Partner Track on Netflix- Thoughts? Forum

[lawstudent212]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

[Anonymous User]

Agreed. Also don't know why they made the main character Korean when she's Chinese in the book. And of course her love interest has to be white lol.

[Anonymous User]

Show is so cringe if you're a practicing lawyer. Is Marty Adler a nod to Lipton?

[Joachim2017]

Adjusting for the fact that the audience is not (at least not exclusively) lawyers or lawyer-adjacent workers, I thought a lot of of the simplifications were understandable and reasonable. They obviously need to adjust pacing and details for a lay audience in a 40-min/episode TV show. A few other impressions/reactions (some minor spoilers):

What WAS terrible was the banter that I guess they thought passes for "witty." Corporate lawyers don't banter with each other like "objection, speculation." Hell, even litigators don't (at least not as soon as they start actually working).

The fact that she only dates incredibly attractive rich white dudes was funny, and also the reason it's hard to find her problems sympathetic or relatable. She's dating a literal billionaire who's madly in love with her, and lives in an incredible apartment. Everything else is very much "first world problems."

Another thing that was annoying was the IP litigator (the gay black friend) getting self-righteous about the other associate's stand-up routine at the office retreat. Whether something is offensive in the workplace is up to everyone in the workplace reasonably considering it, not just the people most offended. Lawyers, of all people, understand that.

Other than that, it was surprisingly good for a guilty-pleasure, cheap-amusement Netflix binge. And the music was good, IMO.

[Anonymous User]

I'm having trouble getting past all the weird little things that are not realistic to biglaw. For example, calling M&A deals "cases," calling the firm "the company," acting like getting one more particular deal with one particular partner at the last minute will somehow have a material impact on making partner, constantly using the term "junior partner," senior associates doing diligence, etc.

With the possible exception of "getting on that one special deal" which is maybe a necessary plot contrivance, all the rest of these things could have easily been fixed to match real world lingo and practice without altering the story or making it realistic in a "boring" way. Now I know how people feel when, for example, Hollywood makes a movie set in their country and all the mannerisms and cultural elements are out of wack.

If a single biglaw person (such as the author of the book??) had watched a screening they could have caught these things.

[Anonymous User]

I think this is essentially Grey's Anatomy for wanna-be lawyers.

Just like Grey's, it's not supposed to be accurate to the profession. It's just a light-hearted chick-flick about a woman lawyer/doctor. Thus, the accuracy to law firms/jargon doesn't really matter - it's about being a high-powered woman navigating the dating world and work and is essentially made to be a mindless fantasy/escape.

I have a lot more to complain about than the inaccuracies in the law, such as the absolute horrendous dialogue/writing and acting.

[nealric]

I think this is essentially Grey's Anatomy for wanna-be lawyers.

Just like Grey's, it's not supposed to be accurate to the profession. It's just a light-hearted chick-flick about a woman lawyer/doctor. Thus, the accuracy to law firms/jargon doesn't really matter - it's about being a high-powered woman navigating the dating world and work and is essentially made to be a mindless fantasy/escape.

I have a lot more to complain about than the inaccuracies in the law, such as the absolute horrendous dialogue/writing and acting.

Sounds like basically a re-do of suits, except with a female protagonist and without the silly faking Harvard attendance impostor subplot. In both cases, you have to wonder why they didn't bother to have an actual lawyer make a couple of edits to the script. Would have cost almost nothing and not hurt the enjoyment of the non-lawyer audience at all.

An odd reversal of that is Arrested Development. After some of the legal references, I assumed one of the writers must have been a lawyer, but could find no evidence of it in the writing credits. It's not an accurate depiction of the "legal profession" per-se, but it definitely has the jaded outlook of the profession you typically see from lawyers.

[Anonymous User]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

Asian women hate being sexualized unless it's hot white men lol. The producers know who they're catering to, our culture is doomed.

[Anonymous User]

The Good Wife was a good show with a strong female lead that was a relatively accurate depiction of law firm life. Go watch that instead.

[Anonymous User]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

Asian women hate being sexualized unless it's hot white men lol. The producers know who they're catering to, our culture is doomed.

