It was the wrong thread

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It's not just law. Commoditization is savaging professionals in every industry. The bean counters rule all, and they are unbeatable because, what's the argument against them? There is no rational near term argument against a ruthless rush to optimal efficiency. The only argument is a long term one: That sooner or later, nobody will be able to afford what's being produced so damn efficiently. And nobody in a position to make a difference has ever given a fuck about the long term.

All but a handful of people I know are working two professional jobs per household to afford what is relatively* a upper-middle class lifestyle that my parents managed on one salary. When the first 40% of the smaller salary is going to childcare expenses (and convenience foods etc.), many of us are just treading water from a 1980 SoL on one salary. People in my office who started 25 years before me had vacation homes on one salary.

*In absolute terms it's hard to say whether a 2013 household with broadband and four monthly cell phone bills is middle class since the middle class household of 1980 would regard it as more than luxurious — it would be an unattainable marvel.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I was at the annual outside counsel meeting for my biggest client, and their outside counsel laison was explaining that document review should never been done by a lawyer, and typically should be done somewhere like India.

I would say that this person has no idea what they are talking about, at least with respect to cases that involve real stakes. I've seen firms and clients take that sort of attitude toward documents, and I've seen how it can cripple them in the ability to wrangle evidence to support their arguments.

I worked on a fairly high stakes case with Howrey representing the other party to the deal. As far as we could tell, there were 8 Howrey partners on the case and two associates. Not surprisingly, nearly all of the actual documentary evidence (that proved successful) came out of our doc review, which was supervised by actual lawyers. Maybe you don't need lawyers doing the first review, but sending it to India to be supervised by people who don't know the case is significantly handicapping your case.

But of course, there is no reason why you need to pay a 30% or more premium to have your case handled on a coast either.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

All but a handful of people I know are working two professional jobs per household to afford what is relatively* a upper-middle class lifestyle that my parents managed on one salary. When the first 40% of the smaller salary is going to childcare expenses (and convenience foods etc.), many of us are just treading water from a 1980 SoL on one salary. People in my office who started 25 years before me had vacation homes on one salary.

*In absolute terms it's hard to say whether a 2013 household with broadband and four monthly cell phone bills is middle class since the middle class household of 1980 would regard it as more than luxurious — it would be an unattainable marvel.

It feels that way, but it isn't true. You're consuming significantly more and better quality stuff than your equivalents in 1980 were. Cell phone and broadband, obviously, but also vastly higher quality cars, more fresh food (assuming you do that), better restaurants, higher quality and larger homes, etc.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Adder

higher quality and larger homes, etc.

bwaHAHAHAHAHAHA

ETA I do take your point as to the rest.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

One of the great things about having departed Biglaw for a boutique is that I have to work pretty hard to get myself to really care about the pending demise of these places. I mean, the problem isn't that the lives of the Biglaw partners are bleak and miserly because they need to make iBanker amounts or that they're failing to reproduce themselves and so populate the world with more baby reptiles. The problems are that Biglaw increasingly sucks at providing quality legal services because they are more focused on their own needs than their clients'; and that Biglaw's main need is the soak clients by ginning unnecessary or fabricated hours constantly.

There is always a simple option for a good lawyer - find some compatriots, do some good work, treat clients fairly, and money that is really pretty damn good by any reasonable standards, though perhaps not enough to average $1.5M ppp. All these whiners are choosing the life they complain about.

Not sure if we can attach files anymore, but this passes as appropriate in my office, so there's something to be said about Biglaw--they have standards.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

All but a handful of people I know are working two professional jobs per household to afford what is relatively* a upper-middle class lifestyle that my parents managed on one salary. When the first 40% of the smaller salary is going to childcare expenses (and convenience foods etc.), many of us are just treading water from a 1980 SoL on one salary. People in my office who started 25 years before me had vacation homes on one salary.

*In absolute terms it's hard to say whether a 2013 household with broadband and four monthly cell phone bills is middle class since the middle class household of 1980 would regard it as more than luxurious — it would be an unattainable marvel.

If you set aside the revenue side of the equation for your typical family and just look at the expenses, what is more expensive than it was in 1980? In an area like the one you live in, I would imagine that housing has gotten progressively more expensive since WWII. For a long time after the war, you could throw up suburban housing all over the place, so scarcity wasn't a problem. Now you can't do that, and everyone pays more and more for the land (as opposed to the buildings on it).

The obvious answer is to build denser housing, but local zoning prevents that. So instead you see bungalows torn down to build monster houses -- but both are single-family houses.

