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Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair
By turns hilarious and horrifying, Double Billing is a clever and sobering expose of the legal profession. Writing with wit and wisdom, Cameron Stracher describes the grueling rite of passage of an associate at a major New York law firm. As Stracher describes, Harvard Law School may have taught him to think like a lawyer, but it was his experience as an associate that taught him to behave--or misbehave--like one. Double Billing is a biting glimpse into the world of corporate law from the perspective of the low man on the totem pole. In Double Billing, Cameron Stracher reveals a shocking nonfiction account of the ordeal of a young associate at a major Wall Street law firm. Fresh out of Harvard Law School, Stracher landed a coveted position at a high-powered corporate law firm and thus began his grueling years as an associate, a dreaded rite of passage for every young attorney. Only about five percent survive long enough to achieve the Holy Grail of partnership in the firm. As the author vividly describes, law school may teach you how to think like a lawyer, but it's being an associate that teaches you how to behave like one. Or misbehave. Stracher doesn't mince words about the duplicitous behavior and flagrant practices of many lawyers in his firm, which is one of the premier partnerships in America. In a stylish and witty manner that has earned him comparison to an early Philip Roth, Stracher does for the legal profession what Michael Lewis's Liars' Poker did for the financial industry. The result is a tell-all glimpse into the cutthroat world of corporate law from the perspective of the low man on the totem pole. In Double Billing, Cameron Stracher reveals a shocking nonfiction account of the ordeal of a young associate at a major Wall Street law firm. Fresh out of Harvard Law School, Stracher landed a coveted position at a high-powered corporate law firm and thus began his grueling years as an associate, a dreaded rite of passage for every young attorney. Only about five percent survive long enough to achieve the Holy Grail of partnership in the firm. As the author vividly describes, law school may teach you how to think like a lawyer, but it's being an associate that teaches you how to behave like one. Or misbehave. Stracher doesn't mince words about the duplicitous behavior and flagrant practices of many lawyers in his firm, which is one of the premier partnerships in America. In a stylish and witty manner that has earned him comparison to an early Philip Roth, Stracher does for the legal profession what Michael Lewis's Liars' Poker did for the financial industry. The result is a tell-all glimpse into the cutthroat world of corporate law from the perspective of the low man on the totem pole.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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128 people want to read
About the author
Cameron Stracher
9 books90 followersCameron Stracher practices and teaches law. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. He lives in Westport, CT, with his wife, two children, and two dogs, not necessarily in that order.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
April 21, 2010
Double Billing
is a memoir by a Harvard Law graduate who spent a few years in the 1990’s as an associate at a large (fictionalized) law firm in New York City. I bought this book for my fiance’s father, who enjoys legal thrillers by the likes of John Grisham. He had most recently been telling me about Grisham’s book The Associate. So, I thought, here’s a bird’s eye view into the world of a first year associate at a large law firm, a true story told by the former associate himself. The cover looked intriguing and mentioned the usual exciting suspects: greed, sex, and lies (although I wasn’t sure what the pursuit of a swivel chair part was all about).
After my fiance’s father read it, I decided to as well, because it seemed timely. I was working at the local office of a large law firm where I wasn’t happy. I thought that reading this book would help in a “misery loves company” kind of way. (Disclosure: By now I work at a small civil law firm, where I am much happier, so I am biased!)
The contents of Double Billing, however, not only disappointed me but, more often than not, annoyed me. I found the writing to be mediocre and the narrator to be self-indulgent. At some points I wondered if it was the author’s intention to upset the reader, because the book contained some sexist and racist comments, as well as downright condescending ones, such as this little gem:
I wondered what made the narrator think he knew so much about the practice of law when it came to making such blasé comments, when throughout the book, he makes a big deal out of the fact that he knows nothing about being an associate at a big law firm. (When given a document review assignment, he lies to a senior associate about having done one before, messes the process up due to his own ignorance, and then remarks, “There was no course called Document Production at Harvard. No one explained ‘Bates stamping’ or making multiple copies or reproducing file labels or sitting in a warehouse sweating your ass off.”) He also comes off as extremely immature at times, and almost disrespectful. (“We drove to the hearing in White Plains in [a partner:] Caroline’s Lexus. On the drive back to the office, I drew stick figures on the air-conditioned window while Caroline spoke to [another partner:] Eric on the car phone.”)
