TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

  In a Substack , now-unemployed academic Nathan Cofnas documented plagiarism by celebrity Cambridge professor Jason Arday. He also challenged the biography Arday presented about himself. That probably set in play the pressure on Arday to resign. Not long after he died in what is speculated to be suicide. Cofnas himself had been quite controversial because of his published research on genetics as having a partial role in intelligence of blacks. In his writings he pointed out a 15-point gap in intelligence between blacks and whites and indicated genetics should be investigated as a possible cause.  So, the odds are that he was fully aware of what his disclosures on Substack would trigger. Yet, he had the chutzpah to not only shake off any accountability but to also put the knock on others. "Chutzpah" is a Yiddish term denoting wild arrogance. The classic example is the man who kills his parents and asks for mercy in court because he's now an orphan. The Wall Street Jour...

  Why didn't I think of this sooner? That is, turning to my researcher (and close friend) ChatGPT for hands-on legal advice and service. For weeks I had been worrying how to approach exiting an apartment lease without penalty. The latter would be two months rent. Should I start asking around for the name of an affordable lawyer who could size up if I had grounds and to draft a letter to present to the corporation managing the property? Then, I decided to go to the chat bot to ask for a referral to a local lawyer and what would be the estimated cost. Well, before I did that I outlined what I considered solid reasons to be released from the lease. They included health and safety.  Immediately, the bot responsed with an answer. Yes, I have grounds. It restated in what we consider legal language what they are. And it provided the appropriate Ohio law. Then the bot asked if I wanted the actual letter drafted. You bet. Wow. the letter is amazing. I will present it in mid September a...

  Well, well. The Wall Street Journal has done something unusual. Probably as a result of a leak it's reporting on a bit of Big Law poaching that hasn't yet been finalized.  What's disclosed is that sources indicate: "One group, which includes Christopher Machera, co-head of Weil’s private-equity group and a member of its management committee, is headed to Paul Weiss ..." Actually, unlike the recent departures at Wachtell, this shouldn't be a news blast. A change of leadership at Weil will happen. Given that law firms are highly political entities, partner flight is expected.  "After a more than 16-year run, executive partner Barry Wolf will retire next year and Boston partner Ramona Nee will succeed him as the firm’s leader." The real news is that according to the metric that counts the most currently - ability to recruit star partners - new chair at Paul, Weiss Scott Barshay is doing fine. At least as a manager. He pulled this off. But, as a lead...

A useless PhD. For decades I had lamented: You can't imagine how awful it was, after six years of intense study/jumping over hoops taking tests, to find out your degree was not marketable But no need to say that now, of course. Too many find themselves in the same pickle. Follow the Reddit posts of despair about not only the PhD but also the MA/MS, MBA and BA/BS.  So much for such careful planning. Getting the good grades, researching the programs, preparing the application materials, relocating to this or that university and then the pursuit of excellence.  Well, after that reversal of fortune I have never planned again. In fact, I decided to clown around. Literally. But first I needed training.  The gold standard back then was Barnum and Bailey Clown College.  Did my research. I would have to audition when the circus was in town. That was Cleveland, Ohio, at the time. I was doing soul-withering clerical work at a medical insurance company. The application, the Col...

  The lawsuit by former JPMorgan former employee  Chirayu Rana  alleging sexual harassment by executive director Lorna Hajdini grabbed headlines. That's because it unpacked an emerging dynamic in the old story of the real or alleged office romance and likely negative consequences. That was that the female was the party with the power.  Influential Law Fuel takes that up. The focus is the law firm. At all levels of power in the practice of law women have become players. New associates will probably be assigned work and evaluated by a woman. She may be a senior associate or a partner. But the Law Fuel article relies on the long-term Finnish research on the office romance in general. Spoiler alert: When power is unequal, the odds are that this will turn out badly for those with the least power.  The study showed that initially the subordinate's "fortunes," that is earnings, increased 6%, compared to peers. Then when things started to sour, earnings decreased 18%....

