Rating: 
Summary: The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
Review: After 20 years in the legal profession, I can assure you that this is, without a doubt, the most accurate book about the way things really are in law firms. I got into law because the guys on TV were always in the courtroom. Little did I know that the first year of practice means 20 hours a day in the library, 7 days a week. The second year means graduating to reviewing 100,000 documents which "may" have something to do with the case, but probably don't. Even the partners who do a lot of courtroom work (based on the research, writing, and busywork of the lower echelon) are not in the courtroom as often as Perry Mason.If you are looking for a classic courtroom thriller of the John Grisham/Steve Martini variety, this isn't it. What it is, is the perfect gift for that person who wants to go to law school. Once they read the unvarnished truth, instead of the drama, they will probably change their career goals. Real-life civil litigation isn't Ally McBeal, it isn't L.A. Law ... it's boring and stressful. Stracher is the first attorney to tell the truth about it. A must-read for all future and current law students.
Rating: 
Summary: Someone who found his way into the wrong profession
Review: As is apparent from the highly polarized reviews below, your reactions to this book will probably depend largely on your expectations. This is a well-written, quick, reasonably entertaining read. As a critique and commentary on the legal profession, it's whiny and shallow. You come away wondering how someone this bright could have bumbled into the world of work with such apparent naivete. But those planning careers in the law, or just interested in how Big Law works, will still benefit from Stracher's vividly drawn on-the-scene report.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor guy- all that work and only 6 figures
Review: Basically a waste of time. It's a couple hundred pages of stuff that anyone working or planning to work at a large firm should already know. Here's the book in a nutshell:
I worked hard. Some of the work was excessive and unnecessary. I got paid a lot and now I'm complaining about it!
There you go, no need to read the book.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful; Descriptive
Review: I thought this book gave an excellent inside account of what a new associate undertakes in a corporate law firm. I am not a lawyer, although I have taken law courses in business school and I know a few lawyers who would corroborate Mr. Stracher's experiences as valid. This 228-page book is generally a page-turner and can most assuredly be read in a day. One of the underlying themes in the book cuts across all occupations: the issue of hourly v. contingently compensated employees. The author discussed the difference between a personal injury lawyer who is often compensated by a percent of ultimate recovery model v. a corporate lawyer who bills hourly and has no problem dealing with smaller issues that require many billable hours to investigate. These models are not good or bad per se; they just highlight the kind of disparate incentive structures and purposes in different law firms and occupations and how they give rise to certain actions and agendas. For example, how many billable hours can I amass (most of the lawyers in the book worked 12+ hours everyday, often including the weekend) v. going after the deep-pocketed insurance company. Another issue I found quite enlightening in the book was the importance, both strategically and politically, of the request for documents and discovery processes. It seems to me, the lesson regarding document production is that you can either bury the other side with any document that is remotely relevant, or nickel-and-dime them with privilege logs and common interest arguments. One could categorize the former as unduly burdensome, and the latter as purposeful frustration and stingy. At the end of this book, I really felt as if I knew the author is a meaningful way. I wanted to know about his experiences at his next job as an in-house counsel. Since the book is about his life, and he often includes streams of consciousness, the reader comes away with a fairly good grasp of the author's mindset and goals. Overall, the book brings out some important and ubiquitous issues regarding work and the rest of one's life. These issues revolve around the following: work-family balance; work knowledge v. other intellectual pursuits; work lifestyle and its detriment to healthy living; etc. As a whole, I thought the writing was top-notch, the topic fascinating, and the evolution of the author satisfying. If I were thinking of becoming a lawyer, I would read this book.
Rating:
Summary: This is not the only type of law...