Having worked at a large and a mid-sized law firm, I had a pretty good idea what Stracher was writing about. Granted, I never worked—-and know by now that I wouldn’t want to work—-as an associate at a large law firm in New York City, but I have had many similar experiences as Stracher. He spends the first few months with little to no work, supposedly reading law review articles all day, which in my experience means you are either lazy or that the partners find you undesirable and you will eventually find your way to the door, by yourself or with an escort. After awhile, however, he does pick up some work, mainly a lot of document review and some discovery requests and responses, which is pretty typical of first year associate work. He even gets to help with a trial, which is a rare experience for a new associate that he at different points in the book appears to appreciate and take for granted.
Much of Double Billingcame off as whiny to me, and perhaps I have been numbed by the corporate law firms to which I sold my soul, but I don’t think anything he described was that bad. For one thing, as far as his rant about document production goes, paralegals have done the "bates stamping and multiple copying and reproducing file labels" work at all three of the firms where I have worked, and I can only imagine a large law firm having even more support staff on hand for these types of tasks. The “lies” he mentions are basically instructing a witness not to speculate about a situation if he or she doesn’t remember what was said or done, and playing discovery “games” with the other side by stalling or objecting before producing important documents. These situations and others have bothered me at various points in my career, but, as Stracher pointed out, that’s the way that practicing law sometimes works, and nothing that he saw violated the law or any professional or ethical rules. He also talks about partners giving busy work and tasks that he himself views as unnecessary to associates so that the firm can keep billing as many hours as possible. This complaint also has merit, but one person’s “busy work” is something another person deems necessary, and I wanted Stracher to deal with these important issues in a better way than casually mentioning them and then moving on.
As far as “sex” goes, there was little to none, and certainly not enough for a book that has the word in its subtitle. One of Stracher’s co-workers is secretly dating a paralegal. (How exciting.) More puzzling to me are Stracher’s sporadic mentions of his own personal life, without ever letting the reader in to the whole story. The book starts when he’s out to dinner with his girlfriend, having just passed the Bar, and ends when his girlfriend finally persuades him to change jobs. In the middle, there are random mentions of times when he has to cancel plans with her or leave her lonely at home because he has to work so much, and other times when she nags him to change jobs and stop working so much. Apparently they had been together for quite awhile and I kept waiting for some detail into their relationship beyond this surface level, and especially for resolution one way or the other-—a marriage proposal or a break up—-but there was none. I was left wondering why he even brought the girlfriend into the book at all.
And the swivel chair in the sub-title? Another disappointment. The entire story can be summed up as: his chair broke and he had to put in a request with the office manager, which was last on her list because he was a lowly associate and not a partner, and eventually, right before he quit, he got his chair. This plot line about sums up the excitement contained in the book as a whole.
If you are an attorney who has worked at a large firm before, or probably any sized civil firm, you will be able to relate to many parts of this book. At some points I was like, “Oh, yeah, exactly,” but other times I was bored because it was so commonplace. If you aren’t an attorney, but are interested in legal books, movies, TV shows, etc., you may like the insider’s view that this book presents. My fiance’s father liked it and it gave us some good conversation material, such as billable hours and different types of attorneys and areas of practice, etc. The book is definitely an easy and fast read. I wonder, though, if some of the legal mumbo jumbo may be confusing or frustrating to non-attorneys. The way that Stracher tries to describe legal issues was pretty annoying to me, full of dramatic language and unnecessary capitalization. (“Imagine: you’re the General Counsel of a Very Big Corporation that has just been sued by an Extremely Nasty Corporation for Unimaginable Injuries.”)
I assume that the intended audience of Double Billingis the general public—-readers who want to know what it’s like to be a young, big wig attorney at a large law firm. On that premise, this book does deliver, although I think the entire “spend a lot of hours doing seemingly useless work, until you can pay back your law school loans and go in-house” spiel could have been told with a lot more excitement.
