The fact that this clown has actually won Pulitzer prizes is mind boggling. His hilariously backwards "untouchables" metaphor and gauzy conclusions are par for the course. If you don't believe me check out Matt Taibbi's hilarious vivisections of some of Friedman's previous work.

Friedman is the biggest hypocrite at all. Surprising that only now he discovers that hard work and ingenuity are the keys to success in this world. I wonder if he's able to translate this groundbreaking revelation into his other thoughts on government run mediocrity known as single payer healthcare and the noble dictatorship he envisions (similar to those loveable Chinese dictators).

Friedman is an assclown.

How do you get a gig writing columns anyway? it's the second biggest grift next to "Law Professor."

ATL mocking Tom Friedman. That's rich.

fifth!

D'oh

-5

If you are a columnist expecting AP to write the story you, you might not hold your job that long. However if you don't just repeat old tripe but consistently generate new columns with innovative ideas, you become an untouchable.

Oh wait...

If you are a columnist expecting AP to write the story for you, you might not hold your job that long. However if you don't just repeat old tripe but consistently generate new columns with innovative ideas, you become an untouchable.

Oh wait...

Double D'oh

-7, who meant to sign as 6, which was a failed attempt to be 5

6/7/10, go back to bed. Today just isn't your day man.

Sorry got Friedman confused with the other moron, Paul Krugman.

-3

Friedman's a buffoon.

All ramblings, no substance.

This article reminds me of Elie hailing OMM's brave new vision of recruiting better attorneys who work harder. It turns out that if you just believe, and want it enough, it will come true -- that's The Secret.

what's a promissory estoppel note?

Friedman is great at stating the obvious. Those of us with business (i.e. rainmaker) never need to worry about being laid off, whereas those of you without your own business are expendable.

12, funny. I also get those two douches confused. Friedman should change his name to MOTO....Master of the Obvious. Freakonomics was so obvious in its reasoning and conclusions so as to actually be a joke to anybody who took Sociology 101. Same situation with this lame-ass article. Morons out there who think that b/c he writes for NYT, he has a brain. He does not.

Sickening. Not Friedman's colmn, but Hill's response to it.

First, Elie would have done this better. Second, Friedman's "friend" is either not being honest or is not very intelligent. There's a big difference between process and innovation. Partner and associate work is like 98% process-related--that is, research, draft motion, file motion, repeat. So it makes little sense to now frame the massive layoffs as a healthy cull of those who enable the law processing that is biglaw to function. Innovation in law is good but the only people in biglaw with the power to innovate are those on the management committee.

At least Krugman is smart, even if he is a dishonest and shrill polemicist. Friedman is the polar opposite -- a harmless idiot. So you shouldn't have trouble distinguishing them.

I think a cheaper Indian trained journalist could do Friedman's job.

good call 14 -- who over wrote this column isn't a lawyer

Such tripe! so according to Friedman, everyone should become a rainmaker....everyone. To not be a loser, one should be a winner...What pathetic and obvious logic....friedman needs to be fired for repeating such maxims. He can't even follow his own logic. And by the way, untouchables? really?

Hill.

I think he is using the word 'untouchables' referring to the Elliot Ness, FBI Untouchables, and not the Hindu caste system.

Guest

No question that Friedman is stating the obvious. But it's a point worth making again. Gone are the days when you could just walk into Biglaw, capably do the work that was handed to you, inherit clients and client relationships, make partner and eventually retire rich. Our clients are getting at least a phone call a week from Biglaw - it is no longer unbecoming of Biglaw to pound the pavement and hustle up clients. The environment is so much more competitive now. Graduate top of your class from a T25 law school and, no, you haven't arrived... the hard work has only just begun. We are going to have relatively high unemployment and slow growth for some time to come (thanks to a massive deficit, deleveraging and an obscene misallocation of capital during the last 15 years). Going to be a tough slog going forward.

Create your own Thomas Friedman column!

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2004/4/28ward.html

QUINN REMAINS UNTOUCHABLE

KHALI MA!

"Make sure to put chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on top of your next promissory estoppel note."

I'll get on that as soon as I finish drafting my automobile registration rights agreement and my chapter 11 petition for certiorari.

24--- nice aping of countless WSJ/NYT pieces. Think for yourself. In two years, the wheel starts turning again, despite Pelosian efforts to the contrary. Its how this thing works.

