct. So I celebrated the fake holiday as best I could, given my dateless and giftless status: I downed one-third of a bottle of bourbon and came up with Plan B, i.e. ask every girl I know what they got for Valentine’s Day and then put together a blog post mercilessly skewering them (something along the lines of, “You know your bf’s a douche if he got you any of these things for Valentine’s Day”).

But then, in the midst of compiling the list of gifts that these other, luckier girls received, I realized that most of them weren’t very lucky at all—and that indicia of doucheyness wasn’t even the biggest problem inherent in the gifts their boyfriends chose.

Instead, the most troubling issue that seemed to be lurking on the gift list was the overwhelming evidence of utter thoughtlessness. And here’s the worst part: the recipients of the most inconsiderate gifts, i.e. the girls whose boyfriends clearly hate them, were completely oblivious to the totally off-putting connotations. Rather, these girls were oozing bliss over the mere fact of having received gifts in the first place, and this actually made me sadder than being alone on V-Day.

Hopefully the guide below will serve to pierce through the misguided joy that apparently allowed countless louts—with total impunity—to give gifts that took no more than a millisecond of thought and no effort whatsoever. Let’s approach the analysis of the gift as a glimpse into your guy’s psyche (and whether or not he hates you), shall we?

Were you sent flowers from 1-800-Flowers or Teleflora?

If the answer is yes, it’s safe to assume that your boyfriend hates you. Or that he is thoughtless, lazy, and completely lacking in the ability to think creatively. Seriously, think about how little effort went into that purchase. Type in a URL, click, click, enter credit card information, submit. Congratulations—your awesome boyfriend was willing to devote 45 seconds toward obtaining a gift for you.

For god’s sake, it only takes an extra few minutes of research to locate a local florist. In fact, most local florists even offer online ordering. But apparently you’re not worth an extra five minutes. The only person who exerted any real effort in this scenario was the FedEx guy who delivered your flowers-in-a-box. Oh, and one more thing—I bet he sent the flowers to you at the office, which probably made you sooo happy and the center of attention for four minutes. But if you had used those four minutes to think critically rather than squawking and cooing with the nosy ladies from accounting, you would have realized that he sent the flowers to you at the office because he doesn’t know your home address.

Were you given a Spa Finder gift card?

If the answer is yes, your boyfriend definitely hates you. And worse yet, you’re being served a rather toxic cocktail by your hateful boyfriend. Spa Finder denotes epic laziness masquerading as thoughtfulness, i.e. the guy didn’t want to exert any real effort on you, but he wanted to trick you into thinking that he did. So not only does he not genuinely care about you, he is also a manipulative liar.

Here’s why: it doesn’t take an online research genius or a spa connoisseur to find a highly-rated spa in your neighborhood. But he didn’t want to take the time to do that, so instead he bought you a Spa Finder gift card and presented it to you under the sneaky guise of, “Now you can actually select which spa you want to use it at!” Personally, I would much rather deal with the limitation of having a gift card that can only be used at one spa than the knowledge that a guy wasn’t even willing to spare a few moments on Yelp for the purpose of imbuing his gift with a tiny morsel of genuine thought.

Were you given a gift that was obtained in its entirety from a grocery store?

If the answer is yes, your boyfriend may or may not hate you. In other words, you’re dealing with a mixed bag of good and bad. On the one hand, the guy actually took the time to drive to the store and carry the purchases to you himself (rather than merely relying on e-commerce and FedEx to avoid all that arduous physical labor).

On the other hand, though—the grocery store is sort of the last refuge of a scoundrel, don’t you think? With a tiny bit more planning and one or two extra stops in his car, he could have driven to an actual florist and a slightly higher-end food store to obtain flowers and candy. Even worse is the chance that he initially wanted to rely on the zero effort e-commerce route but waited until the last minute, thereby obviating a trip to the grocery store on his way to picking you up.

Were you given a gift that he wrapped himself?

If the answer is yes, your boyfriend absolutely does not hate you. Hand-wrapped gifts are a very good sign. No one likes wrapping gifts. It sucks. So if the guy was willing to do something that sucked for him in order to make you feel a little bit extra special, that’s a good sign. Unless, of course, the gift he wrapped for you contained something along the lines of edible candy nipple tassels.

Were you given a gift that was responsive to something in which you’ve indicated interest?

