the Zealous

24 Oct 17
This New York Times story of the death of an intellectual property practitioner at Silicon Valley's Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is both harrowing and heart-breaking. "He had been working more than 60 hours a week for 20 years, ever since he started law school and worked his way into a partnership …", only to slowly but inexorably become an addict of various drugs, finally felled by a bacterial infection common among IV drug users. The last call on his phone he ever made was to call into a conference for a client, mere hours before he succumbed.
 
21 Sep 17
There aren't many songs in which lawyers are portrayed in a positive light.

At best, lawyers are mentioned in order to depict someone in dire straits and desperate for legal help. Warren Zevon's Lawyers, Guns & Money (1978) is probably the best representative of this:

Now I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan.

22 Aug 17

This is from an actual present-day huge-firm client engagement letter, of 2017 vintage (emphasis added):

The Firm and its affiliated entities represent clients in a broad range of industries and in a wide variety of legal matters. Absent an effective conflict of interest waiver, conflicts of interest could arise that could deprive you or other clients of the right to select the Firm as their counsel, and preclude us from representing you or other clients in ongoing or future matters.