If You Were Elizabeth Wurtzel, Would You Have Called David Boies?

When reading about Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel’s self-professed one-night stand of a life in New York magazine last week, I wasn’t expecting to encounter law office management material. I was just hoping for a few juicy tidbits about a talented author, not far from my age, who’d had amazing success, a great body, and plenty of publicity. What becomes the aging ingénue? Surely, despite the economy, the publishing industry’s inability to monetize the Internet, and the gloom, this of-the-moment 1990s writer hadn’t suffered the indignity of being offered 16-bucks-a-post blogging gigs or an unpaid regular column on a major website she could do for the exposure. Who knew the paean to psychopharmacology for better living and the author of Bitch had spent some recent quality time at Yale Law School?

Yet it wasn’t the late-in-life major career change that intrigued me so much as the self-proclaimed feminist’s approach to an icky landlord-tenant problem she was experiencing as a renter in Manhattan. What did the author of two bestsellers, the graduate from Yale, the lifelong New Yorker, the woman who didn’t need a secure but undoubtedly hellacious life as a wife to an investment banker, do when her apparently a little-bit-off landlord started calling her out about the trajectory of Wurtzel’s life? Wurtzel called a man.

She didn’t just call any man. She called the man. She called her boss, who happens to be David Boies, of pursuing antitrust charges against Microsoft fame, of loudly losing the Bush v. Gore contest for the 2000 presidential election notoriety, an undoubtedly intimidating litigator even if hasn’t won them all.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, feminist, lawyer, bestselling author, in distress, called a man, her boss, for help with her personal life.

Her claims of independence, her endless self-examination, her brilliant publishing career, and her top-tier education didn’t provide her with the tools she’d need to escape a rental and an intrusive landlord. Wurtzel not only called her boss for help, but, in her words, she let him take over. She got out of the rental, but did she set the rest of us back?

When you’re in personal trouble, don’t call your boss. Hire your own attorney, and deal with the problem professionally. Your law firm is not your personal playground, and managing partners are not your dad. Don’t cry in the office or in late-night phone calls to your peers.

Interestingly, Wurtzel is not listed in Boies, Schiller & Flexner’s attorney directory. Rumor-mongers say she was let go, she that she resigned. I say leave your personal life at home.

—Lori Tripoli

Who Merits Mention in a Firm’s History?

Law firm histories make clients and lawyers feel good and help preserve institutional memory, but someone needs to determine who will play a starring role in the work.

Firm histories, compiled in self-published or custom-published books, are feel-good ways to inspire both prospective hires as well as current and prospective clients. Knowing of a firm’s longevity and its typically humble roots, about big historical wins, about amazing acts of goodness during troubled times (the Depression, World Wars, the turbulent ‘60s), and about big personalities within the fold can warm anyone to an organization. But why do some firms seem to have difficulty publishing a firm history to commemorate major milestones?

Firms need to realize two things: No one is going to read a firm history cover to cover except—possibly—a suck-up summer associate. These volumes, whether thick or thin, are meant to be flipped through. Formatting and imagery should be attention getting. Publishing an encyclopedic tome is likely to be waste of time and money. Make it of manageable length.

The second point firms need to realize is that not everyone is going to get a starring role. That’s where difficulty sometimes creeps in. Firms agree, the marketers agree, the publicists agree that putting together a firm history would be a great idea underscoring the firm’s historical importance. As institutional memory fades as time wears on, a firm history will commemorate highlights that no current partner actually can recall. The problem comes with whose name will be mentioned first, whose anecdotes make it into the published work, whose practice area will be highlighted, who will be merely a footnote, who won’t be identified at all. All history is revisionist, told typically from the perspective of the winner. Fantastic firm feats will be told from the perspective of the firm, not from that of a losing opponent. There’s nothing wrong with spinning the narrative to emphasize certain contributors. No one wants to read book-length lists of deals and people involved with the transactions.

What some firm leadership is reticent to do, however, is to confront this reality early on. Partners may agree they want the firm to publish a history. What they’ll likely bicker about is how that history will be identified and who will be mentioned and who won’t. Don’t wait until the firm has invested significant time and funds to have a monstrous battle. Manage the process early on.

—Lori Tripoli