If the answer is yes, there is no chance whatsoever that your boyfriend hates you. In fact, you’re among the luckiest one percent because that means you’ve got a guy who actually listens to you when you talk and who was willing to think creatively about you when planning his gift. In other words, you’re dealing with a guy who might even be genuinely interested in you as a person.

Did he include a card with the gift?

If the answer is no, your boyfriend probably hates you. Please pause and consider all of the times your mom yelled at you for not sending her a birthday card, wherein her central message was probably something like, “You couldn’t even take 15 minutes out of your day to buy a card and write a coherent message in it, which says a lot about how much I mean to you.” Now take that statement and apply it to your guy.

And last (but not least):

Were you given a gift from Victoria’s Secret?

If the answer is yes, your boyfriend might not hate you. But he is a generic douche.

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How to Tell Whether Your Boyfriend Hates You is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. How to Lose a Non-Lawyer Boyfriend
2. I’m a 2L Who Hates the Law
3. How to Lose a Non-Lawyer Boyfriend

With Spring Break two weeks away and Barristers Ball six weeks away, law students scramble to get in shape.

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Law Student Abs is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Law Prom—I Mean Barristers Ball
2. Nick Thompson: Toughest Law Student Ever
3. I’m a 4th-Tier, Mid-Ranked Law Student

Click here to view the full comic.

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Why So Many Lawyers Wear Glasses is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Second Career Lawyers
2. Bitter Brief, ep. 05: Bar Exam Edition, Plus Lawyers in Pop Culture
3. Lawyer Heaven

Cheese and crackers—what the hell is wrong with Florida? I’m not talking about the nice touristy areas where I can sip on a delicious fruity mixed drink while rocking a Tommy Bahama shirt and white linen pants. Nor am I referring to the retirement villages full of people cheating at golf and waiting to die. I’m talking about the people who call it home. Natural born Floridians top the list of dumbest people in America. Florida truly is the ass-backward armpit of America. Let’s have a round-up of news from America’s penis (hanging long and a little to the left).

Police in Florida arrested Alicia Martin and Kathryn Rayannic at The Waterfront Restaurant this weekend for being “disorderly.” The gripe against the two ladies stems from their attempt to “get creative in an attempt to keep their ‘excessive’ bar tab going.” The terrible twosome’s plan: “They were offering to show their boobs for drinks.” When fellow patrons refused their offer, Martin and Rayannic were asked to leave. Outside, Martin punched the restaurant’s manager in the back of the head and pulled a knife on the chef. Chicks, man. I thought we have reached a point in the world when ladies don’t have to rely on their looks to get them through life. How rough must you have been to pull a knife on someone who denied your motorboat offer.

Buzz. Your girlfriends . . . woof. Generally most men would be willing to throw down a credit card for a look at a set of jugs, but when you look like Bebop and Rocksteady you need to try a different tactic. If anything, just friend the hot blonde at the end of the bar, and when all the guys blow a week’s paycheck for her maybe she will throw you a couple of pity drinks.

Who says Disney is the only place to have family fun in Florida? Meet the Brannin Bunch: Grandpa Allen, 54; his daughter, Amy, 34; her son, Austin, 18; and Tyler Cannon, 18, a close relative, were all arrested for manufacturing methamphetamine. Three generations of doing stupid stuff for money. Kind of like the Kardashians of crystal meth. Except the Brannins actually work. I’ve never made meth but it looks pretty intense on Breaking Bad. Nonetheless, family businesses like the Brannins are apparently the backbone of the economy. That probably explains why the economy has been in the shitter.

Speaking of shitters, this week alone two Florida men were charged with hiding crack in, well, their crack. Ramon Blair was arrested on possession charges after police found $100 work of crack “on his person.” Later, police told Blair to “undress, squat, and cough.” This resulted in the discovery of a wad of paper towels (a manpon, if you will) full of approximately $300 worth of crack cocaine falling from his backside.

