Biglaw Bros: Why Slam Pieces Don’t Want You

Ed. note: The following piece was authored by The Legal Tease, of Sweet Hot Justice fame. Check out her other musings from Sweet Hot Justice here.

Bros of Biglaw, I love you, but I’m worried about you. You’re confused. You’re angry. And you should be. You’ve been told, by each other, that cementing your place as a certified cog in the Biglaw cash wheel would lead to a life slick with sick paychecks, sicker bonuses, and a bevy of models and bottles waiting to revel in the sickness with you.

But… it’s not working out for most of you so far. The disposable ladies aren’t lining up on their knees like you thought they might. One of you even reached out recently to Above the Law to ask — nay demand — some guidance as to how a Biglaw dudebro could cut through all the nonsense and just “find pretty, young, not-too-intelligent slam pieces on the reg.” Elie, bless his heart, advised that all you need to do is to basically target cutters with daddy issues. Decent advice, especially if you happen to live near your local mental ward, but I think Elie missed the mark. He neglected to mention the crucial, the obvious, the only way the average Biglaw Bro will ever have a real shot at slamming his way through the prettiest, not-too-intelligent-est “slam pieces” on the market:

Be an investment banker.

Or a hedge-fund guy. Or a TV producer. Or a cowboy. Pretty much anything besides a lawyer. Because, I hate to break it to you boys, but a young, hot, genuine grade-A “slam piece” (i.e., one trained in NY or LA) views a male lawyer with about as much interest as she views the Barney’s Warehouse Sale: It beats shopping at Target, but it’s still mostly hideous, mildly shameful, and a far cry from the real thing.

And this, guys, is why you have more in common with lady lawyers than you thought….

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For years, women lawyers have been presumptively dismissed — mostly by you — as hideous beast-looking mole people, unloveably argumentative shrews, or emasculating wage-toppers. But that sword that you’re so quick to whip out to shred us to pieces with cuts both ways, boys. The existence of a penis doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a lawyer. You still work until midnight every night. You still live your life in billable six-minute increments. You still spend your days doing the work no one else wants to do. Yes, you may occasionally be invited to sit at the big table, but it’s only to make sure that the guy who owns the big table doesn’t accidentally set it on fire. You’re not one of the Masters of the Universe; you just work for them.

And this, of course, is the real reason why premium slam pieces don’t want Biglaw Bros: Slam pieces don’t date the staff. They date the boss. And even if you’re a partner at Cravath, you’re still just a glorified butt boy for some 31-year-old managing director or CEO. Sure, you might be making a million bucks a year (maybe two!), but when it comes to the top slam pieces, that’s the floor, not the ceiling. As a very wise man once never said: “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars.” And why would you expect a top slam piece to settle for anything less?

Think about it: You’re a 22-year-old girl. You’re stunning. You have a body like a photoshopped Greek statue and a brain to match. You’ve decided, because you have either so little or so much self-worth, that your best shot at “success” is to dig some gold and become an occasional accessory-cum-trampoline for the highest roller you can find. You know that the clock’s working against you on this one. So, why would you give up your most valuable, most precious, pre-Botox years for some bloated billable-hour jockey who barely pulls in six figures working 20 hours a day looking for typos in some boring contract that’s going to make his i-banker clients more money in 30 seconds than he’ll ever see in his lifetime? I mean, sweet Christ, my last whirlwind romance involved a guy who drank wine out of a box, and even I don’t want to hit that.

So, what’s a Biglaw Bro who still wants a decent slam piece to do? Is all hope really lost?

Continue reading at Sweet Hot Justice…

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