Review: I thought this book was whiny and banal, although Stracher is a fairly talented writer. It seems pretty pathetic that the crux of his dislike for big law is the fact that his superiors don't give him enough attention. At one point he launches into a ridiculous "noble savagery" rant about how the natives must have felt so connected to one another. And he complains about the meaninglessness of corporate life and then at the end simply moves on to work in-house at a big corporation. What conviction! But anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. I just wanted to point out that many books are written about Wall Street firms, and suggest that the only two options in the legal world are to work in a sweatshop, putting in 100-hour weeks and hating life, or to work as some starving assistant DA or public defender. But I happen to know people who've experienced something in between, that is, working for a big firm (but not in New York!), and putting in, say, 60-hour weeks (a lot, but far from unbearable), and making a nice living and eventually handling more sophisticated work after paying some dues. So these books that make it seem like the only way to practice law is in a Wall Street firm are just plain misleading. Not to mention just plain whiny. "Mommy! I don't just want to be RICH! I want to be INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATED and EMOTIONALLY FULFILLED too!" Waa waa waa...
Rating: 
Summary: A good description of the legal industry
Review: In Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair, author Cameron Stracher provides the reader with an in-depth look at working in a prominent New York firm based on his real life experiences. Stracher's main character is an unnamed attorney recently graduated from Harvard Law who is starting as a first year associate at the fictional firm of Crowley & Cavanaugh (C&C). But before proceeding with his character's experiences from day one, he provides the reader with the basic layout of our litigious society. Indeed, that the legal industry exists for itself is a sub-theme of his book. "[P]eace is bad business for the peacemakers," he writes. Starting in C&C's litigation department, Stracher's character faces mountainous discovery tasks and endless workweeks. He accurately explains that much of his work is completely unnecessary, and that the only reason he performs it is because his prominent firm can afford it, just in case it needs it. "If one associate could do the research, why not two? If one motion might succeed, what about a second? We threw everything into the pot and hoped something would rise. If it didn't, at least our bills would be paid." He adds that "because C&C's fees were paid out of an insurance policy, with each payment reducing the amount that would be left for settlement, the insurance company had little incentive to insist on a settlement now." Hence, given that much of his work was really unnecessary, he genuinely felt detached from the general and important issues in his cases. He also expresses disappointment at not having the opportunity to argue in court. However, his disappointment subsides when he learns that the partner in charge of the case has never argued in court at all. Stracher's character holds no bitterness or animosity towards his work. Rather, his on-the-job experiences bewilder and constantly amuse him as he labors for hours on end. He strikes a chord with law students and lawyers when he laments that "[t]he more you learn about a case, the more you need to know," and, "if only I could understand what I've been reading." Such musings remind me of a frustrated classmate who, trying to understand a concept in Civil Procedure, cried "I'm confused about what I'm confused about." As Stracher's character expresses his frustrations, he discovers that he "doesn't know what he doesn't know." Such expressions abound throughout the book. Stracher strikes another chord when he analyzes his decision to attend law school. "[I] believe the law school migration is equally widespread, and peculiar to my generation," he writes. "Law school has become the graduate school for the great unwashed, the final resting place for a plurality of college graduates without an employable degree." He further writes that "law school is the most hospitable locale for undergraduates with no specific expertise." Indeed, students with life-long goals of working in fields such as medicine, engineering, architecture and other professions greatly outweigh those who grow up desiring to attend law school and enter the legal world. Stracher's character experiences other frustrations at C&C, such as a constant lack of feedback, difficult coworkers and working throughout weekends. That the smell of late night Chinese food brings back instant memories of a conference room full of boxes of documents only accentuates the monotony and besieged mentality he feels at C&C. Hence, his sense of constantly being overwhelmed is another theme of the book. As Stracher¡¦s character leaves C&C as a third-year associate, Stracher concludes, "law, particularly as it was practiced at C&C and other big corporate firms, was also unique among capitalist enterprises. It produced no goods, rarely addressed substantive issues, almost never provided closure, pitted lawyers against each other in the struggle for partnership, isolated lawyers in the library and their offices, tended to weed out the sociable and genial." In essence, Stracher describes the big firm life as a surreal existence, where lawyers thrive on tediousness and ambiguity. However, he feels no disdain towards law. He soon begins working "in a different legal setting, where I was in court more often and confronting the merits of cases rather than the procedural grind, [where] my work would be more meaningful." He embraces his new work experience, which invokes more of a human element and where "they praise rigorous work, not take it for granted." Stracher applies much humor into his writing style, which gives the book a healthy rhythm. For instance, he mentions how he finds a rival attorney's office for a deposition when his eye catches a sign "that warns: Attorneys-at-Law." Overall, he writes with an engaging determination to "tell it like it was." This makes the book even harder to put down. The only problem is that the title is somewhat misleading. There isn't any sex, and no one really lies about anything. Moreover, there really isn¡¦t any double billing in the sense that most people would assume. Where most people might think of double billing as improperly billing twice for work performed, Stracher explains that the dedication to winning the war of attrition that is discovery, where as many associates as possible are used to labor unceasingly in a battle of documents and depositions, constitutes real double billing. He thoroughly explains this when he paraphrase a partner crying "Give them something to do, anything; make them bill!" For law students desiring a big firm experience, Stracher's book provides a reasonable idea of what to expect.
