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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   29588 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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My suspicion when I first saw this story was that she was likely going to quit anyway (as reality set in over the years that big law was less about girlbossing around in a cUtE business outfit being a feminist champion and white savior, and more about grinding hundreds of hours a month reviewing documents and addressing Word comments), so she figured she'd go out in a blaze of glory to satiate her TDS, earn good-girl points, and get glazed for being Stunning and Brave by male simps, fellow white female progressives, and the Persons of Color she so pedestalizes.

Comments from a Reddit account that's supposedly hers have done little to dissuade me from that initial suspicion. For example:

Yup - I did not intend to quit yesterday, or this month, or whatever, but I was likely to leave this year anyway and always have planned to do so and take a big pay cut and that's where my finances were. As the admin started moving, it became clearer to me that timeline was going to need to accelerate, so while I was really hoping to finish the quarter and stay through an asylum hearing I was supervising next month at the very least, this is not the same degree of sacrifice as it would be for many other people. That's one of the many things I'm alluding to when I admit this isn't something everyone (or even most people) can do. I'm also white, I have the credentials, I have supportive parents who cannot pay my LOANS but can provide immediate financial assistance, have literally the tightest knit and most supportive and aligned set of friends on the planet, don't have kids, etc etc etc. This is a sacrifice, but it is not the same as it is for many people. Someone (maybe many people, maybe they're mostly at PW right now) needed to do it, but everyone does not. Other people will make sacrifices that are tenable to them.

Bolding mine. its_all_so_tiresome.jpg

And no kids, you don't say.

While checking her privilege, she for some reason neglected to mention that as a non-ugly young woman, she has the privilege of capriciously quitting her job and burning bridges because she can always Meet Someone to subsidize her lifestyle, if she doesn't have such a someone on tap or on deck already. Daniel Tosh: "Being an ugly woman is likely being a man; you're going to have to work." Additionally, as a jobless daughter, she'd get more parental support than she would if she were a jobless son.

Not that burning big law bridges is all that fatal for progressive lawyers, because there's always a universe of non-profits, NGO, and government positions she can monkey-branch to after she's Had Her Fun doing press tours, writing op-eds, snagging a book deal. Plus, there could always be a big law firm or two out there looking to #Resist and take a stand against Orange Man (like the big law version of McKinsey doubling down on DEI), unlike those evil and cowardly pale stale males at Skadden and Paul Weiss who bent the knee. Even if not, she'll have tons of Allies within big law firms who'll push to hire her if she so chooses to run it back at big law. Progressive women have plot armor.

This was obvious as soon as the story broke. Only an idiot would think her job at Skadden Arps could survive this, and Skadden Arps don’t hire idiots. My guesses as to motive were:

  1. She thinks that Perkins Coie or Williams & Connolly will hire her over this. Unlikely
  2. She is looking to jump to public interest work.
  3. She is trying to give her fiancé a social license to stay soulsold in their left-wing social circles.

Stay soulsold? What's that?

I think they mean "Her fiancé gets a license to keep selling his soul to big corporations for money while they retain their virtue in their social circles." But personally I doubt this. Most top lawyers run in elite blue-tribe social circles where "selling one's soul" to corporations is not really frowned upon to begin with.

It's more than that; it's almost a requirement, especially for men who want a family in a HCOL blue city. A male educator dedicating his career to helping marginalized youth, no matter his ideological bona fides and other good qualities, is going to have a much harder time finding a wife than even an entirely apolitical and unexceptional corporate guy.

It's widely understood that corporate jobs are just jobs, and you can't be blamed for getting yours. One of the most rabidly woke people I know on social media is a (Asian, female, bisexual) lawyer whose day job is quite literally union busting.

(I don't care about the actual choice of career, just the hypocrisy.)

Having sold your soul to BigCorp, I imagine. Though I haven’t heard the term before.

I was halfway through the comment before I looked up at the username. He strikes again.

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