I recommend this for people who are in law school or thinking about going to law school because in my opinion it gives a realistic portrayal of being a junior associate at a big law firm. The problem is that those big law firms are boring and stuffy, so the book is a little bit like that, too. Still, I think many people go into good law schools (and a lot of debt) with a lot of ambition and high hopes, only to find out that they must sell their souls to large law firms to be able to pay for their education, and this is not the kind of work or the kind of environment they had in mind when they signed up for the gig in the first place. A bit depressing, really, but also remember that not all law firms/ law jobs are like that. In my opinion this book seems to accurately depict large, big-city law firm life. To that I can only say "blah" -- to the idea and to the book!
Rating: I give this book two and a half stars -- I didn't really like it but some people might and it's not absolutely horrible.
Read: March – April, 2009
is a memoir by a Harvard Law graduate who spent a few years in the 1990’s as an associate at a large (fictionalized) law firm in New York City. I bought this book for my fiance’s father, who enjoys legal thrillers by the likes of John Grisham. He had most recently been telling me about Grisham’s book The Associate. So, I thought, here’s a bird’s eye view into the world of a first year associate at a large law firm, a true story told by the former associate himself. The cover looked intriguing and mentioned the usual exciting suspects: greed, sex, and lies (although I wasn’t sure what the pursuit of a swivel chair part was all about).After my fiance’s father read it, I decided to as well, because it seemed timely. I was working at the local office of a large law firm where I wasn’t happy. I thought that reading this book would help in a “misery loves company” kind of way. (Disclosure: By now I work at a small civil law firm, where I am much happier, so I am biased!)
The contents of Double Billing
, however, not only disappointed me but, more often than not, annoyed me. I found the writing to be mediocre and the narrator to be self-indulgent. At some points I wondered if it was the author’s intention to upset the reader, because the book contained some sexist and racist comments, as well as downright condescending ones, such as this little gem:“In the hierarchy of criminal practitioners, federal prosecutors are at the top, state prosecutors at the bottom . . . In the civil bar, personal injury lawyers—those who handle “slip and fall” cases—are at the bottom; lawyers at large firms who represent major clients are at the top . . . If you asked a personal injury lawyer whether he considered himself at the bottom of the civil law food chain, he would probably deny it and protest vigorously. On the other hand, his denials would have a strong whiff of defensiveness.”
I wondered what made the narrator think he knew so much about the practice of law when it came to making such blasé comments, when throughout the book, he makes a big deal out of the fact that he knows nothing about being an associate at a big law firm. (When given a document review assignment, he lies to a senior associate about having done one before, messes the process up due to his own ignorance, and then remarks, “There was no course called Document Production at Harvard. No one explained ‘Bates stamping’ or making multiple copies or reproducing file labels or sitting in a warehouse sweating your ass off.”) He also comes off as extremely immature at times, and almost disrespectful. (“We drove to the hearing in White Plains in [a partner:] Caroline’s Lexus. On the drive back to the office, I drew stick figures on the air-conditioned window while Caroline spoke to [another partner:] Eric on the car phone.”)
Having worked at a large and a mid-sized law firm, I had a pretty good idea what Stracher was writing about. Granted, I never worked—-and know by now that I wouldn’t want to work—-as an associate at a large law firm in New York City, but I have had many similar experiences as Stracher. He spends the first few months with little to no work, supposedly reading law review articles all day, which in my experience means you are either lazy or that the partners find you undesirable and you will eventually find your way to the door, by yourself or with an escort. After awhile, however, he does pick up some work, mainly a lot of document review and some discovery requests and responses, which is pretty typical of first year associate work. He even gets to help with a trial, which is a rare experience for a new associate that he at different points in the book appears to appreciate and take for granted.