First years, take Friedman's advice to heart! In this brave new world, you will be terminated unless (a) you have a prenatural ability to research, draft motions for sj, and engage in meaningless discovery disputes or (b) Coca-Cola is your client.

27, hilarious. But I am willing to give Kash the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was going along with the title/theme of the post with her own "semi-coherent" legal document?

The untouchables is basically explained in his book, The World is Flat.

The idea is that you make yourself so necessary that you can't be fired.

His whole idea is that the US has to get back up to speed on math/science/industry so that countries like India/China can't take away our competitive edge. We'd be untouchable because we're always the ones with the newest and best stuff.

He also says that we should allow everyone who gets a Ph.D. in this country to become legal residents so that we can retain talent in our country, because our higher education system is one of our comeptitive advantages vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

He's a go-getter and a realist, unlike many of my fellow liberals in this country. He's also willing to open his eyes to the reality of being a closed, hard-headed society, unlike the conservatives.

Not such a bad guy.

6 ftw

Swell. As an incoming first-year I'll just troop into Bank of America's corporate headquarters and stop in to pitch the CEO on why he should hire me to handle their problems. That's a completely reasonable expectation to place a 25-year-old worker. Thanks for the insights Tom.

Looks like he could use a few trips to the gym.

I think Friedman is the one who observed that Sotomayor's personal life is a sad trainwreck because she was forced to neglect it in order to attain her professional goals. She has few friends, no husband, no children, but now sits on the US Supreme Court. Friedman is simply observing here that the sacrifices we made in the past are now insufficient and that further sacrifices along the lines of those made by Sotomayor must now be made.

This is where I check out. I mean what's the point? Sacrifice to obtain what?

Yet another example of ATL just reposting stuff from the WSJ Law Blog. Yawn.

35 - give more to get less

16, nice troll. You know Friedman didn't write Freakonomics.

33 FTW!!!!!!!!!!

New and innovative way of doing things = probable sanctions.

2 - you are a fool.
3 - you are more foolish than 2.
33 - you, sir, are an utter twat.

good on ya mr. friedman.

The article is a useless collections of cliches and shows how poorly Friedman understands Biglaw firms - especially the life of a junior associate just out of law school. A junior associate is not in a position to "imagine new ways" of doing work or bringing it in. Junior associates are typically evaluated based on how well they do the work that is assigned to them. If there is no work to assign to them, they're out of a job. That doesn't make them any dumber or less well-equipped than they were two years ago.

Kash - Normally I don't have a problem with your contributions to this site, but this was pathetic. You can go out of your way to mock Freidman all you want, but he is correct. The average drones will get the ax and the innovators will thrive. Sure, this isn't a revolutionary concept but it's also not one to openly bash in such a ridiculous fashion. Maybe you should pay attention to his point...

"When we think “untouchables,” we think of the Hindu caste system."

I think of a man with a Scottish accent saying "You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?"

Okay, Tom. When the rainmaker's are supplying their cherries and dripping hot fudge sauce, who the hell is going to do the work?

I know so many senior rainmakers who wouldn't have a clue how to file a motion, incorporate a corporation or prepare a settlement statement. God forbid that they would know how to do research on line.

So when they chop out the people that actually do the work they are applying their cherries and dripping their fudge onto nothing. There is no ice cream.

Screw you, Tom Friedman.

Friedman also noted that associates should be sure to CHECK YOU EMAILS.

Friedman is a moron. How he came to be considered a "public intellectual" is beyond my ken. All he does is select a hot topic, apply whichever bit of "common sense" supports his conclusion (and remember, for every "nothing ventured, nothing gained" there's "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush") and then in pseudo-folksy fashion demonstrate how everything thusly fits into his center left world view.

In the law firm setting the highest title to ever be confered on a clown like Friedman would be "Staff Attorney - Document Review".

yeah, my buddy who's a 1st year at cravath REALLY has the oppty to be a rainmaker! he frequently talks to executives of fortune 500 firms and rounds up clients.

if everyone's a "salesman," who's left to actually produce what is being sold? friedman should take a course in basic econ theory -- it's called division of labor. Firms have a value chain,which consists of production, distributiion, sales, etc. not everyone needs to be in sales!

45, the idea is that globalization will allow, and eventually force, the commodity and low-end work to be done more cheaply abroad.

I fucking hate Thomas Friedman.

