To begin, today’s O.J. Dreier Award for hubris, chutzpah, outright blindness, and downright unbelievability goes to White & Case. WC has earned this high honor by: 1) firing 170 people in November (70 associates, 100 staff); 2) today announcing that it would pay associate and other bonuses in the tens of thousands of dollars per person; and 3) reporting the most expensive hourly billing rate ($1,260) of any firm in the country. Congratulations on a job well done.

The Unemployed Lawyer would also like to give a special award to those employed WC associates bitching and moaning over their sorry fate all over Above the Law. You are a truly enchanting group. To you the Unemployed Lawyer grants the Ice Cube Award for coldness, hardness, complete lack of substance, and the 100% certainty of melting away in the very near future. What is it with you people? YOU HAVE JOBS!

Second, the Unemployed Lawyer would like to address the concerns of one reader who, in an email, politely mentioned her belief that the Unemployed Lawyer was “ranting”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to rant is to “speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way”. The Unemployed Lawyer has never intended to write over-long posts, nor to write wild ones. If I have done so, I apologize to all who read my writings.

I most certainly agree with my correspondent that I am impassioned. It should be obvious, but I feel very strongly about the way the events of the past two or three years have affected the members of the legal profession and will affect us in times to come. Further, as I have said before on the site, I am not on anybody’s side, per se. I am not an associate, I am not a partner. I am an unemployed lawyer. Frankly, I would be delighted to work as a first-year, just to have the income, but with my resume no firm would ever make that offer.

This is not a news site. First and foremost I intend the site to become the largest centralized site of job search information for experienced attorneys and staff in the United States. Second, I would like to enter into discussions with the community about topics that puzzle me, worry me, bewilder me, amuse me, and even enrage me. I like to fantasize and see how you react. See The Wormwood and the Gall and the Sugary Spoon, posted 12/06/08 . Another reader has asked if I see myself as a provocateur. After considering for a moment, I realized that, yes, a provocateur is exactly what I would like to be.

So if I offend you or annoy you, great, talk back. Do it on the site so others will see what you have to say. That’s what I want you to do. If you think I’m crazy, tell me. I’m sure some of you do. If you worry and wonder about the things I worry and wonder about, say so on the site. Maybe we can work it out together. I sure can’t work it out alone. That’s why I posted the issue in the first place.

I am trying to engage you, whether you hate me or love me. From my point of view, the only bad thing I can do is bore you.

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[1] aka Lonelyhearts, Schary Productions, 1958, directed by Vincent J. Donehue, starring Montgomery Clift.