I enjoyed Michael Clayton, and the last thing I would want to do is spoil anyone's fun by pointing out how inaccurate it is as a portrayal of firm life. (I would never want to watch House with would be a real-life diagnostician). There's nothing wrong with taking artistic license in order to tell a good story.

There is, however, something wrong with a journalist--who seems to have gone to law school but seems never to have worked at a big law firm--claiming that Michael Clayton is an "unusually accurate" look inside the lives of big firm lawyers.

To take one of the movie's lines quoted in this article: "Six years. Four hundred depositions. A hundred motions. Five changes of venue. Eighty-four thousand documents in discovery." If you're a big firm lawyer, this line makes you wonder why the writers did not consult any before putting this on the screen. Six years is not an unrealistic time frame for a large products liability case; many last longer. Five changes of venue is a whole lot of changes of venue, but let's skip over that. A hundred motions is conceivable, if steep, for a six-year case that proceeds to trial (and the case in Michael Clayton was about to settle on the eve of trial). Four hundred depositions, though, is a howler. The Federal Rules permit ten depositions as of right, after which you have to seek the court's permission. Courts routinely allow more than ten in complex cases, but four hundred is astronomically high. It's hard to imagine any court requiring a private litigant to submit to the burden and expense of four hundred depositions (even assuming that each side took two hundred). On the other hand, eighty-four thousand documents is laughably low for a complex case in the era of personal computers and email. In fact, I laughed out loud at this line in the theater because I have myself been involved in a large products liability case for the last two years which has involved the review of approximately 30 million pages of documents and the production, so far, of approximately 8 million pages. It's hard to say how many unique documents this comprises, but it would be well in excess of 2 million. So far.

I also take issue with the author's claim that "in the '70s, firms might expect 1,800 billable hours a year; today some New York associates bill 3,000." Both parts of this statement are, strictly speaking, true, but the suggestion that typical associate billable hours today are closer to 3,000 than to 1,800 is not. And it's certainly not true that firms expect 3,000 hours a year from associates. Even in New York. 3,000 hours happens, of course, and I'm sure it happens more today than in the 1970s, but 1,800 hours happens a hell of a lot more. As a litigation associate, it would be difficult to bill 3,000 hours in a year unless you were closely involved in one or more active jury trials. I've billed a 2,500 hour year before, and I can tell you that a 3,000 hour year would be physically and mentally exhausting. I would be extremely skeptical of anyone who claimed to have billed those kinds of hours for more than one year in a row. Billing like that is more likely due to hours inflation (which is a nice way of saying defrauding clients) than it is actual work. (Partial caveat - I work at a big firm in DC, not New York, and it is true that hours expectations are higher in New York than DC).

I'm glad you wrote this response. You're in a better position to write it because you have first-hand experience, but I'm still in law school; but after only half a year and change of exposure, I recognized/suspected right off the bat how rabidly misinformed this writer is in this review. This narrative of "evil law firms" and exhausted, morally conflicted associates needs to die. This writer needs to get together with Scott Turow, so that they can share their inaccurate visions of law school and law firms.