Law firms NEED associates to all be rainmakers! Too Bad. Guess what: the deal was, you partners bring in the work, and us associates do it. You have not honored your end of the bargain. Now, you want us to make up for your shortcomings? You must be kidding yourselves.

Message to firm management: You want me to go out and sell? Then give me a contract that promises me a commission (or orgination, which is the same thing) for anything I bring in and let me open my own matters under my own name. I am not interested bringing in business for some partner on the vague assurance that it will be remembered come bonus time. If you can't give me a binding commission contract and the right to open my own matters, then I will just take your paychecks and do my legal work until you fire me. I can then sell for myself, not you. This is unreasonable, you say? This is no different than the way any other salesman in any other field is treated. You want sales -- we want commissions.

All you ever needed to know about this douchebag:

http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html

51 -- titcr. i'll be a rainmaker as soon as the partners start writing the briefs, doing doc review, and doing lexis searches. so i'm supposed to do everything and get paid 1/5 as much? yeah.

he kinda looks like Matt Millen. any Lions fans out there?

Friedman is at his most pathetic when he fancies himself an economist. But columns, likes this one, which are probably based on a conversation he had at a cocktail party are not much better.

It's a shame, because he did some really good writing when he first started out. Now he's like an annoying deejay just trying to fill time.

Friedman's comments were not solely dedicated to "rainmaking." While I agree it's not practical to expect associates to draft briefs, research etc. AND pull in clients, his comments equally apply to those who (1) suggest new ways to do business, (2) point out potential markets for the firm, (3) find ways to reduce intra-firm waste and on and on....

His overall point: Do more than sit around and wait for work - be involved, show an interest, be engaged and you should be fine.

How can that be viewed as negative?

49, 45 here. Yeah. I understand globalization. Now, you find me somebody in India who is capable of attending a deposition. Find me somebody in India who can get a passport for some bigass client. Find me somebody in India who can run into the partner's office on a Saturday to decipher a document on his desk, re do it and get it to the client. Find me a person in India who is available 24/7 for the client to call when he can't reach the partner.

Also tell me the client that is going to be thinking when he has to dial internationally (which he does not know how to do) to find out how his closing is progressing.

Now let's get it right. The untouchable rainmaker's time is spent popping cherries and dripping goo (according to Mr. Friedman). They are not going to be doing a closing or bailing the client's cousin's kid out of jail at 3 a.m.

And the very competent lawyers in India aren't going to be doing it either.

57, 40 years ago people thought that the Japanese couldn't build cars.

If you read the article, the context is competition in the global marketplace. Globalization benefits only poor countries (regress to the mean). The US enjoyed decades of prosperity prior to globalization and then free trade was implemented and millions of US jobs were lost. Friedman is saying that everyone in the US needs to be a market maker, which is impossible. Our example of course is the ABA allowing Indians to do legal work that would require licensure if an American were to apply. Globalization is a failed experiment.

Alternatively, marry a rich woman and squeeze out a seemingly endless stream of drivel.

TF

Jesus. This is such bad information. Friedman clearly lacks a fundamental understanding as to why 80-90 percent of attorneys in big firms are not "rainmakers."

1. Conflicts. So, you have a friend from undergrad who created a widget that clearly doesn't infringement Apple/Microsoft/IBM/Insert Big Tech Company's patent but is sued for infringement. She wants your help and you realize that there might even be standing to pursue attorneys' fees but duh. Conflicts will never, ever clear. So absent you quitting (which a few do) you are stuck.

2. Hours. It's difficult to spend time on business development when you bill 2400 hours a years to other partners' clients. Factor in marriage, kids, and a life and you barely have time to sleep, let alone schmooze.

3. Specialization. Big firms focus on telling associates and junior partners what they can't do and many times go out of their way to limit their skill set in order to (a) get more efficient billing time and (b) prevent the associate/young partner from competing with older partners.

4. On that related note, if you do somehow become a competent attorney, partners will go out of their way to maintain their relationships with clients by, duh, undermining you. Fun ways to accomplish this: (a) prevent skilled attorney from access to client; (b) trash skilled attorney behind his or her back, (c) my favorite, fired skilled attorney and replace with unskilled attorney; and (d) require a significant cut from any business skilled attorney lands with your client independently.

