Great post, and thanks for the mention. I could not agree more with your comments. I hope to have a post describing my version of “value billing” up next week.

Reminds me of a lawyer I know, who sued my client in a subrogation case. I filed a motion to compel when he responded to discovery without actually producing the documents he claimed to have produce. He called me up and got all self-righteous that I was making him work on a “pissant subrogation case” when he had “600 other files to work on.” I told him that sounded a lot like malpractice to me.

He hasn’t harassed me about it since.

As usual, you’ve said it better than I could, George. Let me just add “Incentivize This!”

I don’t know about avoiding windmills, but I did decide to avoid creating a hostile environment on my homepage, by urging Pancho to jump on his donkey, rather than “grab his ass” and come along. Gee, can you say that in the Comment section of a PG website? Guess I’m no longer PC.

And critics think the Atkins Diet is dangerous . . .

The ABA’s Model Diet would indeed pass muster as kinder and gentler than the typical demands large firms place on their associates, but that’s not much better than saying that hemlock is kinder and gentler than cyanide. The end result is comparable in either case.

Why does this talk of “varied . . . challenges and . . . psychic rewards” make me think that these associates are viewed as little more than “incentivized, enthusiastic, hard-working” laboratory rats? We all know the sorts of ailments those useful rodents are prone to, don’t we? [I suppose maintaining this sort of "billable" pace is one of those things that -- in the punchline of the old joke -- "even rats won't do"?]

Watch out for those windmills, Advocate of the Woeful Countenance.