Much of Double Billing
came off as whiny to me, and perhaps I have been numbed by the corporate law firms to which I sold my soul, but I don’t think anything he described was that bad. For one thing, as far as his rant about document production goes, paralegals have done the "bates stamping and multiple copying and reproducing file labels" work at all three of the firms where I have worked, and I can only imagine a large law firm having even more support staff on hand for these types of tasks. The “lies” he mentions are basically instructing a witness not to speculate about a situation if he or she doesn’t remember what was said or done, and playing discovery “games” with the other side by stalling or objecting before producing important documents. These situations and others have bothered me at various points in my career, but, as Stracher pointed out, that’s the way that practicing law sometimes works, and nothing that he saw violated the law or any professional or ethical rules. He also talks about partners giving busy work and tasks that he himself views as unnecessary to associates so that the firm can keep billing as many hours as possible. This complaint also has merit, but one person’s “busy work” is something another person deems necessary, and I wanted Stracher to deal with these important issues in a better way than casually mentioning them and then moving on. As far as “sex” goes, there was little to none, and certainly not enough for a book that has the word in its subtitle. One of Stracher’s co-workers is secretly dating a paralegal. (How exciting.) More puzzling to me are Stracher’s sporadic mentions of his own personal life, without ever letting the reader in to the whole story. The book starts when he’s out to dinner with his girlfriend, having just passed the Bar, and ends when his girlfriend finally persuades him to change jobs. In the middle, there are random mentions of times when he has to cancel plans with her or leave her lonely at home because he has to work so much, and other times when she nags him to change jobs and stop working so much. Apparently they had been together for quite awhile and I kept waiting for some detail into their relationship beyond this surface level, and especially for resolution one way or the other-—a marriage proposal or a break up—-but there was none. I was left wondering why he even brought the girlfriend into the book at all.
And the swivel chair in the sub-title? Another disappointment. The entire story can be summed up as: his chair broke and he had to put in a request with the office manager, which was last on her list because he was a lowly associate and not a partner, and eventually, right before he quit, he got his chair. This plot line about sums up the excitement contained in the book as a whole.
If you are an attorney who has worked at a large firm before, or probably any sized civil firm, you will be able to relate to many parts of this book. At some points I was like, “Oh, yeah, exactly,” but other times I was bored because it was so commonplace. If you aren’t an attorney, but are interested in legal books, movies, TV shows, etc., you may like the insider’s view that this book presents. My fiance’s father liked it and it gave us some good conversation material, such as billable hours and different types of attorneys and areas of practice, etc. The book is definitely an easy and fast read. I wonder, though, if some of the legal mumbo jumbo may be confusing or frustrating to non-attorneys. The way that Stracher tries to describe legal issues was pretty annoying to me, full of dramatic language and unnecessary capitalization. (“Imagine: you’re the General Counsel of a Very Big Corporation that has just been sued by an Extremely Nasty Corporation for Unimaginable Injuries.”)
I assume that the intended audience of Double Billing
is the general public—-readers who want to know what it’s like to be a young, big wig attorney at a large law firm. On that premise, this book does deliver, although I think the entire “spend a lot of hours doing seemingly useless work, until you can pay back your law school loans and go in-house” spiel could have been told with a lot more excitement. I recommend this for people who are in law school or thinking about going to law school because in my opinion it gives a realistic portrayal of being a junior associate at a big law firm. The problem is that those big law firms are boring and stuffy, so the book is a little bit like that, too. Still, I think many people go into good law schools (and a lot of debt) with a lot of ambition and high hopes, only to find out that they must sell their souls to large law firms to be able to pay for their education, and this is not the kind of work or the kind of environment they had in mind when they signed up for the gig in the first place. A bit depressing, really, but also remember that not all law firms/ law jobs are like that. In my opinion this book seems to accurately depict large, big-city law firm life. To that I can only say "blah" -- to the idea and to the book!
Rating: I give this book two and a half stars -- I didn't really like it but some people might and it's not absolutely horrible.
Read: March – April, 2009
September 13, 2009
A systematic description of large firm practice that is neither as savage nor as funny as it could have been. The story is told in clear, heavily workshopped prose and can be read in about three hours. It's not resonant or memorable, but I doubt that there is anything Stracher could have done to make it so. His attempts to dramatize the material fall flat, but there are some genuinely hilarious moments. Read ANONYMOUS LAWYER if you're in it for shits and giggles.
March 28, 2007
The overly whiney story of a BigLaw associate. While I think it does a decent job of capturing the frustration and travails of a first year BigLaw associate...get over it. People should know what they're getting into when they go down that road, and as such, get what they deserve.