That said, the only rainmaker I witnessed was this fucker who basically teamed up with hardworking alpha female and took cases as a team. Although it looked like they shared the work equally, she did 80 percent of the work; he provided marginal added value to the legal work but was very quick to more than his share of credit to the woman's successes. This basically garnered him a rep as a "competent" attorney, though he didn't do much law practicing when I worked with him.

But he did network like a fiend and land small clients that cleared conflicts. Those small clients grew into bigger one's. And well, he's a share partner. She was laid off eight months ago.

Hey Friedman, "you're muckin with a g here pal"

Signed,

The real Untouchable

58 - They still can't.

BEAMER SECURE

actually 59--globalization also decreases production costs, thereby reducing prices and increasing U.S. standard of living. Ever been to walmart?

This picture of Friedman is absolutely astonishing. That mustache is quite attractive. Yum.

I don't see Friedman saying that all lawyers need to be rainmakers. He's saying they need to be able to think creatively. If you are a service partner that knows your client well, you can come up with new ways that you can help them. That isn't being a rainmaker, that is being a good lawyer.

Also, regardless of how weak his columns were, From Beirut to Jerusalem was great.

52 - that article was a magnificent demolition of Fraudman.

Still, I can't bring myself to hate the guy because he's so vacuously inoffensive.

64 is absolutely right. Globalization has actually RAISED our standard of living, not just simply increased profit margins that benefit a small subset of the overall population. It is so wonderful that my wife no longer has to work. Back in the 1950s maintaining a decent standard of living required two incomes. Glad that's over with. Kids need their mothers.

64 - got to take into account the millions of jobs lost.

This isn't news. legal or otherwise. I wish my firm would block ATL once and for all so I can stop wasting time (still billing, of course) reading these inane posts.

Friedman got handed something stupid by his pal and went to work with it.

Sure hope this dope is one of the hundred journalists getting fired by the Times because readers have gone the way of "work handed out".

61 nailed it

41 is an assclown, or Mr. Friedman (not that there is any difference between the two). 61 did nail it. Sad that the "mainstream" journalist has no clue about what he rambles on about.

kash you're an idiot. "untouchables" is a mob reference- those close enough to the boss who are untouchable because of the way you will be retaliated against.

Such a small percentage of law students get jobs, even in a good year, at Biglaw. Of the total law graduates every year, many do not have jobs at law firms, government, or in-house. Some, dare I say, open up their own firm. Those who learn how to obtain and maintain business are the ones living in multi-million dollar mansions.

Friedman is right, you need to learn to bring in business. That is an essential skill for all attorneys in private practice and is the only thing that will give you true peace of mind and security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Untouchables_(film)

Wow I've never seen ATL so viciously attack a journalist. (Note I don't say "fellow" journalist). All I can say is:

Woah, Woah, easy asslobster. Calm down girl. Easy now asslobster.

Friedman writes all this useless bullshit, and I bet gets paid handsomely for it. He knows not of what he speaks, and is full of shit.

hahaha...

" ''The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging.When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.'

First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol. Sending a line like that into print is the journalism equivalent of a security guard at a nuke plant waving a pair of mullahs in explosive vests through the front gate. It should never, ever happen."

75, everybody knows you need to bring in business. That's like saying the sky is blue (okay, admittedly there are some partners and associates who are indeed so goddamned ignorant they think hard work is the important part of the job).

Friedman doesn't address, or even seem aware of, the parts of the equation that matter: (a) explaining how an associate gets that business; and (b) dealing with the fact that its largely a zero-sum game, in which everybody competes for a piece of the pie. The legal services market is shrinking overall. Nobody is coming up with "industry expansion" amidst the recession. That's not how this market works.

"So you got to try even harder, and be more innovative!" Yeah, good luck w/that.

He really is a moron.

Friedman has CHARACTER

Friedman has CHARACTER

Friedman has CHARACTER

He is just a trendy asshat. The world is flat my ass. Lick my balls, Friedman. Take the next idiot meme from Davos and stick it up your ass.

Friedman has RECTA ARCH

What is a promissory estoppel note?

Agree with 77. This is an internet blog. It is not the New York Times. Tone it down, Kash.

Guys and gals, reread 61 a few times. Seriously. it is worth committing that to the long term memory.

This just in !! Friedman, upon learning of the ATL criticism,returned his three Pulitzer Prizes in shame

Friedman once again showing himself to be the know nothing blowhard that he is...hate that guy and the New York Slimes in general.

