TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

Professional anonymous network Reddit used to be the classic play-out of misguided empathy. Typical had been the post: The rug was pulled from under you. You lost your job. And you've been jobless so long that unemployment compensation has run out and soon enough will be your savings. Bro, we feel for you. Recently there's been a paradigm shift to raw pragmatism. Here is the  Reddit post on the question of whether to take a pay cut. And here is the kind of collective response: "It is not a pay cut if you are currently making zero. Bring in some money while you look for other opportunities. Adjust your budget to get rid of any expenses that are not absolutely necessary." Get it: Since you aren't making any money now and haven't for too long, there's no pay cut per se. There's the reality of a low starting salary at a job. If you're a hustler and alert to opportunity, that should be on short time. Here's a comment which received 78 upvotes, so f...

  For those of us servicing the legal sector (I coach/provide tarot readings for lawyers) there was a posting on LinkedIn which seemed a must-read. It was by Reuters Legal reporter Sara Randazzo. It referred to an article  she had researched and written. It was about how giant corporation AT&T is leveraging AI to reduce its use of outside law firms. How would this impact hiring/job security at law firms?  Yes, Randazzo did provide a brief summary of the published article. For more, we had to click the link. Horror. The article, like so many on LinkedIn and other platforms, was behind a paywall. A subscription was required.  Put it bluntly, is this kind of rollout of information/perspective a kind of bait and switch. There is an enticing headline. There is a summary drawing us in further. And then, we can't access the coverage without paying the "toll."  Sure, we should pay for content. Media is a business, not a charity. But few of us, especially the self-em...

  Way back in the late 1960s, activism took the form of telling us Boomers not to pay our bills. Those doing the telling were hairy types like Abbie Hoffman , the bills not to be paid were utilities. That was supposed to send messages about the Viet Nam war, non-engaged higher education and, yes, greedy landlords. Here in 2026, the tellers, reports The Wall Street Journal , are Influencers. The bills not to be paid or delayed tactics used are the medical ones. The statement, obviously, is that the whole healthcare loop, from insurance to treatment, is way too expensive.  What's going down is this, details the WSJ: "In just the last three months, there have been more than 426,000 mentions across X, Bluesky, YouTube and Reddit of medical bills, advice not to pay them, tips on negotiating bills lower, and related topics ... " A year ago, there were only a bit over 1,000 mentions. The folks adopting this activist point of view aren't just the ones who can't afford so...

A few years ago angst on Reddit Big Law about AI wiping out lawyers' jobs was usually downvoted. Also, a year ago, there was Paul, Weiss partner Brad Karp's prediction on Lawyer Monthly that AI would 1) significantly reduce demand for junior lawyers and 2) turn certain practices into commodities. That generated some discussion, but, again, no real angst. More recently, there has been a psychic shift. I know that from the lawyers I coach and provide tarot readings. In addition, the tone and content about AI on Reddit Big Law has transformed to almost radical acceptance . The general meme is this: Human lawyers will have an increasingly hard time competing with AI. In about 10 years, forget it. AI will win. You can bear witness to that in this Reddit post.   On that Reddit post lawyers admit that two or three years ago AI was nothing to worry about. However, it has been a surprisingly fast learner. On Reddit, a lawyer using Claude Fable 5   reports: " ... from the ti...

Kirkland & Ellis, the largest and most profitable law firm, has made this bombshell announcement : It will no longer disclose to media details of its financial performance. So, the legal and business worlds now wonder if other highly profitable law firms will also go silent about those kinds of metrics. K&E offered no explanations why. It only stated that such quantitative details provide no meaningful insight about the quality of its services.  Well, well. One source to Bloomberg Law  made this observation: "The decision had been in the works for multiple years, according to two people. One of the people said firm leaders were wary of client response to reporting on the firm’s equity partner profits, which were $11 million in its latest reporting." Also for years the K&E model has been imitated by other law firms eager to boost their own Profits Per Equity Partner. So. it's not unthinkable that Paul, Weiss, for example, which seems to have grafted on pieces ...

  The three top players in M&A recently have been Kirkland & Ellis, Latham and Wachtell.  That means that Paul, Weiss' Scott Barshay, whose signature is M&A transactions , needed a win. Yes, a high-profile one. Ever since he took over the chairmanship job in a February 2026 coup, Barshay has been closely watched. Can this guy lead that major law firm in this disruptive time in the legal sector? Sure, he can lawyer. Sure, he can manage. But leadership is a whole different job function. Well, the win came. Along with Paul, Weiss partners Laura Turano and Cristina Barshay handled the sell-side legal issues associated with US software company PTC. It is being acquired by French engineering Schneider Electric SE. The transaction is all-cash: $22.6 billion. Driviing the transaciton is the need to bulk up with AI capability. Major competitor Siemens is already immersed in AI. Debevoise is the legal advisor for Schneider.  A risk for Schneider is that the strategy ...