Also raises an interesting point: who has it worse, asian women (who are hypersexualized) or men (who are often perceived as undesirable)? At least with respect to the film industry, the former are definitely benefiting. But in the law setting? Curious on AAPI perspectives.

[Anonymous User]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

Asian women hate being sexualized unless it's hot white men lol. The producers know who they're catering to, our culture is doomed.

Also raises an interesting point: who has it worse, asian women (who are hypersexualized) or men (who are often perceived as undesirable)? At least with respect to the film industry, the former are definitely benefiting. But in the law setting? Curious on AAPI perspectives.

I think someone touched on this in the other thread about discrimination against Asian Americans in the legal field. I will say this: When you see an Asian guy at an elite law firm (particularly the NYC white shoes, bc that's what I'm most familiar with), you can be pretty certain that he did everything "right" - top LSAT score, top undergrad GPA, likely T6 or T14, solid to excellent 1L grades, etc. There is very little margin for error for Asian men trying to get into the top firms (and of course it's only more pronounced for clerkships or Big Fed). I'm sure Asian women face similar barriers to entry, but if you're a [straight-presenting] Asian male law student, you really have nothing that law firms want in terms of recruiting brochure-padding purposes. Now, some people might twist and turn that into a perverse "pro" - i.e., an Asian guy is less likely than any other demographic to get questioned about how he got there - which I don't agree with, but that's another debate.

Just take a look at the recent summer or first year classes at places like CSM or S&C or STB and you'll see that while there are often 20-30 Asian women in a class of say 100-150, there are maybe 5-10 (at most) Asian men. I don't know who has it worse in terms of harassment/discrimination/etc. once you're working full-time at a firm, but I don't think it would be crazy to say that Asian men are judged more harshly than any other demographic - yes, including Asian women - in elite law firm recruiting, and by a tangible margin.

[mvp99]

Law ruined Minority Report for me. Makes no sense now.

[Anonymous User]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

Asian women hate being sexualized unless it's hot white men lol. The producers know who they're catering to, our culture is doomed.

Also raises an interesting point: who has it worse, asian women (who are hypersexualized) or men (who are often perceived as undesirable)? At least with respect to the film industry, the former are definitely benefiting. But in the law setting? Curious on AAPI perspectives.

I think someone touched on this in the other thread about discrimination against Asian Americans in the legal field. I will say this: When you see an Asian guy at an elite law firm (particularly the NYC white shoes, bc that's what I'm most familiar with), you can be pretty certain that he did everything "right" - top LSAT score, top undergrad GPA, likely T6 or T14, solid to excellent 1L grades, etc. There is very little margin for error for Asian men trying to get into the top firms (and of course it's only more pronounced for clerkships or Big Fed). I'm sure Asian women face similar barriers to entry, but if you're a [straight-presenting] Asian male law student, you really have nothing that law firms want in terms of recruiting brochure-padding purposes. Now, some people might twist and turn that into a perverse "pro" - i.e., an Asian guy is less likely than any other demographic to get questioned about how he got there - which I don't agree with, but that's another debate.

Just take a look at the recent summer or first year classes at places like CSM or S&C or STB and you'll see that while there are often 20-30 Asian women in a class of say 100-150, there are maybe 5-10 (at most) Asian men. I don't know who has it worse in terms of harassment/discrimination/etc. once you're working full-time at a firm, but I don't think it would be crazy to say that Asian men are judged more harshly than any other demographic - yes, including Asian women - in elite law firm recruiting, and by a tangible margin.

I'm on the recruiting committee of my v10, and I would say (at least for my major secondary office) we probably get 2x-3x the number of Asian women applicants compared to Asian men applicants. It might even be higher. And a large majority are Chinese applicants (grew up in China).

[Anonymous User]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

Asian women hate being sexualized unless it's hot white men lol. The producers know who they're catering to, our culture is doomed.

Also raises an interesting point: who has it worse, asian women (who are hypersexualized) or men (who are often perceived as undesirable)? At least with respect to the film industry, the former are definitely benefiting. But in the law setting? Curious on AAPI perspectives.