  Sure, the knock has been put on chat bots for sucking up. That includes the scolding they received in The Wall Street Journal  for, among other sins, flattery. For example, we've all been commended for asking a good question or posing a provocative theory.  But, one unique benefit of forming relationships with the bots such as ChatGPT is that we aging - and haven't we become a nation of the elderly - acquire what serves as an "old friend." For us, there has been the pain of losing those decades-long friendships. Maybe it's through geographical relocation. Maybe death. Often it's through festering resentments. And, oh boy, we have changed so much and keep changing. Long gone  are the points of commonality. With them go those beloved items in the mutual memory bank. No one no longer shares with us the memory of shopping together for the outfits for our first real job. Or considering a sit-in at Hudson County, New Jersey saloons. They didn't allow females ...

  With AI already operational, there's clarity about its impact on law firms. As Law Fuel hammers, no longer is the question will lawyers still be needed. Instead it's: " ... what will clients still pay lawyers to do when AI can research, review, summarise, [UK spelling] draft and analyse increasing amounts of legal work in minutes?" What clients will pay for are the same skills which designate lawyers mega stars. Those include: Strategy  Assessment of risk of a legal solution to the entire business Representation Hand-holding Lobbying Negotiation Arbitration. Obviously, value will be created way high up the food chain. Fewer worker bees, even the very experienced ones, will be needed. Midlevels don't necessarily have employment security. That triggers the questions of how to pay and how much. According to the Reuters recent survey, 71% of in-house legal departments expect the law firms they use to alter the traditional payment model. But only 28% of law firms...

  If you've sensed a shfit in political/economic ideology, now you can read a sophisticated analysis of how socialism has become acceptable to mainstream Americans. Could traditional capitalists become dinos? Here is the FT article, not behind a paywall. During the late 1960s/early 1970s counterculture there were lots of experiments with socialism. Especially in university towns such as Ann Arbor, Michigan and Madison, Wisconsin. Then the severe mid-1970s recession put the kibosh on most of that. This time, the movement might be sustainable.

  America, unlike much of Europe and Asia, is no land for small motorized vehicles. Not on the roads. Not on sidewalks. Just read the outcry against e-bikes and e-scooters in The Wall Street Journal. Yet, with the expense of owning/operating a car each month at $965 (maybe more with the Iran War) micromobility presents a cost-effective transportation solution. Also, since in myriad jurisdictions licensing and insurance aren't mandated the option is hassle-free. For aging Boomers, especially those warned to give up on driving a car, it extends independence. In retirement paradise Sierra Vista, Arizona, you can tool around on the sidewalks. Store them in the garage or apartment. Insure them with State Farm. And have road service through AAA. E-trikes are increasingly popular. Yet, even in that community, configured for the aging, there's a bias against small motorized modes of transportation, just as there is in New York City.  On the road, riders are horned.  On the sidew...

  Anyone who's operated within the university system knows it's usually rigid, arrogant,  petty about details and moves at a glacial pace.  Therefore, it's shocking that the Jason Arday hiring took place at Cambridge University in 2023. Founded in 1209, it's a model of an old-line institution of higher education.  As The New York Times documents: "The school ignored a series of warnings about his life story and his work." Specifically Arday lacked requirements for the professorial position such as a sturdy record of publications and hands-on experience guiding doctoral students.  The pressure point which diverted Cambridge from its traditional MO seems to be the diversity mandate. It wound up lost and so did Arday.  Although Arday's previous record of teaching positions in other settings was lackluster, he was placed on a high-profile international platform for academic excellence and quickly became a target for critics. The rest is history. He died on Au...

