captainsblog | Rapture, you say? Five years ago today:) (Reply)

I don't know what all the fuss was about last month about this being Carried Away to Jesus business. I found my own way there on 6/6/6- the day I formally filed my business certificate to begin my own solo law practice. (I'd rather not post a picture of it, or of the blood-stained upside-down crucifix or of me running around the corners of a pentangle crying out "HAIL PRINCE OF DARKNESS!" Those were just Bar Association requirements;)

Speaking of that particular brotherhood of hell: I like my job, mostly, but I can't stand being in a room with large numbers of my fellow practitioners, especially when they Borg up into these square collectives known as Bar Associations. They are tools of the large firms which provide most of their revenue, and of politicians and journalists who use them for quick cover when they need to get a reaction to a legal issue. Since I've had to pay for these memberships myself for years (even years longer than today's anniversary), I've been choosy about which ones get my membership, and right now it's just the county one here- a decent bunch, as these groups go- and the national lobbying group, the ABA. I only keep that one because I have a life insurance policy through them that I'm probably too fat and medicated now to qualify for off the street, and for years I've been stuck with the priciest class of membership, based solely on my year of bar admission. I assure you that firm size would be a far better predictor of ability to pay than years admitted, but since the bigass firms have the votes, they keep it this way and make it, slightly, Suck To Be Me And Only Me.

Until this year, anyway. I just got my first invoice for the membership year beginning in September; they guilt-trip you into paying three months early so they won't waste natural resources having to send you more bills. Yet inside was a surprise: I was eligible for the reduced rate traditionally offered to judges and lawyers in government and non-profit service, which apparently has now been expanded to include solo practitioners.

Good deal! So where's the ticky box to check, or the chart to review, to get the lower rate? The answer, which only a cruel twisted bunch of lawyers could have come up with? There isn't one. You have to call to find out how much to send in. (I checked the website, and it's not posted there, either.) I can only imagine how many struggling solos are paying full freight because the office manager didn't see the change, or they didn't bother to read anything other than the bottom of the bill (still showing the full $399 in my case plus the "voluntary" justice fund donation), or they're just too embarrassed to make the call. Me? Fook thot- I'm on the phone to Chicago as soon as it gets to be 9:00 there.

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On the bright side (::whistles::), I just sent off the meanest, angriest, snarkiest email to another lawyer that it has been my pleasure to send in a long time. And I'm happy to say, he started it. At 4-something Friday, he sent a pile of flaming poo accusing me of sandbagging because I'd waited until the Friday afternoon before a Tuesday hearing to settle the terms of a procedural order. I elected to hold on my reply to have the benefit of a happy weekend, plus thereby managed to turn my reply into a dish of revenge best served cold, but by last night, I was able to start it by reminding him that he had sat on a set of my papers for over three weeks in May, only sending in his 24-page reply to them after 4:00 on the Tuesday afternoon before the original Thursday morning hearing. No reply to mine from him, but then it isn't 4:00 yet, so I'll hold out hope for further literary violence.