Hello there.

My name is John, and I’m a lawyer.

I enjoy long, moonlit walks, mint chocolate gelato, and gigantic, soul-crushingly wealthy corporations with problems.

You may say, “Hey, I’m a gigantic, soul-crushingly wealthy corporation with problems! But I do so many awful things that no one could possibly want me in his or her life. How can you possibly like me?” Let me assure you, little camper: I like you just the way you are. In fact, I like you so much, I want you to keep creating even more problems for yourself and others. I make a living off of human misery!

To make it easier for us to get this thing off the ground, I’ve included an easy, two-page retainer form for you to sign below.

Oh, hey, I get it. I’m coming on a little strong. I mean, we barely know each other!

You probably need to get to know me a little better before we start going to the courthouse and signing papers, am I right? Of course I’m right. I mean, if I tried to get you to commit to me before that, I’d be totally desperate, right? Ha ha! I have so much going on in my life. Too much really. I’ve started watching some Netflix documentaries, and they’re really quite…

Oh, right, right. You want to know more about my legal career. That makes total sense.

Anyway, I think you’ll find my qualifications more than sufficient. I graduated from a disreputable law school, and an expensive but lower-tier liberal arts college.

So, how about now?

Oh, yeah. Duh! “Are you in there, John?” You probably want to know about my current job, and maybe some cases I’ve handed. That’s totally fair.

I work at a midsize regional law firm. We have an impressive client list, including a small bank, and fifty insurance companies that rarely pay us.

As for my recent cases, I think you’ll find that my track record stacks up well with anyone’s:

• That case where I beat the crap out of a helplessly overmatched a guy who represented himself – this case appears first on my resume with a bullet;
• This one case that lasted three years where I almost even went to trial(!) before getting a settlement that I could have gotten two weeks in;
• The pro bono thing I handled for a disgusting poor person;
• The time I defended a payday lender and asserted that a 42% interest rate is perfectly reasonable without laughing once in court;
• The little matter where I successfully defended an oil company because their ocean oil rig dumped exactly one trillionth of a gallon less than the legal limit to impose liability;
• A case where a bank sued a guy because he owed the bank money or something;
• This one securities fraud case where I actually believed for a split second that it might be okay to put all the retirement funds of an entire teachers union into a Malaysian reality TV show;
• That transactional matter where I totally accepted bitcoin from a guy I never met who clearly hired me based on a dark web referral, where I’m pretty sure I brokered the sale of an entire drug empire (street territories and plantation workers included!);
• All those cases that I won on summary judgment because anyone could have won them;
• The three trials I second-chaired, which I lost; and
• A bunch of other cases where I did absolutely nothing and they settled.

What I’m trying to say is, all lawyers are pretty average, and I am absolutely no different than any run-of-the-mill lawyer you’ll find out there. But when it comes to how we conduct ourselves, there is a difference: I will make any promise necessary to get your business. A lot of guys will promise you the moon and the stars and the sun, but then they’ll try to qualify their promises with a bunch of fine print and legal mumbo jumbo that are supposedly “required” by the “rules of ethics.”  Hogwash, I say. What I promise is results. As in, if you ask me for the moon and the stars and the sun, the result is that I will acquire you the actual moon, and at least all of the stars including but not limited to the sun.

Wait, what’s that? You want to hear about my hourly rates? Gosh, I…kinda left those off my retainer form. Silly me.

Let’s put it this way: I’m gonna get my pound of flesh. It will cost you the same amount no matter what my hourly rate is. Trust me. I’m either gonna find a way to charge you for some absurdly high hourly rate that will cause you to monitor my billing down to the minute to keep me honest, or if the billing rate is lower, I’m gonna stretch this thing out for so many years that this case will be old enough to drink by the time it’s resolved. Besides, we both know you’re just gonna pay what you feel like paying anyway, because giant corporation that I can’t possibly afford to alienate.

I’m not gonna lie. I think we have the makings of something special here. It’s a match made in heaven: you like to pollute/foreclose on orphanages/steal from nuns/exploit pretty much everyone, and I have absolutely no conscience whatsoever.

Oh, when I first came to law school, I had strong convictions. I would’ve never been caught dead licking the floor beneath your wingtips like I am now. But the combination of my mind-bending insecurity with law school’s rigorous brain washing, along with a healthy dose of student loans that I can only afford to pay the interest on, has totally cured me of that. Now, I no longer have pride, self-respect, or any semblance of a personality. I’m existing purely to survive!

An advocate, in the discharge of his duty, knows but one person in all the world, and that person his client. And if you need me to translate what that last sentence means to me, let me be 100% clear: I will do anything for money.

So don’t play hard to get. We have so much in common. We need each other. I think we can be the best of friends, and–who knows?–maybe something even more. Maybe we can start an attorney-client relationship.