[Ed. note: This is the farewell post of EXLEY, who was eliminated yesterday from ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Exley’s avatar (at right).]

When I was a teenager, some of my classmates and I got bussed to a public high school 40 minutes away. We were part of a program for social outcasts who scored well on a couple of standardized IQ tests, and we applied all of our angst and intellect to harassing our bus drivers — we bellowed Queen’s “We Will Rock You” at the top of our lungs, we threw our lunches and snowballs at other cars to try to cause accidents (sometimes successfully), and once on our way home we all stared stonily at the bus driver by way of his rear view mirror until he finally cracked, turned the bus around, and drove us back to school.

Through my brief stint as an ATL Idol contestant, I’ve come to appreciate both what Lat does, and how those poor high school bus drivers must’ve felt. You guys are as unruly as a centaur’s dark and frothy pubes.

Read more, after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is by EXLEY, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Exley’s avatar (at right).]

As anyone remotely familiar with the law knows, the devil is in the details. Similarly, it’s the little things that can sometimes make or break a long day at the office. A mouse with a trackball that refuses to roll in a particular direction, for example, or harsh bathroom lighting that gives everyone’s reflection a sickly, ghoulish, glow can really mess a girl up. And a half-nod of recognition from a usually impassive lobby security guard can make a dude feel like the office is his second crib.

The dog days of summer present their own set of potential pet peeves.

The major complaint we’ve heard from female associates is that offices are too damn cold in the summer. Of course, offices are probably the same temperature year-round, but the coolness is more tolerable in the non-summer seasons when people wear warmer clothes. When it is as high as 90 degrees outside, however, it is impossible to commute to work in wool slacks and a sweater set without suffering heat stroke and/or being fingered as a crazy person (especially if wearing a pair of ostentatious cross trainers). Physical and mental health issues aside, it just feels good to be able to change it up sartorially once in a while.

Unfortunately, those who indulge in summer apparel sometimes need to store additional layers of clothing at work or snuggle under company-issued fleece at their desks. And forget about drinking an ice coffee or Jamba Juice inside! You’ll need a parka and a hunting cap to be able to do that.

Is your law firm unbearably cold or hot this summer, and have you been able to do anything about it? We’ve heard suspicions that the thermostats in individual offices at Skadden’s New York office don’t really do anything at all, and that the office is kept cold “for the computers.” Sounds ominous.

Any theories on why offices spend so much money blasting the AC in the summer and possibly lowering employee morale? (Perhaps it’s a way to awaken associates from the depths of summer associate food coma, or to indirectly discourage skimpy clothing.)

Summer attire can also chafe against firm dress code policies. Despite the perennial push for “city shorts” by what seems like every single women’s apparel retailer, are there any firms out there that actually allow employees to wear shorts to work?

Of course, even the uncontroversial short-sleeve dress shirt can raise issues if it reveals a tattoo, or three. A partner with such a predicament writes:

I’m a 50 year old lawyer in NY, a partner in a law firm. I have tattoos on my arms with images and the names of my two children and my wife.

Check out what happens when he rolls up his sleeves, and share your own summertime firm life experiences, after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is by EXLEY, one of the finalists in ATL Idol, the “reality blogging” competition that will determine ATL’s next editor. It is marked with Exley’s avatar (at right).]

We apologize for the delay in bringing it to you; we received it later than the other submissions. Alas, the demands of Biglaw are not very conducive to covert participation in a legal blogging deathmatch.]

I saw this rather striking ad at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank this morning (pre-quake):

The text on the right says: “Justice may be blind but she still sees it our way 92.3% of the time.”

Call me a sick nut but at first I thought it was an ad for the United States of America, to make me feel good about all the rigmarole a person has to go through at airport security these days.

But it turns out that Lady Justice was posing for another almost-all-knowing entity.

Find out who it is after the jump.