Meanwhile, authorities in Jacksonville “found cocaine in the buttocks of a one-legged suspect seen hopping away from a car.” Aristo Wyman had stuffed a bag of cocaine in between his cheeks after police responded to a call about suspected drug activity. While you shouldn’t do drugs, or try to hide them in your ass, I think the real lesson is that when you become a pogo stick you got to retire from the drug game. It’s one of the Crack Commandments. Hopping away from a drug bust with crack falling out your ass is not a good look, bro. Time to find a new game . . . just not hopscotch.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a good Florida wrap-up without mentioning some redneck racin’. Joseph Carrara decided to kick off the NASCAR opening a week early in Daytona. The 22-year-old decided to travel down the International Speedway Boulevard after a night out on the town drinking what I can only imagine was some Old Milwaukee tall boys. You know its going to be a good story when it starts with Carrara crashing into the county jail at 3:30 a.m. Carrara dropped the truck into reverse and went back out for a late night drive. Around 4:20 a.m. he nearly slammed into a deputy’s cruiser, missing by only inches. Carrara was finally stopped and charged with criminal mischief, damage to property, trespassing, DUI and reckless driving. Too bad he didn’t Dale Earnhardt himself.

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Florida: More Than Just A Place To Die is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Bitter Brief, ep. 02: Superman’s Citizenship, Choking the Goat in Florida, and Alec Baldwin

Each Saturday we reach into the fridge and pull out the best leftovers to eat. That is, the most-read posts of the past week, which for the work week ending February 17, 2012, include:

1. Ten Law School Couples, Annotated
2. How Big Firm Associates Communicate
3. Pilgrimage to the Job God
4. Wafflicious Valentine’s Day Tips from a Divorce Lawyer
5. I Lied to a Partner About Girl Scout Cookies

Looking for more? Start here or dig into the Bitter Lawyer archives, featuring more than 1,600 articles, comics, videos, and podcasts.

Post image from Shutterstock

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Top Posts of the Past Week (Ending February 17, 2012) is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Top Posts of the Past Week (Ending February 10, 2012)
2. Caption This! February 10, 2012
3. Caption This! February 17, 2012

What in the Bitter Retro Lawyer is going on here?

Put your lawyerly wisdom to the test and post a comment below or on Facebook with a witty, hilarious, or brilliant caption to this retro clip art, courtesy of Shutterstock.com. And keep it clean(ish) and, y’know, respectful.

The editors’ pick will be announced next week, and then we’ll post the clip art with the text on Facebook.

Last Week’s Winner

Peter Kelly submitted last week’s Caption This! winning entry with “Yes, Timmy, Daddy even kept your conception within a 6-minute billing block.”

Thanks for all the submissions and keep them coming, here or on Facebook.

Vector-based clip art courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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Caption This! February 17, 2012 is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Caption This! February 10, 2012
2. Caption This! February 3, 2012
3. Caption This! January 13, 2012

Click here or on the image for a larger version.

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One Lawyer’s Letter to Another, Explained is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Rejection Letter
2. Second Career Lawyers
3. Attention Idiot Lawyers: Business Casual Explained

QI’m a fairly new associate at a large firm. Recently, a partner made the rounds at the firm—at least on my floor in my practice group—telling us that his daughter is a Girl Scout and is selling Girl Scout cookies. Would I be interested, he asked. Honestly—and I know I’m in the minority on this—I don’t like Girl Scout cookies and get royally annoyed every year by the hypercompetitive industrial oversell of them. But that’s another story, and I didn’t launch into that story when I answered the partner.

I lied. I said, “No, thanks, I’m diabetic.” He said he didn’t know that and then mentioned his sister who struggles with diabetes and that his brother-in-law is a “saint” who took charge of her nutrition and keeps her healthy. I kept up the lie, even though I had a soda on my desk at the time and was eating caramel popcorn at a meeting with him earlier in the week (I didn’t think of these things at the time.)

Now—and it’s actually been less than a week—the partner emailed me a diabetic’s recipe list from his brother-in-law and mentioned to me that I should tell HR about my “condition.” Yesterday I had to think twice about what not to take with me to a practice group meeting and I’ve started to research what I—as a diabetic—can or cannot eat, drink, or do. I’m going nuts, and it’s only about six days. Should I spill the beans and ‘fess up or try to maintain the charade temporarily then let it die? I think I’m screwed.

AScore! You just took a $40 high-impact opportunity and squandered it. First, if it ever happens again—and given your response I doubt that it will—swallow your “industrial oversell” conspiracy theory and say, “awesome, my mom loves Thin Mints and can’t get them where she live. I’ll take ten boxes” Cost: $40. Impact: a spot on the partner’s “someone to remember” list.

