The Howling of the Lawyers

Today, the New York Times unveiled an article that seemed to be one part plug for a new ABC show about lawyers, one part obituary for law school graduates. It is as horrifying as you would imagine. Let's explore.

The first-year corporate lawyers of “The Deep End,” a series that has its premiere on ABC this week, inhabit an alternative legal universe, where advancement on the partner track seems measured by their perfect grooming and ability to model designer suits and trade flirtatious banter.

While I've done my best to avoid promos of this show, it seems like the pitch was "Grey's Anatomy, but with lawyers. And Billy Zane." While it is nice to see that Billy Zane escaped the Titanic to become a lawyer who looks like an alien from the planet Botox, it seems that he unfortunately landed in a place where every character is someone we'd all love to set on fire.

In the sleek offices of the fictional firm Sterling Huddle Oppenheim & Craft, high above the Los Angeles smog canopy, life is a colorful, quip-filled adventure. “This is your lucky chance, your break in the clouds, your four-leaf clover,” a senior lawyer informs Dylan, a fresh Columbia Law School graduate, during his interview.

If I remember correctly, when the Joads set out for California to find new jobs, hope, and a colorful, quip-filled adventure, the Los Angeles smog canopy was the strongest selling point from their travel agent. And yes, since jobs are even more rare than four-leaf clovers, I would gladly shoot someone who came searchin' after me lucky charms.

Associates may grumble that the firm is a pit of back-stabbing, a machine that grinds young lawyers down. But they still find time for laughs over beers, games of basketball on a rooftop court and, of course, sex.

They put a basketball hoop on the roof? Aren't these people lawyers? Have they ever heard of the concept of liability? Good Lord. That's the problem with the legal profession today -- all these kids can think of is beer, basketball, and sex. And how you can disassociate beer and sex from the concept of a "machine that grinds young lawyers down" is beyond me.

Adventure? Laughter? Among law associates? This must be a period drama.

Or science fiction! OH SNAP!

In fact, “The Deep End” was conceived in 2007, that halcyon era of $160,000 starting salaries and full employment even for law grads who had scored in the 150s on their LSAT’s.

Of course! Why, you know what we call those who scored in the 150s on their LSATs at the Harvard Yard? No? "The help!" (Chuckles).

Those days are over. As the profession lurches through its worst slump in decades, with jobs and bonuses cut and internal pressures to perform rising, associates do not just feel as if they are diving into the deep end, but rather, drowning.

Ah, there's the rub! See how they transitioned here by using a clever metaphor to encapsulate the entire article in one pithy sentence while at the same time linking the lede about the show "The Deep End" with the meat of the article about the failing legal profession? Man, that's Journalism 101. Class, if the show had been called "The Brain Trust," what metaphor would the author have used instead? Anyone? Bueller? That's right! Heads are rolling! A's for everybody!

Lawyers who entered the field as recently as a few years ago could reasonably expect a life of comfort, security and social esteem. Many are now faced with a different landscape. Firms shed more than 4,600 lawyers last year, according to a blog that tracks the legal industry, Law Shucks.

Good Lord, you could at least warn us before you turn this into a horror story. Firms laid off 4,600 lawyers in the year? I assume that this number also doesn't include those laid off in the last quarter of 2008. Fun conversation with my grandfather a couple of months ago:

Me: Yes, so I'm having trouble finding a job.
Grandfather: Well, no shit. If people are getting fired everywhere, why would they turn around and hire some rookie who doesn't know anything?
Me: I ... uh ...
Grandfather: I'm sorry, I didn't mean for that too sound that harsh.
Me: That's OK.
Grandfather: But it's true.

Moving on.

For those just starting out, it’s easy to think that the rules have changed six minutes into the first period.

Wouldn't it be great if this was actually a game? I often have the following fantasy: If this were a football game, and we were only six minutes in, I'd immediately throw in a challenge flag. What's your challenge? Ref, I'm challenging my decision to go to law school. OK, let's review. (I pace around like a man waiting for an STD result). After review, incontrovertible video evidence shows that the call on the field was erroneous. The play is overturned and we will erase law school and kick off again. OH THANK GOD. And the crowd. Goes. Wild.

The main reason for the squeeze is the Great Recession, which has cut deeply into the kinds of companies — in financial services, real estate, high tech — that are the wellsprings of fees for corporate lawyers. The client companies that survived are doing fewer deals, and driving harder bargains with their lawyers: many negotiate a flat fee for the job, meaning firms can no longer bill by the hour for every legal eagle on the case.

Wait, you mean that people are demanding to know the cost of a service up front? Hahaha. Those poor, deluded bastards. What do they think this is, the health care system?

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What?

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Oh.

Never mind.

Even associates who find plenty to do worry that outstanding performance is no longer enough to protect them, said Daniel Lukasik, a Buffalo lawyer who runs an information and outreach Web site called Lawyers With Depression, adding that his traffic is up 25 percent since June, to about 25,000 visitors a month.

Lawyers already belong to the profession with the largest incidence of alcoholism, and law school students lead the nation in mental illnesses. The only surprise here is that a site called "Lawyers with Depression" does not boast a larger internet presence than Google.

A recent survey by the New York City bar association found that 50 percent of lawyers seeking counseling from its lawyer-outreach program list mental health as their primary concern, up from 40 percent in 2005.

As a positive, only 15 percent of attorneys list "everyone hates us" as the thing they most worry about, while only 12 percent mention "the certain damnation of my everlasting soul" as their chief concern.

It is more than dips in income that are reshaping the law firm culture. The prestige and self-identity of being a lawyer are in play. Pre-shakeout, lawyers could tell themselves that they were, if not exactly Masters of the Universe like investment bankers, perhaps Major-Domos of a Mid-Size Galaxy.

Major-Domos of a Mid-Size Galaxy? Really? That's what you went with? I'd love to see which phrase lost to "Major-Domos of a Mid-Size Galaxy." Chieftain of a Crab-shaped Nebula? Potentate of an Asteroid Belt? And why in the hell didn't they go Commander of a Black Hole? It would seem much more appropriate.

The life of a law associate may always have been a grind, in which associates got used to exchanging familiar nods with the late-night cleaning crew. But it was not an existential crisis, as many say it is today. People complained — but they did not howl.

In fact, if you listen really hard, you can hear that awful, ghastly noise coming from downtown -- the sound of lawyers howling in pain and anger, regret and fear. Howling like captives forced to keep rowing until their ship smashes against the rocks, hoping against hope that this is some sort of mistake, or a nightmare, perhaps -- that they will wake up soon and be rid of this curse, this burden, this monolith weighing down on their neck like some amulet forged in Hell.

Plenty of recent law school graduates are not finding work at all, said Eileen C. Travis, the director of the New York City bar association’s lawyer assistance program. “There is pretty much a freeze on hiring,” she said.

HOWWWWWWWWWL.