Rating:
Summary: An absolute MUST READ for all law students and young lawyers
Review: OK, so we all didn't go to Harvard and few of us went straight from school into a blue chip NYC law firms - but it is exhilarating to read this very intimate memoir of some one who did AND lived to tell about it. The book starts with the splash of cold water culture shock the author feels in his first days at his new firm (C & C) and how the crush of the work is in such contrast to his experience when he had "summered" there working during law school where he did little work and was taken out to lunch each day. You get the sense of how lost Stracher felt as assignments came from all angles, or worse some time, none at all, sending off the dreaded feeling of not making his hours. The author is candid about the feelings of competitiveness that dominate a new associate's thoughts, and he watches his peers carefully to make sure he is on the right pace. Some of his frustrations will make you smile: his inability to get a new chair when his old one breaks, his dilemna over wanting to leave work to see his girlfriend at night but staying late just to keep up with the Joneses, and the time he spends an entire weekend prepping a case file only to learn, come Monday, that the case settled Friday and no one told him. And as his enthusiasm for the work fades, the great money keeps him going, until some point after a year and half, he prepares to call it quits. The message of how anonymous Stracher felt at the big firm, his work unnoticed by the partners, comes to a head when he wins a 5K race against competitors from other firms, which is reported in the local papers, and elevates him to celebrity status at the firm, earning the praise of senior partners who previously had not known of his existence. As a young lawyer at a large firm, I find that Stracher outlines the essentials very well: the firm setup, the hierarchy between the clericals, the paralegals, the associats, and the Oz-like partners, and the difficulties in really enjoying your work when your work means so little. The author teases us with hints of some illicit romance within the firm, but never dabbles in the temptations himself. My only complaint is that the book ends as though the author just ran out of time, and without ruining the ending, I'll just say that it was a satisfying and scathing expose of big firm life for young associates.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read for those Interested in "Big Law"
Review: Overall this is a good book. It gives an inside look at the inner workings of a large law firm and the demands such a firm puts on new associates. For non-lawyers the book will probably seem a little dry because a lot of the text is used to detail certain research activities that just are not all the exciting. All in all I think it's worth buying.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read for those Interested in "Big Law"
Review: Overall this is a good book. It gives an inside look at the inner workings of a large law firm and the demands such a firm puts on new associates. For non-lawyers the book will probably seem a little dry because a lot of the text is used to detail certain research activities that just are not all the exciting. All in all I think it's worth buying.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't be disillusioned
Review: Prior to law school I read this book, and I must say I was convinced from the getgo that becoming a big-firm-lawyer was not my style. On the other hand, the kid who recommended this book not only loved it, but became a big firm lawyer himself. Make no mistake, this is only one guy's assessment of one law particular firm. The book is very well-written, very candid, and very fun and enjoyable. If you are a law student considering a big firm, this book is fantastic. If you are non-lawyer looking to learn about big-firm lawyer, note that this book does not represent all big firms. If all you know about the law is from watching "The Practice," skip this book and enjoy your show.
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