I’ve got two things today. The first is a slice of Happy Hour is for Amateurs dealing with the bane of every associate’s existence, and every client’s pocketbook – billable hours. If you know anything about the legal profession, you’ve heard how they’re routinely inflated. Heard of the studies showing that 20, 30% of lawyers pad their time. You might have read an article I did with the guys at Bitterlawyer.com outlining the more subtle forms of it.
No need to rehash that here. We all know how the recent “law-firms-as-unit-salesman” model has compelled all sorts of fraud. This piece addresses a different issue – a more finite, amusing one… How a lawyer allegedly billing 2400 hours a year – and yes, that’s exceedingly common – could achieve such an amazing feat:
The second thing I have is a review of the book, one that just appeared last night. “Why cite this?” you might be thinking. There’s a simple reason for that. When I started writing the book, some people were critical of the approach taken. Said you couldn’t vein a serious message through three hundred pages of obnoxious humor. Said we either had to aim for the frat boys who read one book a year, or the serious readers who’d only respond to a conveniently redemptive and re-affirming message, but that doing both was doom. My editors and I disagreed. Both are offensive conceits, built on awful stereotypes. The “frat boys” read a lot more than you think, and the truly “serious” book readers – those who read not to have their assumptions reinforced, but challenged – consume a lot of twisted literature. This reviewer understood… grasped how the comedy and the message of Happy Hour traded off one another. It’s nice when someone really gets it.
This is also a bit gratuitous. Nobody’s written a line like this about the book before: “Fight Club is a poor man’s Happy Hour is for Amateurs. That’s not a jab at good ole Chuck, just the truth.” I’ve never written for critics. But I’ll take those props where I can.
What about 3000+ hours a year. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/11/10/3200-hours-a-year-you-gotta-be-kidding-me/
I remember reading an article in the ABA journal some years back that featured nothing but 3000+ billers and the way they went about it. BS if you ask me.
PL: In a word, Fraud. The discussion need proceed no further. It is the definition of preposterous.
Congrats on the review, must be a good feeling.
Another feather in the cap.
Keep up the good work.
@
PL: It’s actually a bit critical, which is why I like it. The best books on Amazon are 3 and 1/2 to 4 stars. Hit 4 and 1/2 and you know you’ve kissed too much ass somewhere.
That was a great review, and you deserve the praise. I’m not qualified to throw out any extravagant comparisons, but I will say I’ve only read Fight Club once, and I’ve read your book at least 3 times.
That review made me think about why I like your writing so much. Sure, a lot of it is the humor and the sex and drugs. But why do I keep going back and rereading the same passages about how much law sucks, how every day in the office kills your soul, and how the system is Fucked? I mean, shit, I’m an 18 year old college freshman, what do I care about lawyers and office monkeys? I’m in a booze-soaked mecca of young, horny, nubile women!
Personally, I think its because your writing awakened a sort of Bullshit-Alarm in me. How to peel back layers of half-truths and procedure and everything we use to justify the real, ugly truth of why things are the way they are. Especially the psychology aspect of why otherwise intelligent people delude themselves so much.
That and one day I’m going to have to do something to feed this “entertaintment” budget, and I sure as shit don’t want to spend 10 years doing anything remotely related to any of the horrors you’ve detailed.
I know I’m speaking in general terms; I still can’t quite explain how Happy Hour affects me. I think that by using glaring, particularly heinous examples of how fucked up our systems and institutions are, you make the reader question and examine their own lives and situations in a different way. It changed my way of thinking. And made me respect my parents a LOT more for the shitty corporate work they go through to put me through college.
So keep on doing what you’ve been doing and I hope it sells like hotcakes. Any friend of mine in Pre-law is receiving a copy of your book for Christmas, except the Jew of course– he’ll make a great lawyer.
PL: You don’t have to explain in detail. As long as it got you thinking, and laughing, it’s achieved its goal. That’s all writing does. I’ve no certain answers. All I can do is point at the maze and say, “These doors right here? What’s behind them doesn’t match the advertising out front.”
The Irish are the finest native-born lawyers. “So you’re bad at math and like to hear yourself talk? Lazy and want to get paid a sharp premium to “phone it in”? Ever heard of the LSAT?”
I may be biased, having been president of my own fraternity, but the folks who insist frat boys read one book a year are also the folks who are reading marxist and feminist propaganda during their undergrad years. They’re less pragmatic than the frat boys, they don’t work as well with others, and they resent it. I recall having one discussion in the TKE house on campus around 2003 about the Fed, interest rates, and unsustainable real property values. Which of my critics were doing that?
The bottom line is, reading 2 good books is better than reading 10 propaganda pieces, but most people who read for the sake of learning don’t limit themselves to 2 books.
PL: Agreed. But you’d have as much luck explaining the nuances referenced above to an academic as you would advocating health care reform to Glenn Beck’s audience. Academics have a view about frat kids, and it’s as narrow as some of the frat kids’ views of academics. Silly, really, as there’s no reason for them to be mutually exclusive groups.
so now this site is just for advertising and stories gone to the wayside?
PL: Read the intro to these pieces. It’s in “1998.” I’ve just released the book in paperback and for a short period of time will be putting excerpts from the book online.
These are not stories gone to the wayside. They are actual pages from the book.
Saw over at Kaz’s new site that many Rudius sites are shutting down on Nov 1? Is this one of them? Are you migrating to a new home?
http://chasingkaz.ning.com/forum/topics/announcement-1
PL: I’m going to keep doing what I’ve always done – write. As has Kaz, I will continue.