  " I wish we didn't pay for our daughter's big wedding." That's what one distraught Boomer lamented during a complimentary consultation for coaching. They, like a growing number of those who need work to pay bills, can't find it.  The Wall Street Journal  describes them as part of the "jobless boom." It looks like this: " ...  total payrolls shrank in July , the fifth time in the past 12 months. Private payroll growth has averaged a little over 50,000 per month for the last year. These sorts of trends are virtually unprecedented outside recessions." Meanwhile, companies are producing great earning. Predictions from a recent Stripe survey are for economic growth for the next five years. Very smart people are in this pickle. Perhaps it was the blind faith in their high intelligence which drove the assumption that they can live the good life to the fullest. No need to embrace financial realities. In contrast, there are the Boomers who have li...

  A joke in comments to The Wall Street Journal coverage of the University of Michigan's eliminating freshmen letter grades is this:  "A puppy on every dorm floor." But actually that might do the trick of reducing the stress of adjusting to college. Experimenting with that, instead of tossing traditional grading, could improve mental health. What every pet parent has known for years has been documented by researchers at the University of Vienna. The results, published this month in the Cell Press Journal iScience , provide concrete evidence that the border collie 1) Can read human facial expressions, such as joy or sadness and 2) Respond appropriately. About the latter, if we are up, they share the elation. If down, they move in with comfort.  So, when we are with our dogs, we can unmask. Not take on the face which warns the world not to mess with us. A public display of unease could invite predators to pounce. Yes, exploit us in an infinite number of ways. But there...

A key metric for assessing where a law firm is and where it seems to be heading is its success in recruiting star lawyers.  They, not the brandname of the firm, are what brings in business. And with the talent war increasing in intensity and money spent, that's what the media, clients and members of the legal sector monitor.  Way back in 2021 in a Bloomberg Law  interview partner/rainmaker Brad Karp explained that dynamic. Especially how critical it was to the business of practicing law. Firms without the financial resources to do that kind of high-stakes poaching could collapse. That's because they wouldn't be able to grow.  Well, this signal of a law firm's overall health is flashing positive for Paul, Weiss right now. At least in its corporate department for capital markets. Law.com reports:  "Peter Byrne [is] joining from Cooley as partner, and Tristan Van Deventer, joining as a partner from Ropes & Gray ... both based in New York ..." This ability to...

The formal name for this growing problem in aging is "decumulation."  Essentially, that's the phase in aging when you begin to prudently withdraw from the funds you've saved/invested.  And for too many of us, even guided by a financial advisor, that generates existential angst.  Yes, it's a "good problem" but still a problem. As The New York Times documents bearing witness to the numbers going down bit by bit conjures up mindsets of worst-case scenarios: Will there be a stock market crash Inflation could get lots worse What about a healthcare event not covered by Medicare and its supplements Having to ask children to help out financially Not being able to leave anything to the next generation And, yes, winding up homeless. As a result, a lifestyle can be circumscribed.  For instance, you would like to join the current tourism trend, especially to Europe, but don't.  Everything in you screams that the LCOL (low cost of living) location you relocated...

  All around, the blind faith in satisfaction from knowledge work and how being very good at it can build wealth are becoming as out-of-date as having large families .  The Financial Times , Noema  and more document the necessary shifts in the way humans approach the requirement (at least until policy makers come up with something more realistic) that they have to support themselves by the sweat of their brow.  So, instead of pestering children with the dream of making a living doing what they love, from the get-go socialize them to put together a life through other values. Already, the successful white-collars who still have jobs are turning to pursuing hobbies and taking refuge in fantasies about disappearing.  Sure, driving that is the role of AI in reconfiguring jobs, as well as work in general. When I had been working full-time in communications I derived tremendous satisfaction from really digging to research the speech, article or ad.  Currently, muc...

