#biglaw

[danieltlukasik]

One Therapist's Take on Lawyer Addiction & Mental Health

This is a guest blog by Nicole Roder, LCSW-C, a bilingual DBT therapist in Bethesda, MD, certified by the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification. She is intensively trained in DBT, DBT prolonged exposure for PTSD, DBT for parents, couples, and families, and DBT for substance use disorders. In her practice, she treats adults and adolescents with BPD, PTSD, DMDD, SUD, and related disorders. The legal…

[luxurybrownbarbie]

I avoided any calls or payment plans towards my student loans for the 7 years it took to come off of my credit and record and now my credit is great, I can no longer be sued or money garnished from paycheck and it’s amazing.

Exactly, legend! People forget that acknowledging the debt in any way resets that clock.

And it’s not like the average person can buy a house in this market, so that hit to your credit isn’t even going to be that impactful tbh.

[antigonescholar]

Law students mind your own goddamn business for 2 seconds challenge

[genotama]

working in legal is so insane i lowkey hate when i get billable assignments bc why is the client paying the firm $200+/hour for my time and the firm is paying me. less than 1/4 of that. just blatant unashamed boss makes a dollar i make a dime-ism and thats like normal. thank god im so good at wage theft or id have to burn some buildings down

[moleshow]

now i dont mean to pooh-pooh this but what does it achieve. like i don't feel like this is actually anything. just bothering some students via text. and also if you say the wrong thing you have to talk to someone on the phone? bro?

[notoriousandnasty]

Tag catch up! What are some new things in your life since last season and what are you looking forward to the most this season?

Omg thanks for including me! So I guess an update is I’m going into my last year of law school and already panicking about the bar 😅🫠. Feeling quite past my prime these days but so happy to see this cast is a little older and not really the influencer type — I have high (and probably misplaced) hopes for this season! I’m excited to see what the twists are and how 25 seasons are being celebrated. And of course to be back on the tag talking about it!

[arthurlightstar]

Biglaw karis/Gortash au. Biglaw Karis/Gortash au. Biglaw-

[thebluestcowboy]

Sometimes my job is fine and sometimes it is so stressful that I don’t get to sleep and I want to tear my hair out and jump into the ocean

[danieltlukasik]

Can Creativity Help You Heal Depression? An Interview with Psychiatrist, Dr. Carrie Barron

  Dr. Carrie Barron is a board-certified psychiatrist on the Columbia College of Physicians an Surgeons clinical faculty who also has a private practice in New York City.  She has published in peer-reviewed journals, won several academic awards, and presented original works related to creativity and self-expression at national meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Along with her…

[immediacies]

five months since we took the bar and already two of my close law school friends have quit their firm jobs lmao

[mostlysignssomeportents]

SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules

Today (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby against our own survival:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article277266828.html

The criminal scheme is spelled out in eye-watering detail in a superb investigative report by Joe Rubin and Ari Plachta for the Sacramento Bee, which names the law firms and individual lawyers involved in the scam.

Here's the situation: SoCal Gas is California's private, regulated gas monopoly. They are allowed to lobby, but are legally required to charge their lobbying activities to their shareholders, and are prohibited from raising customer rates to pay for lobbying.

The company spent years secretly violating this rule, in the sleaziest way possible: working with corporate cartels like the California Restaurant Association and BizFed, the monopoly paid BigLaw white-shoe firms to procure people who posed as concerned citizens in order to oppose climate regulations that are essential to the state's very survival.

The bill topped $36 million – and it was illegally charged to its customers, the Californians whose immediate health and long-term survival these efforts opposed. SoCal Gas refuses to disclose the full extent of the spending, as do its lawyer-procurers, who cite legal confidentiality and a First Amendment right to secretly seek to influence policy in their refusal to disclose their profits from this illegal conduct.

The law firms involved are a who's-who of California's most prominent corporate fixers, including Reichman Jorgensen and Holland & Knight. The partners involved have a long rap sheet for anti-climate dirty tricking, most notably Jennifer Hernandez, notorious in climate justice history for an incident where activists claim she posed as one of them, infiltrating a campaign to force corporate despoilers to clean up their pollution in order to sabotage it, while secretly on a wealthy, prominent landowner's payroll.

