Big Debt – But a Nice Yacht?

March 29, 2010

greta-garbo-on-her-yacht-1929

With thanks, as often in matters American, to Legal Blog Watch, we are intrigued by Big Debt, Small Law, a website from across the pond whose strapline says it all (well, not quite, but anyway): ‘Dirt Poor Lawyers in a Filthy Rich Town’.

LBW regular Bruce Carton sees Big Debt, Small Law as part of “a good-sized army of young lawyers who have taken to the blogosphere with a common mission: to alert any wannabe lawyers out there to the futility of such a decision.”

We see Big Debt, Small Law as perhaps a little too effusive and embittered for its own good, but in any event soon found ourselves distracted by Bruce’s grammar. Strictly speaking, it is impossible to ascertain either the “common mission” or the “decision”, still less identify what might be futile about the latter. Then we decided we were being a little too pedantic, for clearly Bruce is saying that Big Debt, Small Law is indicative of a growing trend in the blogosphere, one which sees a number of dissatisfied lawyers vent their woes in an attempt to dissuade their putative brethren from continuing in their emulatory efforts. At this stage, however, having unleashed a prolix sentence of undue ponderousness on the world, we concluded that Bruce’s semantic uncertainty may, in fact, have been deliberate, as if to mirror the pros and cons of life as a junior lawyer.

As to which, we can only say that unless you are very, very lucky, all the professions, not just the law, entail long hours and low rewards at the outset of one’s career. The point about weathering this storm is not so much that it’s plain sailing afterwards but that one day you may well own a very nice yacht, while those who bail earlier may, as they idle on their lilos, wish they’d stayed the course.

Pictured: Greta Garbo on her yacht. But was her lawyer behind the camera?

 

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When a lawyer’s son is before the law

September 8, 2010

A lawyer of Swordplay’s acquaintance finds himself in a fix.

“My teenage son is to be interviewed by the local constable,” he tells us. “He is alleged to have committed an offence.”

We gasp, for such seems the appropriate response, and then ask: is it serious?

“No, it is not,” our troubled legal friend tells us. “In the great scheme of things, my son’s alleged transgression is about as de minimis as they get.”

For a split second, we wonder if said teenage son is cognisant of lawyerly terms of art such as de minimis, but rapidly conclude that the answer to this question is not a sine qua non of further discourse. And so we press on. That sounds good, we say, relatively speaking, at least.

“Yes,” says the lawyer, “but I am at a loss as to what to do with him. Do I come down hard and ground him, or do I play the liberal card, or do I find a compromise?”

That depends, we aver.

“On what?” asks our man.

On whether you would prefer to deal with your son’s alleged offence as a lawyer, or as a father, or as a father who is a lawyer, or maybe even as a lawyer who is a father.

“I see your point,” says the lawyer. And then, as if to prove that there is no cure for recidivism, he says: “The offence is, after all, de minimis.”

Without prejudice, we add.

Pictured: something out of Kafka. Now there was a man who knew about the law. And had a tough old father, too.

Max Mosley and Wayne Rooney: bedfellows?

September 6, 2010

We rarely enjoy pondering Max Mosley – the man, the sins, the legal action, what he stands for – but confess to a degree of grudging admiration for his tenacity in trying to change the law of privacy. As this story from the Independent has it, Mosley has lodged a request with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg asking that, by law, journalists must inform the subject of a story of the private details they intend to print, prior to publication.

We suspect the motor racing man would never have thought it, but he would appear to have an unlikely bedfellow in a certain England footballer. Step forward, Wayne Rooney, who would presumably put his name to Mosley’s petition.

Pictured courtesy of NashvilleScene: some bedfellows are stranger than fiction.


Memo to Freelance Writers: return that editor’s call quickly

September 3, 2010

Woe betide those who freelance and fail to return a call.

We say this upon hearing of a normally prolific freelance journalist who picked up a voicemail from an editor at one of the nationals on Tuesday afternoon. Please call us, was the message, and it could mean just one thing – a commission.

Our hero’s habitual practice is to return such calls as soon as is reasonably practicable, as m’learned friends might put it. In practice, that would habitually mean within a couple of hours. Most atypically, and for reasons we have yet to fathom, our man failed to call back for a full 24 hours.

By then, said editor had looked elsewhere. One of our man’s competitors had the gig, an interesting piece about cricket and the law, one which might just be in The Times today and which, we assume, asks whether the Pakistan cricket team have been caught out (in the legal sense, you understand).

We make no judgement on the no ball scandal, save to say that it is a scandal, but in another sense the moral is clear: in the fast-paced world of modern media, he who hesitates is lost.

Pictured courtesy of PrintedClothing.com: a fast-selling shirt.