The reality? You’ve got an associated mess on your hands that’s difficult to come out from unscathed. I see four choices:

1. Keep up your secret life as a non-diabetic diabetic. Hey, maybe it’ll be an adventure and you’ll lose a little weight, discover the joys of method acting, and bond with the partner over a fake common interest.
2. Start looking for another job because you’re fucked. Who wants a lying sack of shit around? Although once you get caught—and you will get outed, it’s only a matter of time—you may get points for being a scheming, manipulative, and creative associate who thinks “outside the box.” Y’now, partner material.
3. Do nothing and hope the whole thing dies a slow death. Given the partner’s enthusiasm for your predicament—which may actually be a sly way of saying “game on, pal, I know what you are trying to do”—I doubt it will die off without a lot of pain.
4. Walk into the partner’s office tomorrow with a check for ten boxes of Do-Si-Dos and five boxes of Thin Mints. Say “Sorry, I was so swamped when you came by and didn’t know how to say no without sounding like an ass. I’m not diabetic. I don’t know why I said that. My bad.”

I’d pick door number four. Mostly because I’m a terrible actor. And I happen to be eating a box of Do-Si-Dos as I write this.

Post image from BrunoSINNAH/ Shutterstock.com

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I Lied to a Partner About Girl Scout Cookies is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Girl-on-Girl Crime
2. I Loaned a Partner $20
3. I’m Gunning for Partner

One day. Day m*th#rf*ck^ng one! That is how long my first summer internship lasted. I blame that label maker. That goddamn label maker.

8:45 AM

I ran into the office, sweating. Did Bossman tell me to come in at 8:30 AM, or was it 9? Why wouldn’t I write that down? Shit. I tepidly walked into Bossman’s office.

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Label Me the Fired Intern is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Label Me the Fired Intern
2. Bitterly Useful: Coping with Being Fired
3. Interview with Joe Escalante: Host of Barely Legal Radio and Owner of Kung Fu Records

Bitter Lawyer is considering adding Stephanie Cohen’s Not So Legal Show to its regular schedule. But, before we do, let us know what you think.

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Not So Legal Show: Wal-Mart Ladies is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

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1. Bitter Gift Guide: Ladies
2. The Good Wife: Non-Lawyers Behind That Lawyer Show
3. Lawyer Show

One of the more popular notions around “modern” law schools today is that the traditional practice of teaching “Black Letter Law” (that is, teaching students what the law actually says) is, at best, only a tangential concern. What students really need, the modern theory goes, is “practical experience.”

Of course, we can’t simply throw students into an actual courtroom and have them “give it the ol’ college try” (well, technically we could, and it would likely be just fine, but the ABA gets all testy about that sort of thing and most schools like being accredited). So how do we get students something that looks superficially like the experience they will need?  ”Skills” courses, of course.

Law schools are pushing students towards skills courses with increasing fervor on the theory that controlled classroom environments are adequate substitutes for real-world experiences with difficult clients or complex ethical situations. If only students spent more time working through “simulations” (which are, with due respect to Douglas Adams, almost, but not quite, entirely unlike reality), those students would understand exactly how to handle a director-level corporate client who has not been contradicted at work since 1978.

There is, after all, no better preparation for the chaos of reality than a thoroughly contrived “case” where the shred of suspension of disbelief depends upon the acting abilities of a student partner who is so unbelievably socially inept that he (or she) voluntarily applied to law school. Don’t believe anyone who points out that a 1968 copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” contains more (and often better) advice; the class is many orders of magnitude more expensive and therefore obviously superior. So sayeth the law school.

They sayeth wrong(eth).

Knowing the Black Letter law inside out and backwards is the foundation of everything that you’ll be doing. Knowing the Black Letter law is the difference between creating an estate plan which allows a client to fully utilize every available credit and one which involves your client’s children suing you for malpractice. It’s the difference between allowing your client to avoid stupid “gotchas” in the law and having your client sue you for malpractice.  It’s the difference between being able to win a case for your plaintiff or having your client sue your for malpractice.  (I think the point here is starting to get through.)

Black Letter law is the font from which everything else flows, especially with the current trend toward codification of nearly everything.

Of course, not every Black Letter class is equal. ConLaw 57, The Third Amendment, for example, is probably a not the most efficient way to spend your time. Estate and Gift Taxation, Employment Law, or Criminal Procedure, however, are going to be quite useful. And your approach to the class is important too. The gunners don’t get it right.

