There's this great rumor at the firm that I am proud to have helped start, a couple of years ago, with one of the associates (now a partner) in Tax. (Isn't it wierd how tax folks, who should be the geekiest ones, turn out to be really fun? IP lawyers too -- way cooler than you'd initially think. It's the ERISA and the environmental lawyers who are a lot less interesting. And health care people seem more uptight than the rest. I don't know if it's universally true but its definitely true here, and a couple of my law school classmates confirm it at their firms.) Anyway, back to the rumor. There's a legend of "the blackball" that I started at a summer associates cocktail party two or three summers ago, that's kind of taken on a life of its own. I don't remember how it originated, but I ended up telling one of the summers that they didn't have to worry about getting the blackball and over the course of the next week three of them separately came to me and asked me about the blackball, and one came to my buddy in Tax and asked him, and we got a gleam in our eyes over lunch one day and the whole thing sprouted. I embellished the story over time so now this is our story:

After your first year, every year you're at the firm you get one "blackball point" per year. So second years have one point, third years have two points, etc. Partners, any partner, get 10 points, and that's a blackball. We tell the summers (or occasionally a real wanker of a lateral, I can think of one who actually believes in the blackball system) that in any year you have the choice of using your blackball points on anyone who is being considered for a job here, or who is having an annual review done. Since all of that takes place around August or September, we can use blackball points on summer associates or regular associates. We tell the summers, as if to comfort them, that it's rare that people waste their blackball points on a summer, because it's better to save up another year and hit them harder after they start as an associate, when you've got an extra blackball point to count in the vote. Plus, we tell them, it's hard, though not impossible, to annoy anyone in a summer that much more than some of the annoying folks who are here all the time. The partners might get more than 10 points with seniority, but all partners definitely get 10 points, and (we're fuzzy about this part) we think, but can't confirm, that 10 is definitely enough to get rid of someone. So if three fourth-years have it in for you, well, you'd better hope there's not anyone else willing to cast a blackball vote. Enough people are in on the blackball thing that it's got reasonable credibility among some of the first and second year associates, plus the lateral that a bunch of us don't like. And of course if someone asks about it and gets an "I don't know what you're talking about" response they think it just means they've been blackballed or they're being fed a line.

These little games get us through some of the really late nights. If you're not working at a big firm you probably think this is wacko, but trust me. It makes the time pass, and it's innocent fun.

- posted by Blogger @ 2:50 PM