My old buddy and fellow curmudgeon, Mark Herrmann, still writes for Above the Law once a week, as he has since it was readable and credible. Why is a mystery to me, as he’sf smart and funny, thus unrelatable to ATL’s readership these days. My best guess is that he’s still in the groove and, to the extent he’s able to offer any serious thoughts to a young lawyer, he wants to help. Mark’s that kind of guy.
So he wrote a post that was somewhat satirical, but with a point.
Folks polish their credentials, and their egos, when they draft their résumés.
Maybe there should be a rule: If you’re going to draft a résumé, you must simultaneously draft an anti-résumé.
Just to keep your ego in check.
There was a time when modesty was considered a virtue, and shameless self-promotion a vice. Now the mantra is that “if you don’t puff yourself, who will?” And so they lay claim to experience they don’t have, skills they’ve yet to develop and conceal any details that might give their plan away, like their year of graduation from law school or their admission to the bar.
The anti-résumé would be more honest: “Has tried only one case in [his or her] life; served as defense counsel; and the jury awarded more in damages than the plaintiff’s lawyer requested in closing argument.”
Even if you’re not obligated to post the honest description on your firm’s website, maybe you should be obligated to write it up, just to keep your ego in check.
Mark’s point here isn’t to condemn the marketing efforts of the less-than-worthy, but to remind them that their puffery is just that, puffery. Don’t believe your press releases. Have some humility. While making fun of the hype of self-promotion, don’t lose touch with reality. Not bad advice, right? Not at Above the Law.
The reaction to this column was fierce, with some readers saying the idea of writing an anti-résumé was a terrible one, sure to depress people and likely to cause suicides. How could I have written such dangerous words?
Likely to cause suicide? Dangerous words? How fragile, if not broken, could ATL readers be?
Mark’s response to this was to remind the most fragile readers that there are others who don’t share their mental state.
On the other hand, if you’re consumed by the idea of professional “success” — good grades, fancy clerkship, fancy job — and you’ve never attained that traditional success, then you might not view the idea of an anti-résumé as a cute joke. Rather, you might be bemoaning your lack of “success” in life and dismayed by the thought that you should be required to wallow in your self-evident “failures.” If you had to draft an anti-résumé, that could drive you over the edge — to drink, to drugs, to suicide. How could I have proposed such a thing?
Is this the portion of the ATL audience that lost their minds over Mark’s anti-résumé and was driven to suicide? Suicide? Do young lawyers not realize that everyone can’t come in first in the race? And this is hard enough to drive them over the edge, “to drink, to drugs, to suicide”?
I surely hope that the piece of my readership that I didn’t hear from falls into a different category — a well-adjusted middle. I assume that my average reader is average — went to an average school, performed about average, and went on to an average career. But if that hypothetical reader is emotionally secure and well-adjusted, then that reader should be satisfied with his or her life: Success is not, after all, a function of grades or clerkships or partnerships.
Does this well-adjusted middle exist? Like Mark, I surely hope so. But that others exist who would be driven to suicide over Mark’s post is hard to believe. Not only were they unable to see the humor in Mark’s anti-résumé post, but the message was too dangerous for them to accept without devolving to self-harm because it didn’t rub their tummies. If so, they should not be lawyers. They will not survive the practice of law.
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One minor edit…clip that last sentence. “They will not survive.”
I don’t wish anyone ill, especially if they are so fragile that any negative thought would cause them to crash. But they have no business in the well, responsible for another person’s life or fortune.
I don’t wish them any I’ll will, but if what he wrote makes them feel like that, being a lawyer isn’t the only thing they won’t be able to cope with.
Not being able to cope has become the national pastime.
By your leave, Admiral, I would just like to say:
Fanny never got the recognition they deserved.
Amen.
Young Morticia really had it goin’ on!
My anti-resume is at ten pages and growing. What shall I do, oh what shall I do?
Mine’s a hundred pages and growing, and yet I’m still good with it.
I got ya’ all beat.
My resume IS an anti-resume.
I like to keep things simple.
A huge part of AtL’s readership was always the BigLaw crowd. Since the comment section was scuttled, that is probably almost 100% of the readership remaining. The vestigial utility of the site is that it publicizes BigLaw compensation and bonus scales, and BigLaw scandals.
So, the audience there is heavily invested in image and marketing. BigLaw is centrally about puffery and conspicuous waste, and preserving an unblemished facade of success. The young lawyers who have bought into it know by statistics that over 90% of them will never get the golden ring of equity partnership. For most of them, it becomes a matter of playing BigLaw’s own game long enough to pay off the student loans, and perhaps accumulate a few hundred grand in savings. Puffery is an inherent part of the play, as it is the currency of BigLaw. The firms do it, their recruits do it, and probably even the staff or contractor document review monkeys lost in the windowless reaches of the firm’s basement have to do it. They all understand that a genuine statement of credentials would be a severe disadvantage, likely leading to the practice scenario confronted in the epic B. McLeod ballad of The Mooncalf and the Wheel.
I don’t think you’re in touch with young lawyers. Why do you think Patrice, Kathryn and Staci (and the new kid who can’t write worth a damn, Chris) run the joint now?
I meet them in practice. They try the resume thing in the courts as well.
Only a few months ago, I was gifted with an appellate filing in which a statement unsupported by any citation to law was followed by, “This statement is made with authority by Appellant’s Counsel, by way of his substantial background in this area of the law.” After that, two more, long paragraphs, detailing the ABA publications for which he sat on the advisory boards or served in editorial positions, his Master of Law and S.J.D. degrees, and the law schools that awarded them. The discussion consumed an entire page of the brief. He left out his class rank and LSAT score (I could only assume this was because they were not favorable).
I also thought about the comments section when reading this post. I always assumed they trashed them because they were a cesspool of TTTs yelling FIRST!, but maybe they just figured out faster than the rest of us that the words would be considered violence if they left them to continue.
What a sad way for this once grand profession to find itself.
>Do young lawyers not realize that everyone can’t come in first in the race?
“Winners compare their goals with their achievements. Losers compare their outcomes to the outcomes of others.” An anti-resume sound like a fantastic idea for self-improvement and keeping humble.
People who belong in this profession will like the idea, or at least appreciate it. That’s why they should be lawyers.
What???? Know thyself – and thus thy weaknesses? That is SO last century!
I’m just trying to imagine what trial would be like with those sorts. “Objection, Your Honor, opposing counsel did not use my preferred pronouns. In fact, that should be contempt!”
Now imagine even further – some of them may wear robes some day…
@Guitardave – I’m surprised you didn’t opt for Weird Al’s “Young, Dumb, and Ugly.”
If you’re going Weird Al, “Dare to be Stupid” is far more apropos