Many people do not know that Evan “Notes from the (Legal) Underground” Schaeffer and I both live in St. Louis and once worked, although at different times, for big law firms.
The difference between us is that, after Evan’s post on the practice of some big law firms of “scrubbing” their websites of the biographies and contact information of associates, I at least have some chance of being able to work at a big law firm again, while Evan might have blown his last chance. Not that Evan really cares about that.
You see, Evan returned home fresh from a vacation in Prague and was hit with the disturbing story of the “associate scrubbing” practices that gained so much attention lately. His take on the topic, which illustrates why I’ve long said that Evan is the legal blogger most likely to end up writing for television or movies in the near future, is an instant classic, even though some might think that he “pushes the envelope” in his tale of the future of these types of practices.
I, for one, think that his description of law firms continuing to make dead associates meet a 2,400 minimum billable hours requirement is way over the top and quite unfair. At most, law firms would only make a deceased associate’s estate pay the fines for not turning in time sheets in a timely fashion.
I’d also like to thank Evan for again leading the way in showing that lawyers can use the “f-word” in their blogs. I can’t remember if Evan was the first (there have been several instances over the years), but I’m grateful to Evan and the others that have shown that it can be done.
I’m still too uptight to go in that direction (or maybe I haven’t found the right opportunity yet). Heck, the farthest I’m willing to go is to link to Mark Pilgrims’s classic quote on the difference between personal and corporate blogs.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]