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Best of the Law Blog / Excerpts from Recent Entries at WSJ.com's Law Blog

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'Eli Stone' Writer Ditched

Practice for 'The Practice'

With Hollywood's writers on the verge of getting back to work after a protracted strike, this blog connected with a writer interested in all things legal. Marc Guggenheim, 37 years old, used to bill by the hour as a litigator at a Boston law firm, but several years ago he chucked it for Tinseltown and now writes for a new law-firm series on ABC, "Eli Stone." The show is about a big-firm lawyer who becomes wary of defending corporate clients.

Mr. Guggenheim is doing what some large-firm lawyers dream about: writing about the law instead of practicing it. The change came after he tried to write and pitch while practicing -- before work and on vacations. At age 29, he said, he realized that "practicing law, trying to make partner, and breaking in as a writer was too much, and, that if I was going to become a professional writer I needed to do that before I had a wife, three kids and a mortgage." So he moved to Los Angeles.

Once there he certainly leveraged his law background. He wrote for "The Practice" and "Law & Order." And he and another writer wrote a spec script for "Eli Stone."

What does the show tell us about large-firm life? "Eli starts out as a lot of lawyers do. He wants to get into the practice of law to change the world," says Mr. Guggenheim. "The thing about our legal system -- and I really do think it's the best in the world -- is that it's a good means of solving disputes. But it is not a great mechanism for social justice, and if you go into it thinking that it is, then you're bound to be disappointed."

Skadden Maddened

The law firm familiarly called "Skadden" is one of the business's best known. It has about 2,000 lawyers and in recent years has boasted gross revenue higher than any other U.S.-based law firm, according to industry magazine American Lawyer.

Lately, though, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is getting a different type of attention. A blog called "Skadden Insider," purportedly written by two Skadden insiders, recently ran the law-firm equivalent of a swimsuit contest, the "Skadden Hot" series, in which the blog polled readers on the attractiveness of certain female associates.

The move drew the ire of a labor lawyer at the firm, Hank Baer, who sent a firm-wide email announcing his disapproval. The email was posted on the blog, and the note and contest were written about by American Lawyer and blogs around the Web.

"The Firm recognizes that blogs are prevalent in today's culture and that blogs about Skadden are to be expected. Nonetheless, we believe that the 'contests' on one of these blogs is inappropriate and does not reflect our values and standards of behavior," it read. "We urge the authors of the blog to consider both the privacy and feelings of the affected attorneys and to discontinue the contests."

The bloggers didn't take the photos down; rather, they announced a winner.

An email message to the blog wasn't returned. Beyond confirming the email, a Skadden spokeswoman declined to comment.

Legal Brief

These days, lengthy memoirs blanket bookstore shelves. But in at least one corner, there's a movement afoot to tighten them up -- to six words.

Recently, Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser published "Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure." One of the famous (or obscure) writers was Bryan Gates, a criminal defense lawyer in Winston-Salem, N.C. His winning entry? "Angry guy gets law license, sues."

Mr. Gates, a former copy editor, described his motivation for getting a law degree and the genesis of his six-word memoir. "I always got mad when someone stuck it to me and there was nothing I could do about it," he said. "When I was a journalist all I could do was send letters to the editor, letters to a company, that sort of thing. You can ignore a letter, but you can't ignore a lawsuit."

This blog pitched its own six-word memoir contest to the blog's readership, and received many provocative entries, including:

"Darrow dreams lost beneath document clutter."

"Dinner at desk, family at home."

"Fancy job, bored stiff, read blogs."