For example, say you have a Business Orgs question about an unscheduled meeting with an eight-member board, four of whom are available, one is in a local hospital for “minor surgery”, one is in Europe, and two are mountain climbing with malfunctioning satellite phones but internet at the base camp. The gunner answer involves things like provisions in the articles for a three-member quorum, authorization of the use of text messaging over the internet, Skyping with the mountain climbers, or waking up the guy in Europe for a conference call. The practical answer is to have the board meeting in the hospital room; fancy over-complicated answers look impressive but tend to, well, kind of suck in the real word.

Where the rubber meets the road, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about with Black Letter law. There’s just no other way to understand the boundaries of what can and cannot be done and which options are realistically available to your future clients. Anyone can learn how to deal with people, listen with empathy, and coach someone through a rough spot while maintaining personal integrity. If you want to learn how to speak well in front of people, join Toastmasters. If you want to learn how to interact with people, take a Dale Carnegie course. Those resources will always be there. They are not going away and they take little enough time that you can incorporate them into even a law school student’s or practicing attorney’s schedule.

Once you’re out of law school, though, there really aren’t great places to get instruction on Black Letter law. Now is your chance. Use it.

Post image from Shutterstock

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Black Letter Practicality and Law School is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Nix the Crappy Cover Letter, Let’s Talk Kickbacks
2. Responding to a Form Cover Letter
3. Rejection Letter

Watch the rest of the Bottom Rung, including character sketches of the dreamers, gunners, and lifers who make up document review.

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The Bottom Rung – Episode 4 is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. The Bottom Rung – Episode 3
2. The Bottom Rung – Episode 2
3. Meet Dave Adler, UPenn Law Grad (and Comedian)

Big firm lawyers spend years training to be precise with their language. Partners reinforce that message by providing new associates with illegible markups of draft briefs or merger agreements and regaling them with stories of misplaced commas that cost clients katrillions of dollars.

So you can imagine my confusion when I started my career in BigLaw and discovered the huge gap in meaning between what people say and what people think. Even the most basic and routine interactions take on a form of their own when they occur in a law firm. Take the frequent example of two associates having a chance encounter in the elevator. The conversation is broken down to reflect the differences between the spoken word and its true meaning.

Associate 1: Oh. Hi.
Translation: Why did you have to get on the elevator . . . Fuck.

Associate 2: Uh, hi.
Translation: Fuck. You probably think I should be working right now.

Associate 1: You busy? Working this weekend?
Translation: If I had any ability to interact socially with a human being, or knew anything about you other than what practice group you were in, I would reference one of your interests right now. Instead, how’s work?

Associate 2: Probably a little bit. Not too bad. How about you?
Translation: How did you know I’m not working this weekend? Do you have access to my billing records?

Associate 1: (long exaggerated sigh)
Translation: I don’t know which of the canned responses to the “are you busy” question I should go with right now.

Associate 2: That sucks.
Translation: Yes, when needed, I can be compassionate towards another human being.

Associate 1: It is what it is. Want to grab lunch?
Translation: The elevator takes way too long to get to the lobby. I hate you. I’m hungry.

Associate 2: Ah, sorry. Can’t today. Got a call.
Translation: I would like to grab lunch. But I am now lying to you about a call so that I can seem busy and so that I can lock the door to my office and read the internet for the rest of the day.

It turns out that some form of the question “are you busy” is a proxy for all communication between associates. Be warned. Only a handful of acceptable responses exist, and none of the acceptable responses carry the meaning that they would seem to convey.

Response 1: “Yeah, you know how it is.” Actual meaning: “I was told that this job would mean sacrificing my life and working around the clock, but I have been here seven months and have yet to receive my first assignment. I still never leave before 8:00.”

Response 2: “Pretty busy. Not too bad.” Actual meaning: “I have nothing to do, but I am lying to you because I am hypercompetitive and I realize that telling you the truth might cause you to think that you are superior to me in some way. Also, I don’t want assignment to a new matter.”

Response 3: No verbal response, but a long exaggerated sigh intended to convey exhaustion. Actual meaning: “I’m billing between three and five hours a day, mostly to pro bono. However, I definitely don’t want to do any other work, and I want you to think that I am working my ass off.”

Response 4: “I’m not busy at all.” Actual meaning: “I am quitting soon.”

And associates who are actually busy don’t waste their time riding up or down elevators.

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How Big Firm Associates Communicate is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Top 5 Hobbies for Big Firm Associates
2. Partner to Associates: Stop Being ‘Entitled, Whiny Pussies’
3. Partner to BL1Y: Associates are 'Self-Absorbed Egotists'

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a tribute to the most commonly seen law school couples: the good, the bad, and the thank-god-you’re-currently-single.

