Sunday, April 22, 2007

Another one bites the dust

Someone I know up until yesterday was working as a Biglaw associate. Yesterday, he quit. And he sent a bunch of us the following email.

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I made $140,000 last year. I billed 2,100 hours. That comes out to $66.66/hr (Do you think this number is a coincidence?) In addition to billing, I was probably in the office an additional 700 hours in non-billables. So, $140K/2800 comes to exactly $50/hr.

A list of other jobs where people earn more than $50/hr:
1. Doctors (except lawyers are bad at science, can't stand the sight of blood, and many of us are failed pre-meds in the first place)
2. I-bankers (except lawyers are bad at math, which is why we're lawyers and not I-bankers)
3. Strippers, male and female (except most lawyers are ugly, and couldn't have a successful career stripping)
4. Crack whores (except lawyers feel they're too good to be screwed by anyone, which is why we only let ourselves be screwed by partners and clients)
5. Contractors in Iraq (except lawyers don't like to be shot at and would wet their pants if they were airdropped into Iraq)
6. Waiters at good restaurants (except lawyers feel we're too good to be taking orders from strangers and will only do so from partners and S&M dominatrixes)
7. Plumbers (I paid $200 for a plumber to spend 15 minutes to unclog my sink--lawyers feel that we're too good to be doing menial jobs with our hands that don't involve jerking off in the firm bathroom)
8. Working for google (except most of us weren't technical majors and instead were English majors, which is why we're not working for google now)
9. Drug dealers (except most of us have a nasty coke habit we can't break and would snort away all our merchandise to be a good dealer)
10. Law firm clients.

Anyway, I just quit. And lots of the other associates were jealous. If a partner at WLRK, the biggest baddest firm in the universe, recently quit to become a social worker, you know that I'm not making that bad a choice.
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He is on a flight right now to Peru. Anyway, I found his email to be encouraging advice for law students who are now in the midst of finals, as we get a glimpse of the light awaiting all of us at the end of the law school tunnel.

3 Comments:

Blogger M.T. said...

Personally, he sounds like a whiny bitch. Sure, Biglaw is a lot of hours, but few other careers offer the instant gratification of $$ like associates earn.

Why do lawyers insist that other jobs are so much better? I'd rather be an attorney for $100k than a bank teller for $15k. Instead, most people at $100k seem to look at I-Bankers and get jealous.

1:34 PM  
Blogger nicolle said...

this has nothing to do with the post...but please, please tell me the name is an allusion to pierson v. post. that would amuse me so much. :)

5:06 PM  
Blogger RandomlySane said...

good for him (says a pre-L)...i fervently hope that i don't end up as a miserable associate...

10:36 AM  

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