Julie Buxbaum is a Harvard alumna and lawyer turned novelist. Her first book, The Opposite of Love, is getting favorable reviews. As we’ve written about before, she’s signed a deal for two books, so it’s a good sign that the first is being well-received.
For the lawyers who want to be writers: her advance was likely in excess of $500,000.
Carrie Bradshaw’s Smarter Sister [Washington Post]
The Opposite of Love [Amazon]
Yesterday we wrote about Julie Buxbaum, the 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School who just landed a $500,000, two-book deal with Dial Press. We also asked you for more information about her — where she practiced law before leaving for the writing life, what she’s like as a person, etc.
Via Friendster, we learn that this Harvard Law hottie is 29 years old, in a relationship, and residing in Los Angeles. She has highbrow tastes in literature — e.g., Interpreter of Maladies, The Unbearable Lightness of Being — and less highbrow tastes in movies — e.g., Revenge of the Nerds.
We also learned some things about Julie Buxbaum through your emails. One tipster stated, upon information and belief, that she worked in the L.A. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Another tipster, however, said she used to work at litigation boutique Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman. Our speculation: Julie started off at GDC, then left for Hennigan Bennett (Biglaw to boutique — a perfectly logical career path).
The most fun tidbit about Ms. Buxbaum? That her brother was a child actor who went by the stage name Josh Blake. This piece of information is corroborated by the IMDb entry for Josh Blake, “sometimes credited as Josh Buxbaum.” For devotees of the late 80′s sitcom ALF, you may recall Blake as Jake Ochmonek, the “belligerent nephew” of the Tanners’ next-door neighbors, who was befriended by that furry alien from the planet Melmac.
Julie Buxbaum [Friendster]
Josh Blake [IMDb]
Earlier: Harvard Law Hottie Lands Monster Book Deal
We follow the media and publishing worlds almost as closely as the legal world, so we’re not quite sure how we missed this. But we did, and we’re sorry. So we’re bringing it to you now, a few days late — and we apologize if you’ve already read about it somewhere else.
For all of you lawyers who are frustrated writers, this news may inspire or depress you, depending upon how you react to news of other people’s good fortune. Here’s a book deal announced last week in Publishers Marketplace:
Julie Buxbaum’s debut novel THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE, about a 29-year-old attorney who lost her mother as a teenager and finds her well-constructed life falling apart when she can’t commit to the man who loves her, to Susan Kamil at Dial Press, in a major deal, for publication in winter 2008, in a two-book deal, by Elaine Koster of the Elaine Koster Agency (US).
For those of you not conversant in PM-speak, “a major deal” is one with an advance of $500,000 and up.
The timing of the deal announcement was a bit ironic. That same week, Ms. Buxbaum wrote an essay for 02138, the new magazine by and about Harvard alumni, in which she waxes poetic about turning her back on Biglaw to pursue life as a sushi-starved artist. Here’s the money quote:
I am currently dressed in head to toe Old Navy. My highlights are grown passed [sic] my ears. That latte is a splurge, sushi an absolute no-no. And, of course, there is the constant, nagging guilt — like an angry rash — when I check my dwindling bank balance, when I remember I spent close to a quarter million dollars on higher education, when I realize that it was less than a year ago that I was making six figures. I was a litigator at a top law firm, an HLS graduate, a somebody. Now, well, to be honest, I am not too sure who I am, what exactly I “do.”
Not sure “what exactly you ‘do,’” Julie? Try this on for size: You collect a cool half-a-mil for being the latest hot young female writer with an Ivy League degree and a chick-lit manuscript.
Best of luck, Julie. May your tale end more happily than that of the last young Harvard gal who landed a $500,000 book deal.
Anyone have any intelligence to share about the comely Ms. Buxbaum — what she’s like, where she worked as a litigatrix, etc.? If so, please chime in.
Struggling Ivy Leaguer Makes Good [Gawker]
Meet Miss Hot Young Author Chick 2007 [GalleyCat]
Julie Buxbaum: The Opposite of Love [Publishers Marketplace (subscription)]
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
Also, we have the two below in-house openings:
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