Adventures in Lawyer Spam: Join the Biglaw Revolution

Have you ever dreamed of changing the Biglaw model, of making the law firm a pleasant place to work? If so, you may want to consult with “The Office of Mr. Monfort," who is apparently in partnership with Hogan Lovells. It probably would be a good thing if the firm knew who he was, but it doesn't....

Have you ever dreamed of changing the Biglaw model, of making the law firm a pleasant place to work? If so, we might have just the opportunity for you.

Some Hogan Lovells attorneys were recently offered the opportunity of a lifetime, courtesy of “The Office of Mr. Monfort in Partnership with Hogan Lovells International.” Mr. Monfort invites all Hogan Lovells employees to join the Lawyers Transformation Program, which will “allow a lawyer to identify the excesses and wrongdoing of the current law firm model in order to accomplish the transition into a long-term and sustainable law firm approach.”

In case this wasn’t sufficient to get Hogan Lovells attorneys on board, the invitation goes on to list in detail the crazy lofty ideals of the Lawyers Transformation Program, promising nothing short of revolution and greatness.

The only problem? Hogan Lovells, not surprisingly, has no idea who Mr. Monfort is. Find out how you can join the Biglaw utopia movement and read the Hogan Lovells response, after the jump.

The Lawyers Transformation Program is, to put it mildly, not a fan of Biglaw and the legal profession as a whole. You can read the entire invitation below, but I’ll highlight for you some of Mr. Monfort’s harsher condemnations of our profession:

YOU ARE A LAWYER. YOU HAVE BEEN BLAMED FOR THE ONGOING CRISIS.

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YOU ARE A LAWYER. IN SPITE OF THE GREED AND AMBITION OF SOME OF YOUR COLLEAGUES, YOU STILL THINK LAWYERS CAN BE HONEST.

YOU ARE A LAWYER. YOU HAVE BEEN POINTED WITH THE RIGHT FINGER FOR THE RIGHT REASONS. HOWEVER YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONVEY A NEW MESSAGE OF DREAM, LOVE AND OPTIMISM.

YOU ARE A LAWYER. YOU HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES BECAUSE OF FEAR OF IRRELEVANCE. YOU STILL BELIEVE LAWYERS HAVE A HEART, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, DIGNITY. YOU WISH WELL FOR THOSE AROUND YOU. YOU ARE NOT ADAM SMITH’S INVISIBLE HAND. YOU LOOK BEYOND YOUR AREA OF INFLUENCE AND BELIEVE THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF LAWYERS SHOULD BE ACTED UPON. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

I AM A LAWYER. I THINK YOU ARE CRAZY, MR. MONFORT. I AM NOT ALONE.

For starters, I wasn’t aware that lawyers were the primary target of blame for the economic crisis. But hey, I guess you learn something new every day. I’m also not sure what it means that I “have been pointed with the right finger for the right reasons,” but I’m pretty sure I didn’t consent to that. Moreover, people who want to convey a message of “DREAM, LOVE AND OPTIMISM” usually head to communes, not law school.

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(And besides, we all know that you don’t need some fancy program to get over a fear of irrelevance and share your thoughts with colleagues. Just become a blogger.)

YOU ARE A LAWYER. YOU HAVE BEEN TAGGED AS A PIRATE OF HEARTLESS CAPITALISM.

Arrr, mateys, what are we to do about our dastardly predicament? Thankfully, Mr. Monfort offers the answer to all of our problems.

YOU WILL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER ONCE YOU LEAVE THE TRADITIONAL SHORTSIGHTEDNESS OF MODELS AND ALGORITHMS BEHIND AND USE THEM ONLY AS AN ORIENTATIVE TOOL WHERE COMMON SENSE AND EMPATHY ARE CENTRAL IN THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS.

WE WELCOME YOU NEW LAWYERS TO A NEW WORLD OF DREAM, LOVE AND OPTIMISM. WE WILL BE IN TOUCH GOING FORWARD TO EXTEND AN INVITATION TO TAKE PART IN THE MOST EXCITING ADVENTURE WE HAVE EVER EYEWITNESSED, THE JOURNEY OF OUR LIFETIME.

The idea of “living happily ever after” is one of the first dreams that Biglaw crushes, before it moves on to crushing the dreams of “living somewhat contentedly sometimes” and “not being miserable just once.” Clearly this offer is too good to be true.

Sadly, Hogan Lovells has not actually joined the new world order. The firm quickly sent out an email denouncing Mr. Monfort and any supposed connection to Hogan Lovells:

Per the above subject line, we have received reports of employees having received internally an email that purports to come from “The Office of Mr Monfort In Partnership with Hogan Lovells International”.

The contents and the suggestion of any partnership with Mr Montfort is, of course, false and absurd and should be ignored.

We have identified the registrant of the domain name and their contact details and are actively taking steps to deal with the misrepresentation and to block further spam from this source.

As a reminder, please read emails like this one with a healthy degree of caution, and continue to report these to the Help Desk or by sending such messages as attachments to ‘Stop Spam’.

I believe “please read emails like this one with a healthy degree of caution” is a nice way of saying “if you are stupid enough to believe that this came from the firm, you won’t be working here for long.”

In case the invitation inspired you to enact change and you want to read more about the mysterious Mr. Monfort and his economic revolution, despite his non-affiliation with Hogan Lovells, you’re in luck. He has an entire website that provides hours of reading material.

If nothing else, I give the spammer points for effort. This is the most elaborate spam I’ve seen in a long time and it managed to get past the all-powerful Biglaw email police. Realistically, it was probably the most interesting email most of the associates got all day.

And seriously, “the most exciting adventure we have ever eyewitnessed, the journey of our lifetime”? I’ll take that over penile enlargement and cheap Canadian meds any day.

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