I hope you appreciate my efforts to turn this conversation to local land use law.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

All but a handful of people I know are working two professional jobs per household to afford what is relatively* a upper-middle class lifestyle that my parents managed on one salary. When the first 40% of the smaller salary is going to childcare expenses (and convenience foods etc.), many of us are just treading water from a 1980 SoL on one salary. People in my office who started 25 years before me had vacation homes on one salary.

*In absolute terms it's hard to say whether a 2013 household with broadband and four monthly cell phone bills is middle class since the middle class household of 1980 would regard it as more than luxurious — it would be an unattainable marvel.

Everything's relative. Broadband and cell phones are cheap necessities of the modern age. The presence of gadgets (and the false suggestion cheap tech innovation is its own unique form of wealth) doesn't undo the fact that the breadwinner in that household is getting crushed by the "middle class squeeze."

Wall Street assholes love the argument that quality of life measured by things like cable, a washer/dryer in the home, and car ownership is proof financialization has brought society immense riches. Fuck these people. Seriously. Seat them on the horn of that brass bull outside the NYSE and twist them on it until their eyes bleed. Wealth isn't cheap shit on credit. Wealth is freedom, and freedom derives from having cash in your pocket with which you can choose your own path, rather than be another debt serf in hoc, ultimately, to Wall Street.

All this said, I am not against the financial sector fucking people over, or turning them into debt serfs. If you can be duped, tough shit on you. But what I am very much against, and everyone ought to be, is sophistry. And the argument the middle class is better off now because Jackass Bank will loan them enough, at 13%, compounded monthly, to have a "professional grade" outdoor grill, or surround sound system, than they were when they weren't living paycheck to paycheck, is fucking bullshit. Steal if you like, but be fucking honest about it.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

bwaHAHAHAHAHAHA

Perhaps your home is not higher quality and larger, but I'm fairly certain the average home is.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

Perhaps your home is not higher quality and larger, but I'm fairly certain the average home is.

There are vastly fewer >5 acre lots these days.

Of the things we consume today, the one that I think has significantly increased intrinsic value and improved the quality of life across the board is healthcare. Our healthcare is vastly better than it used to be. Of course, post-supersize-me, we need all the help we can get.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Wall Street assholes love the argument that quality of life measured by things like cable, a washer/dryer in the home, breast implants and car ownership is proof financialization has brought society immense riches.

You forgot a key part of the argument, so I fixed this sentence. Do you still agree with the rest?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

There are vastly fewer >5 acre lots these days.

Hm. You think so? I kind of don't. I guess I don't think there were ever many, and I think the sprawl of suburbia probably actually created more. But that's a guess.

At least around here, the lots for older suburbs are actually smaller than new ones, with much, much smaller houses on them.

But I didn't say the land around homes was larger and better quality. I said the houses were larger and better quality.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Wealth is freedom, and freedom derives from having cash in your pocket with which you can choose your own path, rather than be another debt serf in hoc, ultimately, to Wall Street.

Yet freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Quite the contradiction!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Everything's relative. Broadband and cell phones are cheap necessities of the modern age. The presence of gadgets (and the false suggestion cheap tech innovation is its own unique form of wealth) doesn't undo the fact that the breadwinner in that household is getting crushed by the "middle class squeeze."

Wall Street assholes love the argument that quality of life measured by things like cable, a washer/dryer in the home, and car ownership is proof financialization has brought society immense riches. Fuck these people. Seriously. Seat them on the horn of that brass bull outside the NYSE and twist them on it until their eyes bleed. Wealth isn't cheap shit on credit. Wealth is freedom, and freedom derives from having cash in your pocket with which you can choose your own path, rather than be another debt serf in hoc, ultimately, to Wall Street.

All this said, I am not against the financial sector fucking people over, or turning them into debt serfs. If you can be duped, tough shit on you. But what I am very much against, and everyone ought to be, is sophistry. And the argument the middle class is better off now because Jackass Bank will loan them enough, at 13%, compounded monthly, to have a "professional grade" outdoor grill, or surround sound system, than they were when they weren't living paycheck to paycheck, is fucking bullshit. Steal if you like, but be fucking honest about it.

Atticus's straw man with a vacation home didn't pay cash for it, that was on credit too.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

Yet freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Quite the contradiction!

Kristofferson. Never was an artist so overrated.

(And such a poor man's Sam Elliott.)

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Atticus's straw man with a vacation home didn't pay cash for it, that was on credit too.

Nor was it "cheap shit." He could afford expensive shit on credit.