1. Thing 1 and Thing 2

These two are constantly together, and usually not as adorable as the Dr. Seuss characters. They’re intentionally taking most (if not all) of the same classes, they sit together in those classes, they probably only have one set of notes/outlines between them, and one of them is usually paying hundreds of dollars a month for an apartment he/she can pretend to live in should a conservative family member ever ask or visit.

2. Jekyll/Hyde

These two either love or hate each other, no in between. They are borderline psychotic. Jealous and possessive are understatements. Everything starts a fight: things like one of them choosing to work with someone else on a non-graded, in class, practice exercise. It’s like they’re competing to see who can be the most absurd, and the winner may literally end up peeing on the other to mark his/her territory. If your morbid sense of curiosity gets the best of you, just check Facebook. Every break up and subsequent make up is documented. You almost envy the free time they have to devote to this kind of extensive back and forth.

3. Wait. Those Two are Dating?

Somehow, these two have managed to slip below the general populace radar. Their friends and roommates know they’re dating, but social media, and consequently most of the class, doesn’t. After a few months—with a couple of drunken public make outs and the occasional lingering after class for each other—people start to put it together.

4. High School Flashback

This is the law school version of the high school senior preys on dates a freshman cliché. The “upperclassman” is a male (usually a 2L, not sure 1Ls even register on 3L radar) and the “freshman” is a female 1L. This goes one of two ways. It turns into a legitimate, healthy, long-term relationship. Or, much more commonly, the 1L incorrectly assesses the 2L’s interest and becomes a Stage 5 Clinger.

5. Forever Together

These two are not actually dating, but they might as well be a couple. They’re usually best friends and/or roommates, and you don’t get one without the other—they even drive to class together. They’re almost identical to Thing 1 and Thing 2, except they are adorable. They get nominated as a joke for the school’s Cutest Couple contest, and almost win.

6. Classmates with Benefits

“Friends” may be too generous a label. They aren’t sitting together in class or sharing outlines. They barely speak in public at school. You see them leaving the bar together on occasion, and that’s about it. Do not mistake this to mean either is available for a more committed relationship. Something about the purely physical nature of their companionship typically indicates a type of unavailability you’re better off avoiding.

7. Pam and Jim

Of course they’re together. Everything about them as a couple is endearing. Maybe at first you didn’t see it coming, and then you had a Kevin-PBJ-what-a-waste moment. The only negative thing about this couple is that at least one half of all of the other actual couples mistakenly believes they are this couple.

8. Going the Distance

These law students have taken “don’t crap where you eat” to the extreme. Some students met their partners before law school, some during school, some are married, some long term, and some just beginning. Hard to generalize, but usually involves weekend disappearances, intense phone attachment, a non law school partner, being creative about activities to do “together,” and one or both of them saying, “Can we please not talk about law school?” at least once a week.

9. Already Married

Like Going the Distance, the married couple can take on many forms. Getting married between college and law school will, if nothing else, have saved them the paranoia of planning a wedding while learning about inter-vivos gifts and breaches of contract. It will also have spared them the drama and expense of having to decide which law school classmates and how many to invite. In any case, if these two can make it through law school, they can probably make through anything.

10. Half and Half

This is a current law student dating a geographically nearby non law student. Also takes on two forms: long term (and likely living together) or just began recently. Long Term Partner may in fact be a saint, having essentially uprooted his/her previous life to come with Student to law school. If Long Term Couple has made it through 1L with both parties still breathing and they aren’t married, expect to see the ring soon. Just Beginning is hardly worth talking about. If they do exist, they won’t for long.

PS: Tonight’s as good a night as any to uncork that bottle of wine you’ve been saving for “something special.”  It doesn’t get more “special” than celebrating your involvement—or lack thereof—in one of these dynamic duos.

Post image from Shutterstock

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Ten Law School Couples, Annotated is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Law School Stockholm Syndrome
2. Is This Law School or Junior High?
3. Welcome Home, Law School

Law school is almost over, and I’ve developed a case of Lawyeritis.

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Lawyeritis is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

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Pilgrimage to the Job God is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Bitter Lawyer to Premiere New Web Series
2. Legal Humor Roundup for November 11, 2011
3. I Think the Market is Too Bad to Go to Law School, Right?