April 23, 2009
Somewhat interesting, but it loses focus. Also, I work in a big Manhattan lawfirm, and granted that it's a decade later, but my firm is nothing like his was.
October 11, 2018
An excellent book to read for understanding how our legal and business systems work. This account, without undue self-criticism or judgment of others, tells how the author came to the big firm and how he left. It focuses on life in this lofty realm and the kind of a personality that flourishes in the kind of dysfunctional "family" that exists there. Stracher gets kudos for clear explanations on legal procedures with enough humor to keep the reader interested, and for interspersing his legal existence with personal reflections and anecdotes. Like the runner he is, he has a good sense of pacing.
March 21, 2018
What is it like to be a young lawyer in a huge New York law firm? A hadn't wondered and now I'm a bit appalled. The memoir was engaging and lively, in spite of what might be a dull topic. I'm glad my career choice never took me here - perhaps that's a good purpose for memoirs.
December 8, 2022
I was interested in the author's thoughts and feelings about working in a large firm right out of law school, and the people he encountered. I was somewhat bored by the details of the cases.
November 15, 2020
DNF at 50%. Self indulgent, entitled characters with a plot going nowhere quickly. I see where the book was going, trying to make a story about a miserable biglaw associate, but it still comes across as fairly glamorous. Maybe things were different in the 90s, who knows.
February 6, 2013
Like the cover of this volume, the content itself can be seen as "trying too hard."
A noble attempt to be the next "One L," Double Billing is not without its strengths. Without a doubt, Stracher is a learned individual: Amherst, Harvard, Iowa MFA. And therein lies the problem. This book reads too much like an over-workshopped, MFA project that have out-of-place post-modern sentences and "hey-I-have-an-MFA" vocabulary. The pseudo-memoir is a fun read--it paces a lot like its "predecessor" in that the story is about a contemplative attorney strapped between his ideology and the material attraction offered by top firms.
It's a good window into what life outside HLS looks like, but given all the unnecessary MFA jargon, I am hesitant to give it a full 5 star rating. Sure, One L has been outdated and some have claimed it to be no longer an accurate portrayal at HLS, but I consider it better written and is worth a visit if not to read it as a "timeless classic."
Nonetheless, Stracher offers what not many popular legal books offer--namely, a modicum of reality--and if you're looking for a fun read before 1L, this could serve your immediate needs.
A noble attempt to be the next "One L," Double Billing is not without its strengths. Without a doubt, Stracher is a learned individual: Amherst, Harvard, Iowa MFA. And therein lies the problem. This book reads too much like an over-workshopped, MFA project that have out-of-place post-modern sentences and "hey-I-have-an-MFA" vocabulary. The pseudo-memoir is a fun read--it paces a lot like its "predecessor" in that the story is about a contemplative attorney strapped between his ideology and the material attraction offered by top firms.
It's a good window into what life outside HLS looks like, but given all the unnecessary MFA jargon, I am hesitant to give it a full 5 star rating. Sure, One L has been outdated and some have claimed it to be no longer an accurate portrayal at HLS, but I consider it better written and is worth a visit if not to read it as a "timeless classic."
Nonetheless, Stracher offers what not many popular legal books offer--namely, a modicum of reality--and if you're looking for a fun read before 1L, this could serve your immediate needs.
June 8, 2016
If you read One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School or The Paper Chase, you might well wonder what happens when a law student graduates, passes the bar, and takes a job? Stracher's book is one answer to that question.
After graduating Harvard Law, Stracher signs on with a Wall Street firm. Like most young associates, he spends a lot of time on grunt work, putting together paperwork and finding case law for attorneys who seem to be more adept at billing hours than solving problems. The major conflicts are not in a courtroom (he never sees one), but inter- and intra- personal.
Stracher has a comfortable voice and I enjoyed a peek inside a Wall Street firm.
After graduating Harvard Law, Stracher signs on with a Wall Street firm. Like most young associates, he spends a lot of time on grunt work, putting together paperwork and finding case law for attorneys who seem to be more adept at billing hours than solving problems. The major conflicts are not in a courtroom (he never sees one), but inter- and intra- personal.