Hernandez claims to care about the environment and says that her longstanding, corporate-funded, extensive campaigns and lawsuits against state environmental regulations are motivated by concern over their impact on working people. Her firm, Holland & Knight, denies serving SoCal Gas in opposing gas regulations, but it received $594k in ratepayer dollars, and submitted comments opposing the rules on its own behalf. Those comments were nearly identical to the comments submitted by SoCal Gas.

Hernandez also represents an obscure organization called The Two Hundred for Home Ownership in "a flurry of lawsuits" over California Air Resources Board rules on pollution, seeking to overturn the state's landmark climate change regulations.

Two Hundred for Home Ownership was founded by Robert Apodaca, who told the Bee that Hernandez's work for him is pro bono and not funded by SoCal Gas, but his entry into the fray occurred just as SoCalGas was founding an astroturf group called Californians for Fair and Balanced Energy (C4BES), which pretended to be an independent organization, disguising its relationship with SoCal Gas.

Apodaca is also founder of United Latinos Vote, an organization that had been largely dormant for seven years, not receiving any donations, until 2018, when the California Building Industry Association gave it $99k. The CBIA is a large-dollar recipient of donations from SoCal Gas, and its CEO insists that it was not acting on SoCal Gas's behalf when it made its unpredented donation to Apodaca.

The CBIA donation to United Latinos Vote was forerunner to a flood of corporate donations from the likes of Chevron, Marathon and Phillips 66. Shortly after receiving this cash, United Latinos Vote ran a full page ad in the LA Times, accusing the Sierra Club of pushing for anti-gas appliance rules that would harm working class Latino families.

This ad, in turn, featured prominently in advocacy by the SoCal Gas front group C4BES, funded with $29.1m in ratepayer money, which it then spent seeking to link clean appliance rules with anti-Latino racism. A quarter of California's carbon emissions come from home gas use.

SoCal Gas is regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which tolerated this mounting illegal conduct for many years, even as the company circulated internal memos as early as 2015 discussing its plans to oppose electrification in the state on the basis that it constituted "a significant risk to our business."

But last year, CPUC fined SoCal Gas $10m. Now, CPUC's Public Advocate office has filed a damning, extensive report on SoCal Gas's unlawful conduct, seeking $80m in rate cuts to compensate Californians for the funds misappropriated to protect the company's shareholder interests:

https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M517/K407/517407314.PDF

Additionally, the Public Advocate is demanding $233m in fines for the company's refusal to allow investigators to audit its books and discover the full extent of the fraud.

SoCal Gas is the nation's largest utility, but (incredibly), it's not the dirtiest. That prize goes to Ohio's FirstEnergy, which handed $60m in ratepayer dollars to state politicians in illegal bribes in exchange for coal and nuclear subsidies and cancellation of state climate rules. That scandal led to GOP speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder being sentenced to 20 years in prison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

There is something extraordinarily sleazy about using ratepayers' own money to lobby against their interests. SoCal Gas and its Big Law enablers have funneled millions in Californian's money into campaigns to poison us and boil us alive, and they did it while using workers and racialized people as human shields.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen

Image: Maryland GovPics (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/6635539089/

Jackie (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/79874304@N00/197532792

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[richmondflyingsquirrels]

biglaw roommate so excited at idea of me building an sff pc that he covered most of the components, the case, & all the peripherals. so for $820 (3070 ti gpu ~$640; going big on storage for $180) i’m getting a $1700 build

[visenyaism]

Hey! Love to read your analysis of asoiaf

Which targaryen do you think would make badass lawyers? Wha area of law do you think they would be working?

not many. i feel like it requires a combination of being combative and being stable and being a nerd which fits few members of the blood death conquest monarchy family tbh. that being said:

-rhaena the lesbian does evil powersuit biglaw

-jaehaerys i got a JD to be an asshole about it but does not actually use it

-viserys i extremely terrible constitutional law prof. i guess daemon was technically the DA of kings landing. jesus christ.

-daeron ii marginally better conlaw prof

-elaena private equity shark

-bloodraven was basically on that villainous DA-> supervillanous AG -> archvillainous US senator pipeline already. the riverlands dream. 