Friedman is a dumb shit. If I knew how to "make it rain" I would open my own law practice. Why share a new, lucrative client with a law firm? Go back to blaming George Bush. I actually agreed with you back then.

It's just part of Friedman's "jobs for wogs" program where he wants to put every single American out of work.

Friedman's comments aren't as ludicrous as you might think--I've seen major law firms advertising to hire lateral associates with big books of business.

If I had a big book of business why would I want to spittle-shine white shoes?

They took our jobs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh5pqt1sM8w

Fish & Richardson is at it again. Layoffs happened yesterday.

The NYTimes reported that it will be laying off an additional 100 workers soon....maybe he should worry about the state of journalism...

Absolutely pathetic/inappropriate - Kash ripping a pulitzer prize winning journalist because she clearly didn't understand his piece or the context of what he was saying.

Kash, just to illustrate how wrong you are, I will let you know that the two partners I am about to work for told me to show up on day one having read "The World is Flat" and "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Friedman's works. If his understanding of global political issues and the legal industry is so pedestrian, why would two conservative(!) lawyers insist that I familiarize myself with his ideas? I guess you understand something profound about the legal profession that two senior partners at a V50 firm don't?

98 - Most partners, particularly senior partners, are intellectual dolts. They're good at client development, and they bust their ass. That's about it.

Reminds me of a quote from a journalist whose boots Friedman is not fit to lick :

"A man thinks that he is more intelligent than his wife because he can add up a column of figures more accurately, and because he understands the imbecile jargon of the stock market, and because he is able to distinguish between the ideas of rival politicians, and because he is privy to the minutiae of some sordid and degrading business or profession, say soap-selling or the law. But these empty talents, of course, are not really signs of a profound intelligence; they are, in fact, merely superficial accomplishments, and their acquirement puts little more strain on the mental powers than a chimpanzee suffers in learning how to catch a penny or scratch a match. The whole bag of tricks of the average business man, or even of the average professional man, is inordinately childish. It takes no more actual sagacity to carry on the everyday hawking and haggling of the world, or to ladle out its normal doses of bad medicine and worse law, than intakes to operate a taxicab or fry a pan of fish. No observant person, indeed, can come into close contact with the general run of business and professional men—I confine myself to those who seem to get on in the world, and exclude the admitted failures—without marvelling at their intellectual lethargy, their incurable ingenuousness, their appalling lack of ordinary sense."

I love how the NYT has the perfect lineup of columnists who cater to a readership that likes to see itself as having an IQ 10 points higher than it is in reality.

Pretty funny that some blog writing wannabe on abovethelaw.com has the balls to critique the writing ability of a Pulitzer prize winning New York Times columnist who's written a few best sellers along the way. This abovethelaw non-entity also failed to understand the somewhat obvious point of Friedman's column (that creative aptitudes are becoming increasingly attractive in all spheres of employment) and instead chose to view the column as a rather ill advised piece of career advice aimed at upcoming Cardozo Law School graduates. Kashmir - lay off the Tom Friedman criticism until you land a job at a publication that people actually have to pay to read. In the unfortunately bygone pre-internet era, you would have been a floater secretary dreaming of landing a job on the Entertainment desk at the Biloxi Sun Herald.

No comment thread on Friedman should be without these links:

http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html

http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

Friedman may have a few bestsellers, but he's still nowhere near Nora Roberts. He's got a ways to go.

Kash, thanks for this post! Tom Friedman is an idiot, and I don't care how many awards this man has received. As far as I can tell, his sources are either (a) random cab drivers or (b) google suggest. Don't believe me on (b)? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/opinion/04friedman.html

In any case, yes, thanks for the amazingly scientific sample of ONE law firm partner to dismiss the efforts of thousands of hardworking and qualified attorneys, while absolving dozens of mismanaged law firms from any responsibility. Pulitzer please!

61. Where do you work? I want to know so that I can make certain never to work there, or even to do business there if I can help it. Your partners actively try to undermine their associates? Because they fear the associates are a threat? I have a hard time imagining a Big Law partner being that insecure. They fire competent attorneys to make room for incompetent ones? That is the stupidest most counter-productive cut-of-your-nose-to-spite-your-face BS I have ever heard.

I work at a reasonably large firm where the partners can occasionally be testy and aren't always available for mentoring, but it is NOTHING like what you described. Good god.

