"A Dream Job for the Sort of Lawyer for Whom This Is a Dream Job."

The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute is hiring.

Looking for public interest legal work with a free-market, anti-class-action-abuse bent? The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute may be the place for you. HLLI recently posted this job announcement that I thought might be of interest to some VC readers (and not only because we are mentioned in the announcement).

It reads, in part:

Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute is hiring an attorney! And it's a dream job for the sort of lawyer for whom this is a dream job.

Maybe you've billed 250 hours this month on exceedingly silly discovery disputes and depositions, all for an ungrateful scaredy-cat client who's just going to settle before any interesting legal issues can be resolved, and you're wondering how you might ever get into court for something meaningful. Maybe Fed Jur was your favorite class and you recently aggravated a partner or judge by pointing out a jurisdictional defect in a year-old case. Maybe you're a new parent, and really wish there was a job out there that gave you the flexibility to pick your hours, work from home, and still do interesting work with real responsibility. Or you just want more free time to write that law-review article (novel? screenplay?) before you transition into academia.

Maybe you got into law so you could make a difference, miss the law-school classes and Fed Soc panels and your clerkship where you thought about issues from first principles, and are frustrated being required to write briefs with kitchen-sink arguments that you know are tendentious, and would rather be trying to get the law right.

You know the difference between review for abuse of discretion and de novo review. You read Bryan Garner and the Volokh Conspiracy; you hate rent-seeking and love the free market; you know the difference between 24-point leading and MS-Word double-spacing. You read judicial opinions for fun. You're not afraid to be in a courtroom where neither side wants to see you. You can do your own ECF filing, understand the PACER radio buttons, and draft the occasional discovery request without someone sitting on your shoulder. You're itching to be thrown in the deep end. You hate cy pres and rent-seeking. You noticed that this paragraph says "rent-seeking" twice and would've edited it.

As for the organization posting the ad, HLLI, here's some background:

HLLI stands for free markets, free speech, limited government, separation of powers, and against regulatory abuse and rent-seeking. We're best known for our class-action objections through our Center for Class Action Fairness, but we also have successfully challenged FCC abuses in the D.C. Circuit, recently won a preliminary injunction on First Amendment grounds in federal district court in Pennsylvania, and are expanding our public-interest wings.

HLLI does not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, religion, color, national origin, sexual orientation, era of military service, gender identity or expression, relationship structure, ninja identity, fast-food beverage preference, or anything else that's illegal, immoral, or stupid to use as a basis for hiring. We may make fun of you if you like Pepsi, though.

This job may be for you. And if it isn't, then it isn't.

Comments

[santamonica811]

I would not be a good fit for this job. But I'll note that any job posting that contains a bit of humor and cleverness automatically appeals to my sensibilities. Now, if only Greenpeace, Heal the Bay (etc) can adopt this approach to recruiting . . . . 🙂

[Dr. Ed 2]

Fascism precludes a sense of humor.

[rsteinmetz]

What does it pay?

[Noscitur a sociis]

We’ll match experience-equivalent government-attorney GS scale, with the benefit that you can work from home and moonlight in your own private practice.

[Nick Gillespie's Jacket]

Not sure getting “thrown in the deep end” is compatible with the advertised work-life balance, spending more time with the family, setting your own hours, etc. The work may be more rewarding or interesting than your current assignment, but I have doubts that your 250 hours/month billables are going to change (downward) that much, if at all.

[DaivdBehar]

Isn't 250 hours a month a 12 hour day?

[tkamenick]

No? It's basically a 40-hour week

[David Nieporent]

What? No, 250 hours a month — 3,000 hours per year — is a lot more than 40 hours per week, even if you could realize 100%, which of course you can't.

But I'm not sure why Mr. Jacket is making baseless assumptions rather than just, you know, asking. I don't work for them, but I've known Ted forever and know that when he says, "Thrown in the deep end" he means that nobody is going to be holding your hand. You're going to be drafting briefs and handling oral argument, not waiting years to be allowed out of the basement while senior people use your work product.

[DaivdBehar]

Not as bad as I thought. This is Ted Frank.

If Ted wants to do plaintiff aggregate claims, I have several good ones for him, and I could serve as lead plaintiff. He could get really rich, and fund his anti-aggregate claim foundation.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Sounds like a great invitation for a seat on the wrong side of history.

He'll get some takers.

[DaivdBehar]

Ted has a really good track record. I always learn from him.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Getting large corporations to direct millions of dollars to consumers instead of shady plaintiffs attorneys is the wrong side of history?

[Dr. Ed 2]

the difference between 24-point leading and MS-Word double-spacing."

OK, I'll bite. What IS the difference?
Or is this one of those asinine archaic lawyer-friendly rules where you have to go into your settings and specify a fractional line spacing?

[Rossami]

Double-spacing puts extra space between every line of text. "Leading" (whether 24 point or some other amount) means putting extra space at the start of the paragraph but not between lines within the same paragraph.

At least, that's how I'd interpret that instruction.

[Rossami]

As to why you'd do either - putting extra space between paragraphs makes the document easier to read. You get extra visual cues via your peripheral vision that help keep your place on the page.

Putting extra space between lines makes the document harder to read but easier to mark-up when you're editing on hard-copy.

[Ted Frank]

Since someone else answered incorrectly:

https://practicaltypography.com/line-spacing.html

[Dr. Ed 2]

HLLI does not discriminate on the basis of ... era of military service

Is that actually legally worded?

Memory is that the protected category is (or initially was) Vietnam-era Veterans and this doesn't exactly cover that -- i.e. this says they won't discriminate *between* those who are (the protected) Vietnam-era Vets and those who served outside that time period, neither that they won't discriminate against veterans in general (which is permissible) nor against Viet Vets (which isn't).

Of course an increasing number of academic job postings indicate that they clearly intend to ignore this statement by adding another line about how persons of color and women are particularly encouraged to apply.

And then people wonder why Donald Trump is so popular amongst the working class.

[DaivdBehar]

Those privileged people cannot compete without privileges. PC is totally racist. African immigrants with very dark skins are the new Koreans, valedictorians in school, top performers at work. They are much sought after by admissions and by employers. One of them became President of the US. He was not a US South black. He had nothing in common with them.