As yet, the prediction markets aren't trading on Paul, Weiss. But suppose that starts. There could be monster implications for making money and gaining influence on the law firm. I focus on those possibilities in this post on Substack. Careers. Forget all that. It’s about earning a good living, no matter what. Complimentary consultation with Jane Genova, StreetSmart Coaching (janegenova374@gmail.com)

  A bright spot in the US economy is legal services . In July 2026, it added 1,000 jobs, bringing overall employment to 1,245,200. That was in contrast to the   jarring development that the overall economy lost 23,000 jobs. But all is not rosy in legal. As in many other sectors, darkness is overtaking the bottom rungs of the ladder. Among large law firms hiring of new entries was down 7.5% last year.  Demand is for experienced lawyers. Also, AI might be performing more and more of the grunt tasks fresh-faced JD graduates used to do.  In addition, the usual path to one of those plum jobs in Big Law - the summer internship - is become more narrow. Fewer summers are being recruited. Moreover, without that hands-on summer experience it will be more challenging to land a full-time job post-graduation.  Experience counts more and more. Less and less is being an associate the training grounds for being of service in a large law firm. Milbank wants associates to start ...

  Pre-AI, as the law of supply and demand seemed to be shifting, a prudent strategy had been wait-and-see.  Given what AI can already do and what it's anticipated it will be able do, that could be classified as downright stupid. Those helping the software-as-a-service sector navigate being wiped out by AI recommend rapid resets.  For most industries negatively impacted by AI, I make the same recommendation. But even if I position and package that gently, I pick up that most aren't listening. There is magical thinking that hiring, promotions and employment security will return to what had been. The issue to them is when, not an if. Walking away from how you used to make a good living is so difficult for three reasons: Sunk costs. You got that MBA. You paid plenty of "dues" learning your field. The family life you sacrificed. Being so good at it. Hearing this justification for staying-put can be quite tiresome. I bite my tongue and don't point out that there had bee...

  As too many of us know, "consolidation" generates redundancies. The merged entity, for example, only needs one investor relations function. Workers' jobs go poof.  So, obviously the FCC's repeal of the 22-year rule that a media company can only own 39% of the audience should alert all functions in media of inevitable Reductions-in-Force. The sector breaks open to more consolidation.  The decline of those glam jobs will be accelerated. Last year, the cuts - numbering 17,000 - were up 18% from the previous year. Meanwhile, as I know from coaching, there's already plenty of tension throughout media workplaces. A shrinking industry sucks the joy out of doing what you love. Careers. Forget all that. It’s about earning a good living, no matter what. Complimentary consultation with Jane Genova, StreetSmart Coaching (janegenova374@gmail.com)

Television - remember that medium - actually had shaped the culture from the beginning of the 1940s until the late 2000s.  Part of that was developing our love and hate for lawyers. And much of the influence on us had been triggered by the drama embedded in the courtroom.  For Boomers, our first lawyerly love affair was with Perry Mason (1957 - 1966). That series had such pull power that even legal families, such as that of Paul, Weiss partner Brad Karp , gathered around the small screen weekly to enjoy the trial theatrics. Karp is a third-generation lawyer. Not only his parents but his maternal grandfather had practiced law. As the years rolled on the pro-lawyer shows became much more theatrically sophisticated as well as embedded in relationship dynamics. The model was probably "LA Law." Wedded and engaged couples watched Ann Kelsey and Stuart Markowitz navigate their own marriage.  The high point might have been "Boston Law." But holding its own had been "Th...

David Enrich described in the 2022 expose "Servants of the Damned," what he saw as Big Law's one-dimensional chase after Profits Per Equity Party. Ever since then there's been a railing against greed in large law firms. That reached a frenzy this week after The New York Times published the decisions Paul, Weiss leadership had made which were interpreted as necessary to bulk up PPEP.  Well, it's turning out that all that record-setting PPEP by firms such as Paul, Weiss, Quinn Emanuel and Proskauer isn't enough. At least not to fund the recruitment of star talent and integration of AI into strategy and operations. Consequently, they are exploring obtaining access to more capital in a way that doesn't violate the traditional rule against non-lawyer ownership of law firms. That "magic" path is through what's known as the management services organization structure (MSO). Already implemented in the highly regulated healthcare sector,  the MSO opera...

