Like most folks, I hate lawyers. F. Lee Bailey? Scum! Johnnie Cochran? Glad he’s gone. When Enron defense attorney Michael Ramsey was hospitalized earlier this year for a blockage of his carotid artery, I was rooting for the blockage. I’m a fan of prosecutors who lock up bad guys, but the rest of ‘em can go to hell. The cover of ANONYMOUS LAWYER appropriately shows an attorney with devil horns mounted atop his head.

Jeremy Blachman has created another despicable attorney for me to hate. The anonymous lawyer of his novel is a pompous and bigoted hiring partner in a corporate law firm. He is all about making money, exerting his power and advancing his career. Nothing else.

Anonymous admits his deficiencies by saying, “There are a lot of things I’m terrible at, like being a human being.” Among the people on his shit list are fat people, “service providers” and his wife and kids. He especially despises anyone in his firm who hasn’t yet made partner, as he views them as second-class citizens. The only person he seems to have an affinity for is his niece, and that’s only because she’s attending Yale’s law school. He also disdains chain restaurants in favor of more exotic cuisine. In describing Applebee’s, he states, “I ate there once. There is no part of a pig called a riblet.”

With no real friends or confidants, Anonymous finds an outlet for venting his pent-up feelings by setting up an online blog, on which he writes about his job and the internal workings of the firm. In fact, the entire book is written as a series of blog entries and e-mails. While it was a clever idea for Blachman to present the narrative in this fashion, it isn’t original; Lucy Kellaway’s WHO MOVED MY BLACKBERRY?, released this spring, is written as a series of emails.

Due to his bitching and moaning about the goings on of his firm and co-workers, revealing his true identity would most certainly jeopardize his career and his dream of one day being named chairman of the firm. He laments the fact that summer interns always seem to have high ideals of saving the world and doing virtuous pro bono work. “Give me a little time and I’ll squeeze that ‘helping people’ crap right out of you,” he tells them.

One of the most revealing posts discusses the fact that when a female attorney gets pregnant, her number of billable hours decreases, reducing the firm’s profitability. Therefore, the clinic in the basement that quells the pesky problem is viewed simply as a fiscal responsibility and seems to present no ethical issues for him or the firm. The blog entries are peppered with ultra-contemporary references to DEAL OR NO DEAL, FAMILY GUY and Sudoku puzzles, which were fun but I fear will be woefully outdated in six months.

In an attempt to keep his identity a secret, Anonymous takes creative license with certain details on his blog. He sometimes lies outright to show himself in a more favorable light to his readers, many of whom are law students referred to the blog by his niece. He refers to co-workers and colleagues not by name but by descriptive attributes. Among them are The Suck-Up, Harvard Guy, The Girl Who Dresses Like a Slut and The Word Processing Guy Who Used to Be Under House Arrest. Oh, and there’s The Jerk, Anonymous’ arch rival and chief competition for chairmanship.

The blog becomes increasingly popular and Anonymous becomes even more concerned that a co-worker might discover his true identity, and the inevitable happens when a couple of them do. The book’s thin plot suddenly thickens as Anonymous tries to avoid being outted as the blogster while at the same time politicking, plotting and scheming to be appointed to the newly vacated chairman position.

A testament to Blachman’s ability as a writer is the fact that even though I hated Anonymous and everything he stands for, in a weird kind of way I wanted him to succeed and have the happy ending. ANONYMOUS LAWYER has a crafty conclusion that made me smile. I’ll admit I didn’t “get” it right off the bat, but a quick e-mail to the author remedied this. (The fact that I didn’t immediately understand the ending should not be considered a reflection on Blachman, but instead is proof of my occasional dimwittedness.) The storyline was a bit slow in taking off, but once it did, I was drawn into it and stayed hooked until the end.

The book is supplemented with a very entertaining blog at www.anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com (on which the book is based) and the fictional firm’s very funny web site at www.anonymouslawfirm.com. –Ken Davis

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