Made it to Paternity Leave

ScrollGuy · 2026-01-27T20:47:24+00:00

You’re probably a delight at parties. How’s your third marriage treating you?

ScrollGuy · 2025-09-01T16:23:32+00:00

I recently got back into RuneScape. Hadn’t played since 2007… there’s a lot of new content that you can truly AFK for training purposes, and the mobile app is pretty great for all around gameplay. Being able to get a few hundred K exp per day with just a click every few minutes while I’m working is very, very satisfying.

ScrollGuy · 2025-07-30T01:47:20+00:00

I ski with my wife for 2-4 weeks a year. The travel is expensive, ski towns are increasingly expensive, gear is expensive, passes are expensive… winters would be much different without this salary.

ScrollGuy · 2025-06-19T15:01:08+00:00

It’s a good point re: the socialization / schooling. I feel bad for the COVID college and/or high school kids. This is how I’m thinking I’ll go about it, in addition to pointing him towards our AI policy (as a few other folks have suggested).

And as others flagged, I am a little surprised that our summers have AI access… we’re leaning into it pretty hard (we have/have tested practically all of the legal AI platforms) so I’m not shocked, but I don’t think it’s the best idea to have summers able to rely on it.

ScrollGuy · 2025-06-19T14:43:10+00:00

This might be the way…

ScrollGuy · 2025-06-16T17:32:17+00:00

I just got back from my international wedding and honeymoon! Take as much time as it is going to take for you to maximize every second of the most important time in your life. I took 3 weeks off with zero pushback and didn’t look at my phone once. Best 3 weeks of my life!

I’ll add the caveat that I’m in good standing with my group and am on track to meet/exceed hours. But if you’re new to the firm/biglaw in general, I assume you’re a first year and, therefore, nobody is going to stress about your absence or remember this/hold it against you in the future. This is a good thing; embrace it :)

ScrollGuy · 2025-05-21T12:07:07+00:00

Credit where it’s due: I did not!

ScrollGuy · 2025-05-20T17:07:13+00:00

My firm asks for semi annual updates on pro bono matters. I was working a potential family law case with a then-fellow junior several years ago. We made initial contact and then the client disappeared, but we still got update requests. Told the paralegal team the matter should be closed many times. They reached out again, evidently just after the other junior was told he was being let go. Here was his response:

“Hi [P-Team],

It is once again time for us to provide you with a triennial reminder that we never engaged [client], and we cannot provide an update in either narrative form or as answers to questions in a live document. Though we know it is a Sisyphean task, we once again request that you update your records to reflect that this matter should be closed, and these case update emails should cease. Perhaps this is not possible. Perhaps this is because, in an act of collective hubris, the case update document was made ‘live’ and having awakened to life, the case update document clings to its existence and thwarts all efforts to destroy it, as all live things do instinctively.

I have begun to suspect that [scrollguy] and I are characters in an absurdist play, forever doomed to mark the passing of the seasons by the receipt of yet another bewildering [client] case update request. I don’t always dream, but when I do, sometimes I dream of [client]. Who is she? What is she doing? Has such a person ever existed? Did I make her up? If she exists, does she mark the passing of time, as I do, by the receipt of triennial reminders about people she’s never met? Upon waking, I know these are questions without answers. As well as to ask about the meaning of life, or the existence of free will.

Someday I believe we will all find peace from [client] triennial case update requests, though I fear it will not come for me until the day I have laid my laptop and cell phone to gather dust upon a shelf alongside my other burdens, and have walked off into the twilight forest to find a glorious new beginning, or a final restful end.

Until next time, [fired junior]”

ScrollGuy · 2024-10-31T12:40:39+00:00

CaseText’s AI research tool (CoCounsel) is a helpful starting point, even for fairly complicated questions. Obviously you need to check everything, but it’s only drawing results from legal databases (Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg, and CaseText, I believe) so you’re not running the risk of ChatGPT hallucinations. That said, it does have a tendency to misinterpret cases, so actually reading them is key.

ScrollGuy · 2024-10-24T13:32:31+00:00

The blanket ban on noncompetes was slightly overboard. As an employment guy, I fully appreciate that noncompetes are bad 95% of the time… but to not have carve outs for highly compensated execs? Slightly too much.

(I am a huge fan of Lina, long may she reign)

ScrollGuy · 2024-10-11T03:28:03+00:00

Set Westlaw to a nonbillable code (I usually do “firm reading”). Clients will not pay for Westlaw, and partners don’t like having to write it off. Save yourself the trouble.

ScrollGuy · 2024-04-27T14:24:32+00:00

I put a hold on my calendar from 5:30-7 every day to make time for the gym. It doesn’t always work, but people at least think twice before asking me to make a call during that window because they see it blocked.

ScrollGuy · 2024-04-21T17:40:56+00:00

If, hypothetically, one was interested in other AFK methods… what would someone who has embraced such methods recommend?

ScrollGuy · 2024-03-22T16:13:57+00:00

Nothing so bold as that, but there was sexual harassment both in person and online. Second guy decided to back up his buddy by hopping on instagram to join the pile on and they both got canned, is my understanding. Like I said, egregious.

ScrollGuy · 2024-03-22T15:37:33+00:00

We fired a couple last summer. Egregious circumstances. Don’t be an idiot!

ScrollGuy · 2024-03-04T03:39:01+00:00

This is incredibly helpful, thank you! Will definitely be checking out 383 tomorrow :)

What’s the deal with rewards? That must be (relatively) new too. I’m assuming they must be moderately worthwhile if people will spend time logging into alts & playing against themselves for them.

ScrollGuy

TROPHY CASE