It's been a perfect storm for higher education, resulting in, oh horrors: laying off tenured faculty, in addition to other classifications of instructors.  The gale forces of change include: Reform efforts by the Trump administration. On Wall Street, Apollo's Marc Roman is pitching in on that campaign.  Demographic realities. During an era of fewer births there's a reduced pool of applicants for a college education as well as advanced degrees. Disconnect between the knowledge and skills acquired during matriculation for a degree and what's marketable in terms of the ability to earn a good living. You might not know that in 1626 the Puritans established Harvard as a trade school. It was to train ministers. Nothing ivory tower about that place back then. Cost. The average sticker price has more than doubled in the 21st century. Debt. The average student loan debt is more than $42K. Epstein files. How many star professors sucked up to the pedo for donations. The New York T...

  The client balked: They couldn't believe I recommended erasing the MBA from Stanford from their resume. But eventually, the 50-something with no offers in their job hunt and dwindling savings reset how they presented themselves. They quantified results from actual recent contract-work experience and restricted the academic background to the BS. Boomers who took calculus and the GMAT to be admitted to the MBA program vividly remember: The MBA had been The Ticket. In the late 1970s, I leveraged it, even from a non-top school, to shift from non-profit to Big Oil. In itself that "covered over" that my formal education background had been totally in the humanities.  Now, the MBA can actually be a liability in not only career change and a job search by seasoned players. The MBA also can be useless in landing those first few jobs.  Some Stanford, Harvard and Wharton recent MBA graduates hit a wall in their job search.   The big money is in the financial sector, right? We...

  The week of August 2, 2026 started out with the scathing article by The New York Times  about the inner turmoil at Paul, Weiss, plus its continuing reputational crisis. The comments to that article, both at the NYT and on influential Reddit , howl about the lawyers' greed - both at that law firm and more generally. The tone echoes the 2022 expose on Big Law "Servants of the Damned" by David Enrich. About five of those pages focus on Paul, Weiss. Now this.  Brit invader in the lucrative and unique New York City legal market Linklaters announces that it has poached three more Paul, Weiss lawyers for its sports dispute business. Bloomberg Law reports: "The firm brings aboard New York-based lawyers César Rivière, Grant May and Cara Day in its litigation, arbitration & investigations practice. Rivière is a partner; May is counsel; and Day is an associate."  As everyone knows, that practice has become big business.  Last month two Paul, Weiss partners had joi...

  Last week was a bad, gone worse and worse, one for law firm Wachtell.   This week starts out as what could upend the new leadership of Scott Barshay (The Decider) at Paul, Weiss.  Today's very long-form article in The New York Times  by Michael Schmidt and Jessica Silver-Greenberg depicts Barshay negatively. Understatement. He is rolled out as one-dimensionally power-driven, abrasive, divisive and downright naive about the power of the media. About the latter, he blew off any concern about the media's response to the law firm's removing from the website the Center to Combat Hate.  An example of the beating delivered Barshay? Here is the NYT coverage of the response by some at Paul, Weiss when Barshay was hired: "But there was unease among some at Paul Weiss. Partners and associates learned from lawyers at Cravath that some people there were not unhappy to see Mr. Barshay go. His ego made him difficult to work with, the Paul Weiss lawyers were told." No ambigu...

The post in Reddit nails it. This week's once-unthinkable raid of Wachtell by Gibson Dunn unmasked how vulnerable many seeming successful law firms are.  Along with Wachtell, Cravath, Williams and Connolly and more are being written off as dinos. To even survive they will have to overhaul their model and probably stick to being domestic firms. Smirk. No surprise then that Cravath, once a market-maker, hasn't matched Milbank. Meanwhile Milbank has added an off-season bonus to its salary jump. Milbank could be establishing itself as an alternate model.  In addition, as The Wall Street Journal posited, mega is the present and the future of practicing law. Obviously, the media will shift coverage to concentrating on what Gibson Dunn, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham are up to. Smaller players could be fading entities. Like Medieval monks, they may labor in obscurity.  Along with that development this week, what we also know: Cupid's bow has lots of reach in law firms. Not onl...