-egg would be a nepo baby public defender until it’s time to get a real job and take up the family senate seat

-honorable mention 1/4 targaryen stannis baratheon who was put on this earth to be a tax attourney and got forced to do everything else instead

[blacktabbygames]

Hi! I just finished Scarlet Hollow. First of all: holy shit!!! That was amazing and genuinely surprising, such excellent creative horror! Such a great sense of place, too, really rooted in the South without ever being patronizing about it. I can’t wait for chapter 5!

Second: Was one of you guys a former Big Law junior attorney? Because I was, and so of course I picked Book Smart, and then you absolutely fucking nailed the description of it. Even to the “free” (billed directly to the client) black car rides home if you stay late. Honestly, it kinda gave me flashbacks.

Anyway, great writing, a great game, just makes me want Autumn to come faster.

Ahahaha, one of us is a law school drop-out. I left in part because biglaw felt like one of the only options to pay off the exorbitant loans you need to take out to go to law school in the US and it sounded goddamn ~miserable~

[klanced]

katie your lawyer au tags have me on my knees I never thought guys in suits doing stuff would seem interesting but wow…wow. your mind

Thank u Anon this AU is incredibly indulgent for me.......... ok time 4 more world-building.

I think @heynhay's original idea of Keith & Lance working together at the same firm is best. For both plot reasons but also for my own morale LOL

So everyone works at a fairly large private firm that splits its practice and has some of its associates doing profit-driven law (i.e. corporate or finance) which subsidizes the public interest/service work that the other associates do.

The firm is like "Altea & Daibazaal LLP" or something. Yes I am implying that the firm was started by Alfor and Zarkon. Yes I am implying that Allura and Lotor are nepo babies.

I know I originally said that Keith and Lance were law school rivals but I've changed my mind... (RIP to the law school rivalry dynamics

Instead I'm making it so that Keith and Lance are the same age but Lance has been practicing longer because he went straight into law school after college. Whereas Keith started working after college and got like a Master's degree in Social Work or something before deciding on law school at 26. (I just think Keith is the kind of person who goes to law school later in life.)

Okay onto the specific Klance dynamics... Keith and Lance are both pushing 30 and are also literally lawyers so they are professional and serious about their work... But there is wiggle room for them to still be rivals :p

Lance and Keith are both junior associates at the firm. Lance has seniority because he's been at the firm longer but he's still a year or so away from formally becoming a senior associate.

Lance really, REALLY wants to make partner and he sees Keith as his biggest threat/rival because Keith is Shiro's little brother, and Shiro recently made partner at the firm, so Lance thinks Keith might be a nepo hire. Also some of the senior associates recently left the firm so now Lance is stuck showing Keith the ropes and he's lowkey super bitter about it.

Basically TLDR Lance starts off Not Liking Keith at all for various real or imagined reasons and begins a work rivalry with him. Keith doesn't actually GAF about making partner because he's only planning on working at the firm for a few years to help pay off his student loans, but Lance doesn't know that. However, Keith is a naturally very competitive person, and he also likes having Lance's attention, so Keith immediately goes all in on the rivalry.

Lance, internally: "This Fucking Guy."

Keith, internally: "I am so good at flirting."

The first few months are rough between them. However both are also incredibly productive in their work.

The romcom part of the AU kicks in once the two of them have to start working together on a huge high stakes civil case and they're both like wow.... *twirls hair* he's so competent.............. <3

Anyway misc. things:

TBH I have no idea what kind of law Keith and Lance might private practice... I'm also really torn on what Shiro, Allura, and Hunk would practice hdjsksdhedf

Pidge is hired on a fellowship for either environmental law or data security/privacy law.

Coran does employment law.

Keith went into law school planning on going into public interest/not-for-profit legal aid and swore he would never, ever do corporate law but then he saw his student loans and was like. Hm. Okay maybe some Biglaw is okay. And that's how he ended up at the firm.

Keith:

[queenlua]

Phoenix Wright / Kristoph Gavin "What the fuck are we even doing together?"

The disbarment hits the papers, and suddenly every Tom, Dick and Harry that Phoenix has ever met is blowing up his phone.

