Quote:
Originally posted by ThrashersFan
During this fine holiday season I would like to wonder aloud to the board why lawyers are so fucking cheap.
Everyone around here, IT, Finance, A/P, H/R, everyone, gets these great gifts from vendors and consultants. What do I get from the outside firms that I use? Nothing but stinking fucking cards.
And I know that it isn't just me. I have spoken with other GCs and find that law firms are just plain stingy at the holidays -- unless, perhaps, you are a multi-million dollar client rather than coming in just under a million in billables.
What is up with that? How embarrassing it is when everyone pools their gifts to share here at the home office and I have nothing...nothing. Every year it is the same.
Cheap-ass fucking lawyers.
Starting next year I am demanding gifts or the work dries up.
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Sorry, sweetie. All of my clients have policies which forbid me from giving them gifts or anything of value. About two years ago, a client (a relatively senior in-house lawyer in a large legal department) told me how much trouble one of his colleagues got in for keeping a bottle of wine he received from outside counsel.
What I do instead of sending jars of Harry and David chutney is make sure that I invite the local clients (and spouses/kids) to sit in the firm's box at the Podunkville Stadium for sporting events and the like, and visit the out of town clients a couple of times a year and take them to incredibly expensive restaurants.
You want to get gifts next year? Tell the next outside counsel you talk to on the phone that you loved the Godiva chocolates that your law school classmate who handles matters for you in Macon sent you. Then say how much you pity those poor friends of yours who are in-house at places that have anti-gift policies. That should start the ball rolling.
But make sure that there is no such policy buried somewhere in the fine print at your company. A few of my clients have theirs listed in the "Standards of Engagement" letter that they send to me at the beginning of each matter. (The offending language is usually right after the part about how I won't charge more than 10 cents a copy and that I will give them a 10% discount off of my standard rate for the privilege of representing them.)
