“This is the time to get rid of the billable hour,” said Evan R. Chesler, presiding partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York, one of a number of large firms whose most senior lawyers bill more than $800 an hour.

Good.

Clients have complained for years that the practice of billing for each hour worked can encourage law firms to prolong a client’s problem rather than solve it.

Yes.

“The difficulty is, we don’t really know what it costs us to do something,” he said. But the biggest stumbling block to alternative fee structures may be the managing partners at law firms, who will have to overhaul compensation structures to reward partners and associates for something other than taking a long time to do something.

tags: work

The heat was turned on promptly this week in my apartment building. This is my first time living with radiators. I haven’t turned mine on yet. The one in the kitchen alternates between making running-water noises and hissing noises and someone-is-breaking-into-the-apartment noises.

I got my first pay check on the last day of September. I’m a official wage slave now! I daydream about making pizzas or driving a bus, dishwashing and having homework. Looking at a screen and being online all day is driving me a little bit crazy, as much as I love the internet. Anyway, at least I can buy some new clothes now.

My new bank in Chicago, WaMu, got bought up barely a month after I opened my account, by JPMorgan Chase, who I specifically avoided when I was choosing a new bank. So far there haven’t been a big changes, but my eagle eye is open. Chase’s website blows, their free checking account blows (it requires direct deposit) and most of all their savings account really really blows, with an interest rate of .15%. Seriously? At WaMu my current rate for online savings 3.93% with an APY of 4.00%. (I doubt this will be maintained much longer, but even at ING Direct the APY is 3.00%). We’ll see.

tags: chicago, work

Real life lesson #1: You need proof of work eligibility in order to work.

Cost: Price to overnight my passport from Silver Spring to Chicago.

On the bright side, now I know when FedEx says “First Overnight” they really meant it.

tags: chicago, work

Today is my last day in Providence and my last day at work. I am glad I am moving but I will miss this place. This is the best summer I have had in a long time.

Things to do before I go: hope that car has a mini-jack input, pack some more, clean up kitchen, take out trash, have dinner with Dan, pick up rental car, pack car, sleep.

P.S. Happy birthday Mummy!

tags: brown, photography, providence, work

Katie and I have been taking walks every evening after dinner. Yesterday she was at work so I took a short one by myself and identified two outdoor cats within a one block radius of my apartment. One of them was a black and looked like an older and less skinny version of Charlie. He had a collar and wasn’t very friendly. The other one was orange and white and lying on the sidewalk like she was tanning at the beach. I sat down and played with her for awhile, until a dog walked by across the street and the cat ran into the bushes.

Then I went to buy cereal. It seems like we go through a huge box of corn flakes in about 3-4 days, even though I haven’t been eating them. The cashier asked me if I was American and told me he thought I was French. I don’t know if he thought I looked foreign or if the loud hum of the air conditioner and freezer in the store made it sound like I had an accent.

One of my coworkers and I at my afternoon job have been getting PHP/MySQL lessons from another coworker, a CS major who just graduated like me and is working for Apple remotely this summer. We get homework assigned every week, which is invariably more interesting than studying for the GREs, but I try to spit my time equally.

By the way, this is entry number 2,003 in Toast. I’ve been blogging for about 7 years and 7 months. And it’s about that embarrassing to read what I posted when I was 14.

tags: animals, milestone, providence, work

I am creating a layout based on this piece of writing by Abraham Lincoln (see the original here in CDI’s repositories.

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party — and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true — that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

tags: clip, politics, work