Amazing how many of them there are.  There's his aunt Jessie, whose sole previous communication with him these past ten years has been a dutifully-sent annual birthday card.  There's Gary from that internship Phoenix did his last summer in law school, calling from five states over.  His barber, for some reason.  And a bunch of guys that he hasn’t talked to since 1L.  Like a freaking class reunion in his phone, except through one-way glass, so he can't get a look at them.  It'd only be fair, after all, if he could judge them right back—judge them for whatever biglaw job they burned out of, or how much weight they've put on, or how divorced they are, or whatever it is people henpeck at those sorts of things—

And it's amazing how many of them won’t even admit why they’re calling.  Hey Phoenix, it’s been a while huh, just wondered how you’re doing these days, well if you get this call me back—

Right.  As if.

He plays the voicemails back every night, after Trucy’s asleep, sitting alone with a bottle of cheap swill, and he lets the voices wash over him until he’s comfortably numb.

When Maya calls, two weeks later, he recognizes it right off because he’s got the Kurain area code memorized.  And he stares at those digits a long while, deciding—because, hell, he owes Maya an explanation, doesn't he? Edgeworth, Larry, it's whatever, but Maya didn't ask to get mixed up in any of this—

Then he swipes the call straight to voicemail, and stops listening to the voicemails altogether.

Which he should’ve known wouldn’t be enough to put her off.  So he shouldn't be surprised when Maya shows up at his apartment a week later, banging on the door and hollering for him to come out, Nick, it's me—

His apartment looks like shit.  He knows that already, from the look the pizza guy's been giving him this past week, every time he opens the door.  He doesn't need to see that look on Maya's face, too.

“Do you mind,” he says, blocking the entryway with his shoulders.  He says some other things, probably.  He already had a good buzz going before she got here.

She squares her shoulders and shoves past him.  Then she barges into the nearest closet, roots around until she finds the swiffer and some wet wipes, and starts going at his place with the same vigor he used to have when he was cleaning up the office.

So it takes some doing, getting her to leave.  He stands in a corner and says nothing while she's sweeping and scouring and chattering.  I had to find out in the paper.  The paper!  You KNOW how slow news is to get to Kurain, Nick, you could've called—

You weren't here, he snaps.  He says it like an accusation, as flinty and sharp-edged as any he's ever flung in a courtroom, stares her down—and she's not a hardened criminal, she's barely an adult, she isn't steeled against this sort of thing.  She just blinks and stares back at him like a kicked dog.

It's a low blow and he knows it.  She's got a life in Kurain, she's got Pearl to take care of, and everything that went down with Godot was just two months ago, and he kept saying he'd go visit her in Kurain but he hadn't done that so who wasn't there for who, really—

But it does get her to leave.  Which is what he wanted, after all.

The next morning, he pulls up the call history on his phone, for the first time in days.  It’s a wall of missed calls from the very same number, that familiar area code.  He flips over to the voicemails, and ventures a click on one of them at random—Nick, I’m on the train down, I don’t know why you’re not answering your phone or why you didn’t just tell me what happened but I'll be there soon—

And he almost takes it back.  Almost calls her back, I messed up, Maya, I'm sorry, I'm messed up—

Except then, that night he’s at the Borscht, he's sitting across from Kristoph, right.  Kristoph, the only guy who's seemed normal about all this, whose sympathies are tinged with the comfortable chilliness of professional courtesy, who's been kind-but-not-too-kind.  Halfway through the first course, Kristoph mentions seeing a young lady at the train station this afternoon, he just happened to be passing by—and she looked just like that assistant of yours, Phoenix, wearing that most unusual garb—is it a spirit-channeler custom, or just a current fashion, do you know—?

All the hairs prickle on the back of Phoenix's neck.  Kristoph smiles like he’s describing nothing more consequential than a strange, alluring bird at his backyard feeder.

And that's when it clicks, when Phoenix realizes the thing he can't prove yet, the thing that'd make him sound crazy if he tried—that he's being watched, that he's been set up, that this Kristoph is a wolf waiting by his door.

Phoenix forces his best shit-eating grin.  How about another glass of that wine, Kristoph.  How about this dessert menu, Kristoph.  Like those birds that draw other, bigger birds away from their nest by flashing their wings just so.  Better that Kristoph have Phoenix in his sights than anyone else.  Better that he does this alone.