Is there a better made up holiday than Valentine’s Day? For couples, love is in the air tomorrow. For those who are single, the worst day imaginable is tomorrow. No matter. We here at Bitter Lawyer have you covered in all your big V-day woes. Many of you might already have your plans set. Flowers ordered. Reservations made. Fresh sheets on the bed. Personally, I will just be waiting for Paige Brenner to return my phone call. But if you are still pondering your Valentine’s Day plans, let me help.

Courting

Let’s face it—no matter what you do tomorrow you will not be a better boyfriend than Terry Glen Doxey. The Michigan man, 47, was arrested this week after his own “Say Anything” moment outside his girlfriend’s window. The problem for Doxey is that his girlfriend is in jail and, instead of holding a boombox, he was holding, well, something else. According to the police report, Doxey was spotted in his Cadillac pleasuring himself so that his girlfriend could watch from her jailhouse window. Talk about being caught red handed. Apparently, conjugal visits just aren’t enough for these two lovebirds. Doxy’s girlfriend is not going to be released from a sentence for retail theft until September 2012. Doxey was charged with felony indecent exposure. He should be charged with best boyfriend ever.

Gifts

Gifts are a key part to a successful Valentine’s Day. Thus, if your gift includes giving any of the following I suggest making a trip to the mall as soon as possible: a Facebook poke; divorce papers; a gift card; the movie “He’s Just Not Into You”; a health club membership; a rash; leftover Halloween chocolate; a DNA test; a homemade coupon book; carnations.

Dinner

Did you forget to make dinner reservations? No worries. No worries, Waffle House will help you scatter, smother, and cover your date with “a night of greasy, syrupy wafflicious romance.” The reservation-only dinners are outfitted with 5-star amenities such as: tablecloths, cloth napkins, and alcohol-free champagne. Baller. Better yet, “Hot & Steamy” night at White Castle comes with a free dessert and fresh cut flowers (and an easy excuse when he asks if you are in the mood later on in the night).

If you are planning to make the biggest mistake of your life propose to the love of your life on Valentine’s day, you might be interested in Pizza Hut’s Tie the Knot with the $10 Dinner Box. For $10,010, you get a red ruby ring, limo service, fireworks, flowers, photographer, and a videographer. Oh, and a $10 pizza box, which contains five breadsticks with marinara sauce and 10 cinnamon sticks with extra icing. Even if she says no, you can return it all to Pizza Hut later. Sign me up.

Dessert

Obviously, nothing says “I’m probably getting laid tonight” than breadsticks with marinara sauce. Thus, when it comes to lovemaking, feel free to splurge on protection. If you really want to impress the ladies, whip out the latest in condom design: Louis Vuitton rubbers. These condoms, designed by artist Irakli Kiziria, are outfitted with the highly recognizable (albeit knock-off) LV branding on the packaging for your package. Nothing says “safe” like a knock-off condom. One prophylactic costs $68.00, so no matter how the night turns out you are getting screwed.

Post image from Shutterstock.

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Wafflicious Valentine’s Day Tips from a Divorce Lawyer is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Top Divorce Settlements
2. Clever Career Tips
3. More Clever Career Tips

Each Saturday we reach into the fridge and pull out the best leftovers to eat. That is, the most-read posts of the past week, which for the week ending February 10, 2012, include:

1. Tom Brady Probably Sucks in Bed
2. The Five Types of Personal Injury Plaintiffs
3. Yep, This Semester Will Be Different, Better
4. Devolution of the Lawyer
5. What a Lawyer Does

Looking for more? Start here or dig into the Bitter Lawyer archives, featuring more than 1,600 articles, comics, videos, and podcasts.

Post image from Shutterstock

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Top Posts of the Past Week (Ending February 10, 2012) is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Caption This! February 10, 2012
2. Caption This! February 3, 2012
3. Caption This! Week of February 1, 2009

Click here or on the image for a larger view.

Images from Shutterstock

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What A Lawyer Does is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Lawyer Heaven
2. Kid Lawyer
3. Depositions with Kid Lawyer

What in the Bitter Retro Lawyer is going on here?

Put your lawyerly wisdom to the test and post a comment below or on Facebook with a witty, hilarious, or brilliant caption to this retro clip art. And keep it clean(ish) and, y’know, respectful.

The editors’ pick will be announced next week, and then we’ll post the clip art with the text on Facebook.

