Inside Straight: Reminiscence, After Four Weeks

Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Inside Straight, Above the Law’s new column for in-house counsel, written by Mark Herrmann.

Look: If Lat and Mystal are silly enough to let me write a column about in-house lawyers when I’ve worked in-house for just ten months, then surely I can reminisce about blogging at Above the Law after just four weeks on the job. Fair is fair, guys.

So here are three thoughts, after four weeks of typing. First:

On November 15, Lat published the post announcing that my column would start in three days. Lat wrote the post; I had nothing to do with it. He promptly sent me a link to that post, telling me that we were up. I hung up the phone after finishing a business call and clicked on the link, viewing the post within ten minutes of its publication. Incredibly, the “commenters” were already out in force.

I scrolled through the comments and immediately learned that I’m (1) homophobic, (2) a failure in Big Law, (3) desperate for money, and (4) ugly.

Before I’d written a word.

Fortunately, an old friend sent me an e-mail providing emotional support: “Hey, Mark, you’re not homophobic.”

Second….

In the four weeks since I actually started writing stuff, the most frequent critique of my work has been (mercifully, I suppose) that I have an odd writing style, because I write many paragraphs that are only one sentence long.

That critique is correct: I do use many one-sentence paragraphs. And, on reflection, that’s odd, because when I write in traditional media, I write traditional multi-sentence paragraphs. But somehow long paragraphs seem less appealing in blog posts, which are, by their nature, so short.

In any event, you’ll have to deal with it.

Because that’s how I write these things.

And I’m at the keyboard.

Not you.

Got it?

Third:

Writing this column for Above the Law, and keeping it funny, is going to be awfully hard. Who will I tease?

I can’t tease my employer (even if I wanted to, and I don’t) for obvious reasons.

I can’t tease law firms (even if I wanted to, and I don’t), because my employer, Aon, is the world’s leading insurance broker for law firms. If I start making fun of the clients, there’ll be brokers with pitchforks lined up at my office door.

So that leaves only one object for humor: Me.

(At least it’s an easy target.)

It’s gonna be a long, self-deprecating slog.

I can hardly wait.

Earlier: Prior installments of Inside Straight

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Mark Herrmann is the Vice President and Chief Counsel – Litigation at Aon, the world’s leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital and management consulting. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law.

You can reach him by email at [email protected].