"I could be doing that, but then I'd also have a $1000 a day coke and hooker habit and beat my wife and kids in the Hamptons on the weekends that I see them. This way, I only punish my liver, and what good is a liver if you don't abuse it?"
Tucker Max, in reference to being a corporate lawyer.
Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's, which since 2003 has curbed expansion to improve operations and build traffic at existing stores, now has about 80 percent of its 13,000 U.S. restaurants on some form of extended hours, a spokesman said. At least 12 percent operate around the clock.
9:00 am - I just got into the office. The investment bankers will be here any minute to bully us around with this billion-dollar acquisition they're advising on. I start putting on my kneepads.
10:00 am - The bankers roll in, late as usual, joking about how they make twice as much as us. I get on my knees and start sucking.
10:50 am - Finally, some directors from this prestigious buyout fund show up for the drafting session. One of them tells me to grab him some coffee.
10:54 am - As I'm handing him his mug of coffee, I just barely touch his hand. I almost climax.
11:00 am to 10:45 pm - I suck more people's dicks. Finally, I can go home.
11:05 pm - I'm about to sneak out of the office, when a senior partner leaves me a voicemail telling me that there's a whole bunch of shit to do. I was told during law school that biglawyers work a little less than junior investment bankers, but I guess I was lied to; I'll have to spend the night in the office. Again.
What do you mean? If you mean that I'm not particularly trained in negotiation, I'd concede that. If you mean I don't negotiate, I would disagree. I'm not the one negotiating price or major deal terms, but the junior associates pretty regularly negotiate confidentiality agreements, agreements with various agents (i-bank engagement letters, exchange agent agreements, proxy solicitor engagements), language in securities filings, reps in merger agreements, disclosure schedules, etc.
Date: July 1st, 2006 4:14 PM Author: Grizzly Range Incel
How do you know when you have the ability to "negotiate" a particular term, and when that term should be passed to someone higher up? If the negotiate to reach an agreed upon understanding, generally, or are you really getting something more for your side?
Thanks for continuing to contribute even with so many jackasses here.
Depends. To some extent you just have a feel for what people care about. Or you'll negotiate your first ____ agreement/rep/whatever and ask the partner for advice, and by your second or third you'll know what to do on your own. In general, the more something restricts your client, creates liability, or allows the other side to do dangerous things, the less you can do on your own.
In general you negotiate to achieve more for your side, though it depends a bit. But there are a whole lot of provisions in any large contract that the principals don't have an "understanding" about -- no CEO has a clear, well-founded opinion on what his absence-of-changes rep should say -- but that are nonetheless important.
Date: July 1st, 2006 5:02 PM Author: Grizzly Range Incel
So it sounds like you quickly move from having no experience to someone with responsibility for at least pieces of the deal. It sounds like a job for someone who likes chatting it up on the phone.
Yes. I (and most of my classmates) became responsible for parts of deals very quickly. There are deals where I'm the only associate and entirely responsible for things like confidentiality agreements, reps and warranties, disclosure schedules, proxy statement, etc. Partners will occasionally take a quick look. And I talk on the phone a lot.
Well I'm writing at a very general level. Replace "negotiate and draft documents" with "review emails and troll Lexis" and you have a day in the life of a litigator.
Date: July 1st, 2006 5:11 PM Author: curious electric furnace
The fact that you can get pleadings from cases handled by quality firms makes your life much easier. Gibson handled an identical, and very complicated, issue to what I was charged with researching, and I stayed late that night rewriting their work. I next "worked from home" the next two days watching espn and lounging at the pool, then turned in the assignment a full day early.
Date: July 1st, 2006 5:06 PM Author: Sapphire rebellious sanctuary
Cheaper? WTF? Why would I possibly care if it is cheaper? Lexis is shit. Westlaw is far superior. Nothing is worse that a lexis citation that forces me to use that crap.
Date: July 1st, 2006 5:09 PM Author: Sapphire rebellious sanctuary
I just can't figure out why they would not have the useful headnotes like westlaw. The lexis headnotes are worthless. And the key number digest is great.
Are you ever solely responsible for drafting whole, extensive deals (like 50 pages and up) or are they derived from other sources? (like multiple authors and existing documents).
I don't think anyone has ever sat down (at least not in the last 40 years) and written a merger agreement from scratch. It would make no sense. I am often responsible for first drafts of merger agreements, but I'll stitch them together from precedents.
Thanks for the response - so you would say that the challenge of your job lies in deciding the appropriate terms/rules/prices within somewhat standardized formats?
Date: July 1st, 2006 7:14 PM Author: Stubborn Lettuce
The 7 Habits of Highly Useless Corporate Lawyers.
"Ernie from Glen Burnie", not his real name, is an unreliable but wise childhood friend of mine who likes the works of Hunter Thompson. EFGB is now a partner at a Washington, DC law firm. For years he has claimed that the following--by an unknown and long-dead lawyer, and dated 1836--was discovered during the 1980s in the ruins of an old Episcopal church in a northern Virginia town near our native DC. I would believe EFGB--except that I doubt that the word "weenie" was much in style in the antebellum American south:
1. Be risk-averse at all times. Clients have come to expect this from their lawyers. It's tradition. Honor it.
2. Tell the client only what it can't do. Business clients are run by business people who take risks. They need to be managed, guided, stopped. Don't encourage them.
3. Whatever you do, don't take a stand, and don't make a recommendation. (You don't want to be wrong, do you?)
4. Treat the client as a potential adversary at all times. Keep a distance.
5. Cover yourself. Write a lot to the client. Craft lots of confirming letters which use clauses like "it is our understanding", "our analysis is limited to..." and "we do not express an opinion as to whether..."
6. Churn up extra fees with extra letters and memoranda and tasks. Milk the engagement. (If you are going to be a weenie anyway, you might as well be a sneaky weenie.)
7. As out-house counsel, you are American royalty. Never forget that.