Realized that my dad’s experience in a 30-lawyer suburban firm – not even showily trial-based like on TV, but as in having a variety of small-scale, significant-in-their-particular-context clients and through that becoming a sort of courtier at a local court, imbricated with the local power structure at city hall and the country club – was not only an anachronism but only lasted as long as it did, long enough for me to witness, in the context of a “favored quarter” suburb just outside a major city (which meant things were happening with schools and real estate and just the infrastructure of independent business formation, both in terms of all the stuff to serve a population in a place, and yuppies running their business-park dreams THERE, not to mention whatever they got up to, and that this was done through a system that might be in decline but still existed continuous with the postwar and even prewar eras)

All the cousins and college classmates I know who became lawyers work at “biglaw” firms in big cities, as one of hundreds pulling 14 hour days reviewing contracts for companies several states away, to the extent they can be said to exist anywhere in particular

For the more rooted in place and power structures I guess there was the opportunity to become a public defender and articulate with local liberal nonprofits and through them the city Democratic Party until they look up in 2020 and finally notice how radical you’ve gotten and FUCK NO, they are not doing THAT shit again, learned their lesson already, thank you very much