Last Week’s Winner

In a hard choice among some great entries, MPrince submitted last week’s Caption This! winning entry with:

“Watch as the prosecutor will now take apart the witness.”

(This week’s image source: Shutterstock Clip Art Images)

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Caption This! February 10, 2012 is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Caption This! February 3, 2012
2. Caption This! January 13, 2012
3. Caption This! January 6, 2012

Dave Adler is the epitome of a dreamer. But he’s in denial about it. He thinks he’s different from Tim and Frank, because he is 100 percent going to “make it.” Yet, he is blind to the facts, which are that he has had zero success as a comedian.

Unfortunately, since he went to a great school (UPenn, not Penn State)—and he pretty much threw it all away for comedy—he refuses to accept that it’s not working out. Instead, he has chosen to trudge through the world of document review, convinced that he is only passing through for a short time. Through the course of the season, we will see him starting to actually fit in down there and get a little too comfortable with his life as a document reviewer. Obviously, having Paige to fantasize about makes it a lot easier. He has convinced himself that he’s only staying because he needs more time to convince her to get rid of her boyfriend and fall in love with him. It’s safe to say it’s a case of unrequited love . . . so far.

It seems a bit narcissistic and weird to talk about the actor that plays Dave, because, obviously, that’s me. I took on the role because, as someone who has done document review and performs standup, I felt I could relate to the character. Who am I kidding, I took on the role because, if I am going to write and produce a series about document reviewers, I’d be a fool not to put myself in it. I really hope I don’t suck, and I hope all of the other fantastic actors around me cover for my shortcomings.

How similar I am to Dave? I’m only “slightly” more successful than Dave. But I’ve got a bit of Tim Kennedy (constant scheming) and a tad of Locker (anger about the world) in my real life.

Watch the rest of the Bottom Rung, including character sketches of the dreamers, gunners, and lifers that make up document review.

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Comedian Matt Ritter as Dave Adler, and Vice Versa is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Meet Dave Adler, UPenn Law Grad (and Comedian)
2. Interview with Matt Ritter: Comedian, Former Lawyer, and Creator of the Bottom Rung
3. Comedian Hailey Boyle as the Doc Review Grinch

Everyone at my firm is calling me “cupcake.” It’s been this way for the past two weeks. And before you jump to conclusions about my appearance, I want to be clear—I’M A MAN.

We’re not a big law firm. We’re 20 lawyers in a smallish city with a close-knit legal community. Word travels fast. Nicknames stick in a place like this.

Two weeks ago, we had a birthday party for one of our paralegals. But instead of the usual cake, the secretary who handles these events bought some of those giant, expensive bakery cupcakes.

We all gathered around to sing happy birthday, and when I got a look at the dessert, I overreacted after a long day by saying something like: “Ooh, cupcakes.”

Our managing partner, who is normally a pretty decent guy, said something like “Have at it, Cupcakes.” Everyone looked at me and busted up. I didn’t think it was that funny, but if everyone is laughing, you either laugh with them or they laugh at you. And I didn’t want to be the humorless guy in the office.

I thought all would be forgotten, but I was wrong. They’ve put “cupcake” on my door or started addressing memos to “cupcake” YET, but at least once a day, someone uses the nickname and anyone who’s around thinks that person is hilarious.

The worst was when another associate called me “Mr. Cupcake” before a deposition—in front of opposing counsel.  The other lawyer didn’t act like he heard it, but it was weird, and it knocked me off my game a little.

Afterward, I pulled the guy aside and told him to act like a professional. He apologized. But back at the office, all of the partners were still calling me cupcake. Telling them to stop is sort of fruitless because it all started with the boss.

The managing partner came to my office at the end of the day.  I was in the process of bringing it p when he told me I could be lead counsel on a small trial case I really wanted.  Then I was so excited that I thought the nickname didn’t matter anymore, but as of the next day, it still did.

I wish I could send some Michael Scott email about professionalism to the whole office.

It’s humiliating. If I even hear it out of a support staff member’s mouth, I’ll go postal.

Have a story from the trenches? Send it our way via editor@bitterlawyer.com. If we publish it as part of the Bitter and Abused series, we’ll send you a $25 gift card.

Post image from Shutterstock

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Stop Calling Me Cupcake is a post from the BigLaw legal humor, video, and news site Bitter Lawyer

Read More:

1. Next Stop: Supreme Court
2. Stop–I Got Enough
3. Partner to Associates: Stop Being ‘Entitled, Whiny Pussies’