I do not enjoy my job. I detest the obligation to keep track of my time in billable six-minute increments and the enormous pressure to work as many of those increments as is humanly possible. Worse, I work as a junior member on teams of lawyers assembled to produce work I used to complete alone in less time. As far as I can tell, this arms race approach to litigation adds bureaucratic and political complexities while degrading the quality of the work we produce. In all events, my job bears little resemblance to my previous professional experiences, the ones that purportedly made me such an attractive hire. It feels like my eight-year legal joyride earned me a top position as a corporate chauffeur.
— Isaac Lidsky, a former child star who graduated from Harvard Law School and in 2008 became the first blind Supreme Court clerk, reflecting on his unhappy time at the Biglaw firm of Akin Gump. He left Biglaw in 2011, but the experience provides plenty of fodder in his new book, “Eyes Wide Open” (affiliate link).