ATL Caption Contest Nominees: The South Florida Blackout

We have not forgotten last week’s promise of an ATL caption contest. To refresh your recollection, here’s the photo:

Here’s the actual caption:

Lawyers, from the left, Alan Lash, Justin Fienberg, and Alex Mendez, not lawyer, working on a project at Greenberg Traurig, on 27th floor of 1221 Brickell, went to lunch and found the building out of power.

Check out the suggested alternative captions, and vote for your favorite, after the jump.


As some commenters noted, the pictured lawyers (and non-lawyer) apparently don’t work at Greenberg Traurig (although they were photographed outside the GT offices). Rather, they work at Lash & Goldberg. Some of the contest entries assumed they were at GT, which was reasonable in light of the Miami Herald’s caption. We did not disqualify contest submissions on that basis.
There were exactly 100 comments on the post, many of them contest entries. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of our polling software, we can offer you no more than 20 options. To try and squeeze more entries in, sometimes we grouped related submissions as one item.
We picked the 20 that we liked the best. In a few cases, we made minor edits (e.g., to correct misspellings, incorrect identifications of the lawyers).
Picking the 20 nominees was obviously subjective. If your favorite isn’t among the nominees, we apologize. Also, we shied away from picking some of the nastier or meaner entries.
As set forth below, we’ve assigned a letter to each nominee (or group of related nominees). Vote for the letter that corresponds to your favorite entry.
A: Justin Fineberg (center): “They cut the power.”
Alex Mendez: “What do you mean, ‘THEY cut the power’? How could they cut the power, man? They’re animals!”
[Ed. note: If you don’t get the reference, see here.]
B: Without air conditioning, South Florida lawyers venture to the tropical conditions and wonder why they wore wool suits. Bob (center) contacts FEMA on a functioning Blackberry to request federal funding for temporary cooling stations throughout GT’s offices.
C: Lawyer on left: “Oh my god, the power’s out. What do we do?”
Lawyer in middle: “Quick, everyone take out your cell phones and look busy so we can continue billing for this time!”
D: “That’s right, Charney just bought a new place. I know! Well, I read it on ATL, so it must be true!”
Accord (variation on theme): “Mom, mom, listen to me… I’m on the internet! go to w-w-w- yes, three ‘w’s’ dot a-b-o-v-e-t-h-e-l-a-w dot c-o-m. Yes that’s me! No mom, I don’t need a haircut.”
E: Not having a cell phone, Alan was unable to communicate his misfortune of not having power… or a cell phone.
F: Lazy and tired, GT lawyers forget that the door behind the label “stairs” leads them back to their office where “paper” and “pencils” along with “books” could permit them to continue working.
G: “Raymond, can you hear me? The blackout is affecting my blackberry ghost trap. I think there’s a non-lawyer marshmallow man we need to catch!” (Posted by: Dr. Egon Spengler.)
[Ed. note: If you don’t get the reference, see here.]
H: “Honey, I think I may make it to dinner tonight!”
Accord (variation on theme): “Torn from their drudgery, lawyers are forced to call their family and friends.”
I: Justin (center) remains visibly frustrated after pressing 1 for English and hearing “Gracias por llamar a Florida Power & Light, nosotros estamos en la playa y….”
J: Florida attorneys, having found out their building lost power while they were at lunch, phoned their firm’s car service to have their drivers manually carry them up six flights of stairs. “It’s billed to the client,” explained Justin Feinberg.
K: Unsuited to dealing with his subordinates face-to-face, having relied only on email since arriving at Greenberg Traurig, lawyer Justin Fineberg phones his paralegal, Alex Mendez, to ask him to plug everything back in again as soon as he’s done filing those documents. Meanwhile, Alan Lash, forced out of the conference room by darkness, clutches his redweld in an attempt to continue to look important despite the lack of a huge conference table before him.
L: Justin: “Ah, Steve, you won’t believe it! You know how it was white shirt, blue tie day at the office? Well I wore a blue tie AND a blue shirt…I mean we laughed for like, hours. Seriously Steve, hours.”
Alex: “F**k off, my name’s Alex.”
M: “Alex? This is Justin. Can I get a side of hustle with that coffee?”
N: “Why is GT the right firm for you? I’ll tell you why. As soon as you graduate, we can’t provide the $160k salaries they provide over at Skadden. But our building has a private generator, dammit. It’s these soft quality-of-life concerns which put Greenberg on a tier of its own.”
O: “Just A Bit Outside”: Three ties, two blackberries, and a Redweld express non-billable frustration as they stand outside the catacombs of Greenberg Traurig during yesterday’s power outage.
P: Justin: “Hey, elevator boy, Alex, is that your name? Fix this mess. Old Alan here had to lug that redweld to Morton’s and back, and he’s too tired to walk up the four flights of stairs back to his desk. If we don’t get him back up there soon, I’m afraid documents might get lost and that will just throw the whole Bates-stamping thing out of whack. You understand, right? So, can you help us out?”
Q: “Oh no, the Sun! I’m melting, melllltiiiing.”
R: “Dude, I hate to waste your cell phone minutes, but take a look, is that guy behind me staring at my ass?”
S: Alex Mendez: “Man, how long do we have to stay on the line?”
Justin Feinberg: “I don’t know, dude. Just keep using up the minutes on those calling cards GT sponsored so they don’t go to the troops in Iraq.”
Alan Lash: “Good job, guys, keep wearin’ blue! Hanspeter Wustiner and I will get you those billable hours we promised.”
[Ed. note: If you don’t get the reference, see here.]
T: Justin Fienberg, center, unloads on an FPL employee on the phone: “I don’t give a fuck if you have to put some Cubans in a fucking hamster wheel, just get the goddamn power back on.” He was in the middle of entering his time and is afraid his bonus will be reduced for violating the firm’s time entry policy.
Accord: Lawyer Justin Fienberg manages to continue billing hours during a blackout while fellow lawyer, Alan Lash, curses under his breath having left his blackberry at his desk. Confused non-lawyer, Alex Mendez just lifts phone to ear.

What is your favorite caption for the Miami blackout photo on AboveTheLaw.com?
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K
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Slide show: Blackout, havoc in South Florida [Miami Herald]
Lash & Goldberg LLP [official website]
Earlier: ATL Caption Contest: The South Florida Blackout

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