Stracher has a comfortable voice and I enjoyed a peek inside a Wall Street firm.
August 26, 2008
This is a pretty good book about what the experience of a first year associate in a high powered corporate law firm is really like.
It is disturbing, and upsetting, but also really really interesting. It is fairly well written, although there are some typos and editing errors...
I really like the way the story stays on track. It is about the experience the writer had, not about his background, not about his relationships, and just the right amount about what he thinks of the whole situation...
It is disturbing, and upsetting, but also really really interesting. It is fairly well written, although there are some typos and editing errors...
I really like the way the story stays on track. It is about the experience the writer had, not about his background, not about his relationships, and just the right amount about what he thinks of the whole situation...
January 8, 2016
I read this book because one of my elderly friends recommended it. She said I would be shocked--shocked! at the goings-on at law firms.
If you would be shocked that the work of a first-year corporate lawyer is mind-achingly dull, involves travelling to unglamorous settings, pays a ton of money and that sometimes people in the firm date each other, then by all means, read it.
If you're offended by racist/sexist/classist references to the clerical people who actually helped Cameron get a lot of his work done, then skip this one!
If you would be shocked that the work of a first-year corporate lawyer is mind-achingly dull, involves travelling to unglamorous settings, pays a ton of money and that sometimes people in the firm date each other, then by all means, read it.
If you're offended by racist/sexist/classist references to the clerical people who actually helped Cameron get a lot of his work done, then skip this one!
February 4, 2009
Read when I was still in pre-law in college. In interesting look behind the scenes in corporate law firms. Since I was not interested in corporate, the book did little to spark my interest. It was also used as part of the heavy handed "ethics training" we had to undergo with the hopes that we would remember them when we ourselves were behind the desks.
January 20, 2010
As other reviewers have noted, this book is overwritten and heavy handed. However, while it's been 10+ years since the author was an associate, times have not changed that much. This story captures the essence of what life is like as a big firm associate. As someone currently living that life, I suppose I got a misery loves company sort of enjoyment out of it.
February 10, 2014
Really good insight into a Big Law career. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish this book however I did finish around 85% of it. Very entertaining and the author brings up some valid points. Overall, a good book and great for someone thinking about entering corporate law. Book is ideal for 0L's and perhaps parents who want to know more about their childrens career path or current job.
May 15, 2009
A great book written by one of my law school professors. Details a young lawyer's life as an early associate in New York Big Law. A behind the scenes look at what it is really like to be an associate at an elite corporate law firm. The money, the hours, the work.
May 13, 2021
A Harvard Law graduate's look at his first three years as a "Big Law" associate.
Amazing that there are so many commonalities between the "Big Law" world and my own. This book was both entertaining as well as a wake-up call that things will never change in this business.
Amazing that there are so many commonalities between the "Big Law" world and my own. This book was both entertaining as well as a wake-up call that things will never change in this business.
June 2, 2014
What One L is for pre-law students, this book is for law school graduates. Though I have to say that working with insurance companies has changes greatly since the 1990's. Fun easy read of one person's experience of being a first year associate.
September 16, 2007
worth the read if you're considering going into law school or you know lots of people that are. Some fun stuff, no revelations.
February 26, 2008
I think I would have liked it more if I understood all the lawyer-ese. But still good.
March 27, 2012
Still reading.......
February 19, 2013
Another must read for anyone thinking of going to law school!
February 21, 2013
egads, I was clearly already in "prepare for law school" mode. This one is about the life of a first year associate in a large NY firm. YAWN.
July 9, 2015
- true, interesting, behind-the-scenes stories of a law firm
March 21, 2008
Type A personality survives NYC big law, makes it out with soul intact.
March 25, 2017
I actually quite liked the first two-thirds of the book, until I realized it wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't keep any of the extraneous characters apart (and they were ALL extraneous).
Watch "Suits", instead. Same general idea, only faster-paced and glitzier. But about as lame.
Watch "Suits", instead. Same general idea, only faster-paced and glitzier. But about as lame.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews