We lawyers can get sensitive about our public image sometimes, and many of us don't think much of jokes, movies and TV shows in which we're portrayed as devious, greedy and dishonest. In other words, the Canadian Bar Association likely won't recommend Anonymous Lawyer to its members anytime soon. That's their loss. Anonymous Lawyer won't do much for our reputation, but it is the funniest novel I've read in a long, long time.
The title character is a hiring partner at a prestigious Los Angeles firm, who starts a weblog — titled “Anonymous Lawyer,” of course — in which he vents about his job and the people with whom he's forced to deal every day. (Author Jeremy Blachman spun off the novel from — and named it after — his blog.)
After the firm’s CEO suffers a fatal heart attack at his desk (among his final words: “I wish I’d spent more time at the office”), Anonymous Lawyer thinks he’s a shoo-in to be named the new chairman. When he loses out to his bitter rival -- and promptly gets moved to an office on the “dumpster” side of the building — he plots his revenge online, with some assistance from an intern and an associate who discover his secret identity. (We never do find out his real name – or that of anyone else in the firm, known only by nicknames like “That Foreign Dude,” “The Bombshell” and “Oops.”)
The entire novel is written in the form of blog entries and e-mails from readers, associates and Anonymous Lawyer’s law school-bound niece. Along the way, the title character tells us about his motivational tips (he shows a scene from Brokeback Mountain to new associates, to show them that working long hours means they could find love in the workplace); his firm’s clients (the “human rights practice group” represents the Burmese government); and his feelings about his co-workers and subordinates (he chides “The One Who Loves His Kids” for trying to leave the office early, around 7pm on Fridays).
Anonymous Lawyer is dark, vicious, occasionally tasteless, and I enjoyed every minute of it. You simply cannot believe what the main character is willing to do to maintain his position, or what he is willing to say about life in a large law firm. It’s an exaggerated portrayal, of course – but considering some of the stories I’ve heard about the largest firms here in Atlantic Canada (never mind L.A.), I have to wonder whether it’s really exaggerated that much.
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Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - cherag
Can anybody suggest fiction thriller on legal and financial fraud