The Lawyer‘s Web Week is a weekly commentary on legal activity on the web. This includes an overview of the best of the week’s blogs. If you want to direct us to useful links, email webweek@thelawyer. com.
Bonsai bonanza
The war for young legal talent in the US has just got a lot more violent. Sullivan & Cromwell has unleashed its most powerful weapon: a bonsai tree. Law blog Above the Law (www.abovethelaw.com) reports that the firm is sending out bonsai trees to all students it offers jobs to. As if the $100,000 (£49,100)-plus starting salaries were not enough.
One lucky recipient of a tree said: “There’s no message with them (other than a ‘Compliments of Sullivan & Cromwell’ card). Bonsai trees live a long time. Perhaps they want us to grow old with the firm?”It will be interesting to see how the other firms respond. If the salary war is anything to go by, the students will be receiving full-size trees within two years.
Jerk-life balance
For those who are looking for a new start away from a psychopathic supervisor, then Jerk Free Jobs (www.jerkfreejobs.com) could be a good place to start looking.
According to the blurb, the site “features jobs at certified jerk-free companies so that job-seekers won’t have to worry about applying to companies with abusive or toxic bosses”.
Perhaps it’s just the way the thing is set up, but there are no law firm jobs on the site.
The right hand gang
A lot has been made about lawyers having blogs, to the extent that lawyers’ blogs even have their own little word in tech land – blawgs. So it’s a rarity when you stumble across a blog written by a legal secretary.
The suggestively titled Lawyer’s Right Hand (http://lawyersrighthand.com/) is one such unusual find. The blog is a useful mix of practical advice, fashion tips and haiku:”The boss’s line rings.
Salesman waits too long to speak.
Ha, ha, I hang up.”
If more legal secretaries sign up to the blogging phenomenon, they might get their own nomenclature too. Something better than blegal secretaries or legal blogretaries, one hopes.
