Whining about mega-firm working conditions and jud…
Whining about mega-firm working conditions and judicial pay
Call me crazy, but I found these two articles to be related in a strange way, and to present an interesting view of the current state of the legal profession.
Reviewing a new autobiography by Chicago trial lawyer John Tucker, (“Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer”), Edward Lazarus writes “Have Law Firm Careers Changed for the Worse? The Way It Used to Be, and the Way It Is Now.”
Lazarus laments that a career like Tucker enjoyed in Chicago’s Jenner & Block would not be possible in a large firm today because: 1) current billable hour demands do not leave time for “the kind of side projects on which Tucker cut his teeth”; 2) relatively small paying matters and time-intensive, trial level pro bono matters of the type for which Tucker was able to take primary responsibility early in his career “are few and far between” because small business matters don’t come to the firms since associates’ billing rates are too high and many firms have cut back pro bono commitments, especially at the trial level; and 3) Tucker benefited from a relatively stable cadre of mentors and colleagues who supported his work and therefore “did not have to fear that doing too much pro bono work would undermine his chances for partnership.”
Whine, whine. You can live with those limitations at the mega-firm for starting pay in the six figures or you can do lots of other things with your legal education and still make more money than most Americans can dream of.
Or you can become a judge and whine about your six figure salary that’s sooo inadequate. See the May 2003 report by the ABA and Federal Bar Association “Federal Judicial Pay: An Update On The Urgent Need For Action.” See also the AP story on Findlaw “Justices Seek Lower Court Judge Raises.”
Now there’s a great item for the political agenda — after the “tax cuts for the rich” let’s have pay raises for the “poor” Federal judges who “only” make $154,000 (District Court Judge) with a benefits package like most Americans will never see. I mean, most people (nonlawyers) will tell you: 1) that kind of income is per se “rich”; 2) if you can’t make ends meet on that kind of money: a) your house(s) are too big, b) your car(s) are too fancy, c) your wine hobby’s out of control, d) you’re buying too many custom suits and $100 ties, and/or e) try eating at home a couple times a week or brown bagging lunch once in a while.
The taxpayers will love pay raises for judges. And surely pursuit of this issue won’t do anything to reinforce public notions of lawyers (and judges) being rich, greedy, and spoiled.