Let's not also forget From Beirut to Jerusalem is retarded.

101. Your post suggests that it is somehow illegitimate to criticize someone unless your professional accomplishments equal theirs. Under that reasoning, is it illegitimate for anyone but a Supreme Court Justice to question a Supreme Court decision? Is it illegitimate for anyone but a head of state to criticize a President's policies? Professional status shouldn't immunize anyone from criticism, not in a free society.

105. The issue is pretty simple. And my work experience, oddly, not that special or horrible or atypical. I'm sure plenty of other commenters have seen this go down.

A big reason why partners with clients view competent associates and young partners as a threat isn't only because they might pull client work away from them in the law firm context; these partners are also terrified of being cut out if the client just ends up hiring the younger competent attorney to work in house. This happened only the regular between 1995-early 2000's. I did notice that this stream kind of slowed to a trickle once partners began to see in house departments staff previously external matters with their own in house staff (due to a massive savings in cost). Hence all of the underminery activities I mentioned above.

If you're in law school, you're not going to believe this. But I'm sure other commenters will agree. The practice of law and the business of law are two very different ventures.

-61.

105. The reason why they replace competent attorneys with inexperienced one's isn't solely for the points I mention; it's also because they are less efficient and the ratio of billing recovery v. overhead is much lower for a younger attorney. It's stupid. But they view it as anyone can be trained to be a discovery jockey/brief writer (which is true).

105: the law school comment was for other readers. No disrespect. -61.

107. Your analysis of my posting is flawed. Here's a better analogy using your Supreme Court Justice example: it would be laughable for a traffic judge from the Minnetonka, Minnesota municipal court to say that Chief Justice Roberts couldn't write a legal opinion for shit.
101

There's a pungent response to Friedman's column on Megan McArdle's blog:

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/10/parsing_unemployment.php

I feel SO BAD for people who actually think this guy is a genius. Liberals happily proclaim their undeveloped minds all too often.

111 --- While most of us are well aware of Roberts' fearsome intellectual reputation and accomplishments, take a step back here. Friedman is an investigative journalist, turned commentator. With a team of editors that fixes his sloppy writing -- or at least used to.

His success as a mass media journalist is undeniable, but what is entirely deniable is that success as a journalist has much correlation with intellectual ability, depth of insight, or writing skills in the larger sense. Unlike being a S. Ct. judge.

I am amazed that Friedman managed to completely mangle the metaphor on two different registers at once.

The man uses words like they have no meanings.

This guy is a moron with zero understanding of reality. Give him 6 months at any job that actually requires him to produce accurate results and not just "comment" on dinner party chit chat, and then maybe I could take him semi-seriously. What an ass.

And PE needs to retire from ATL. That shit is so old.

I think his "untouchables" reference is to the movie about Eliot Ness and Al Capone rather than any sort of caste system.

Kash, you're a terrific writer and you're really cute. If I weren't happily married, I'd be pursing your heart.

See link offered by 112

"Most big firms who have had to lay off scads of lawyers have concentrated those layoffs amongst two categories: first, the most junior attorneys - i.e., those who cost a lot of $$ and haven't yet gotten enough experience to make themselves useful (plus, because of the pyramid structure on which big law firms are organized, they are the most numerous group of non-partner attorneys at any one time)."

So law firms are ponzi schemes.

Main Entry: 1un·touch·able
Pronunciation: \ˌən-ˈtə-chə-bəl\
Function: adjective
Date: 1607
1 a : forbidden to the touch : not to be handled b : exempt from criticism or control
2 : lying beyond reach
3 : disagreeable or defiling to the touch

i.e, India is not mentioned here.

YUP!

99:

I know this thread is dead, but I can't let your comment that "most senior partners are intellectual dolts" stand without some sort of retort. That statement is manifestly absurd. I will concede that some senior partners are getting up there in age and some of the screws are starting to come loose. As for the vast, vast majority of partners I have met, however, they are all extraordinarily intelligent. Since when does "getting a big book of business" and "being really smart" have to be mutually exclusive?

Friedman has a point, but it's lost in his essay. This is an entirely new economy. Those who succeed will be those who adapt. We senior partners are on the wrong end of this equation. The legal world will be difficult for the next 5 years, but there are young lawyers and law students today who will be remaking the market after that. Friedman's hidden (unintended?) admonition is: be one of them.

I didn't know anyone read the NY times anymore.