Curmudgeon’s Perspective

Warren Zevon sang about sending “lawyers, guns and money” to get him out of a tight spot. But right now, it's lawyers who are in a tight spot. It’s getting harder to make it, every single day. Between the plethora of young lawyers looking for ...

Today we're setting a place at our virtual holiday table for Otto Sorts, our resident curmudgeon, catching up with his most popular—and controversial—posts. Take a seat and look at what Otto's been writing about this past year.

One way us old guys comfort ourselves about aging is by proving our continuing usefulness to the firm through mentoring new lawyers. While we may think that pearls of wisdom just drip from our lips, I wonder: Do we really have anything useful to ...

There's a scene in the movie "Men in Black" when Will Smith's character tries unsuccessfully to get the attention of his bosses, and finally succeeds when he bellows “Hey, Old Guys!” That's a familiar scene around my firm. No, I don't mean we ...

When my kid played soccer, there was a ritual at the end of every game. Each team would line up single-file, facing in opposite directions, then walk by the entire other team and slap each kid’s hand as a show of good ...

When I was growing up, among my favorite heroes were Atticus Finch, Perry Mason and Clarence Darrow. Yes, I know it could have had something to do with Gregory Peck, Raymond Burr and Spencer Tracey. But to me they represented an ideal of what ...

“I told him right to his face what the deal was. And you know what? That lying scumbag now claims I told him something else! I’m gonna nail him, his client and his client’s mother, if that’s what it takes to teach him not to lie to me!” ...

When I was an associate, the most prominent item on my desk was a big, black, ugly toad that sat on the front corner and stared at me expectantly all day, every day. Occasionally it would ring and I would be jerked from the safe haven of legal ...

I got an email from one of the younger partners the other day and, frankly, I couldn’t figure it out: “snicker77: why not? @fiddle @sweaterneck @sideways = Curmudgeon?” Upon investigation, I learned that he had pasted a “tweet” into ...

Most law firms have a senior partner who won’t stop doing things the “old way,” who won’t step aside so someone else can do it more efficiently or better. (Fill in your favorite saying about "pots" here.) Here’s the thing: For our clients, we ...