I think someone touched on this in the other thread about discrimination against Asian Americans in the legal field. I will say this: When you see an Asian guy at an elite law firm (particularly the NYC white shoes, bc that's what I'm most familiar with), you can be pretty certain that he did everything "right" - top LSAT score, top undergrad GPA, likely T6 or T14, solid to excellent 1L grades, etc. There is very little margin for error for Asian men trying to get into the top firms (and of course it's only more pronounced for clerkships or Big Fed). I'm sure Asian women face similar barriers to entry, but if you're a [straight-presenting] Asian male law student, you really have nothing that law firms want in terms of recruiting brochure-padding purposes. Now, some people might twist and turn that into a perverse "pro" - i.e., an Asian guy is less likely than any other demographic to get questioned about how he got there - which I don't agree with, but that's another debate.

Just take a look at the recent summer or first year classes at places like CSM or S&C or STB and you'll see that while there are often 20-30 Asian women in a class of say 100-150, there are maybe 5-10 (at most) Asian men. I don't know who has it worse in terms of harassment/discrimination/etc. once you're working full-time at a firm, but I don't think it would be crazy to say that Asian men are judged more harshly than any other demographic - yes, including Asian women - in elite law firm recruiting, and by a tangible margin.

I'm on the recruiting committee of my v10, and I would say (at least for my major secondary office) we probably get 2x-3x the number of Asian women applicants compared to Asian men applicants. It might even be higher. And a large majority are Chinese applicants (grew up in China).

This makes sense because law is very much a liberal arts/language/writing type of field, which are the majors most filled with women (whereas STEM fields are dominated by men). For Asian men specifically, they often have additional societal/familial pressure to go into STEM fields like engineering, finance, etc. as well as medicine. Seeing far higher female representation in a field like law makes sense to me of significant numbers of Asian men go into those other fields at a disproportionately higher rate.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Shows like this are the engine behind the idiot summers and first years at my firm.

It makes them think they’ll be wildly rich, sexy and fabulous NEW YORK CITY lawyers arguing strategy in a G6 jet with a glass of champagne in hand. When in actuality most are never even competent employees. Remember the thread on bringing dogs to the office? Huge overlap between that group and those who will enjoy this show.

[Lacepiece23]

Shows like this are the engine behind the idiot summers and first years at my firm.

It makes them think they’ll be wildly rich, sexy and fabulous NEW YORK CITY lawyers arguing strategy in a G6 jet with a glass of champagne in hand. When in actuality most are never even competent employees. Remember the thread on bringing dogs to the office? Huge overlap between that group and those who will enjoy this show.

I don't think it's that serious. Young people have always been enamored with a rich and lavish lifestyle. If anything, blame IG.

[Anonymous User]

It reminds me of that a TikTok lawyer who used to work at my firm. I'm half surprised she isn't in it.

[Anonymous User]

Watched a couple of episodes and was cringing at many moments. Every single M&A deal has a MAC clause and they act as though its a brilliant thought to include one..... Anyone else find this show pretty unrealistic / stupid?

Asian women hate being sexualized unless it's hot white men lol. The producers know who they're catering to, our culture is doomed.

Also raises an interesting point: who has it worse, asian women (who are hypersexualized) or men (who are often perceived as undesirable)? At least with respect to the film industry, the former are definitely benefiting. But in the law setting? Curious on AAPI perspectives.

I think someone touched on this in the other thread about discrimination against Asian Americans in the legal field. I will say this: When you see an Asian guy at an elite law firm (particularly the NYC white shoes, bc that's what I'm most familiar with), you can be pretty certain that he did everything "right" - top LSAT score, top undergrad GPA, likely T6 or T14, solid to excellent 1L grades, etc. There is very little margin for error for Asian men trying to get into the top firms (and of course it's only more pronounced for clerkships or Big Fed). I'm sure Asian women face similar barriers to entry, but if you're a [straight-presenting] Asian male law student, you really have nothing that law firms want in terms of recruiting brochure-padding purposes. Now, some people might twist and turn that into a perverse "pro" - i.e., an Asian guy is less likely than any other demographic to get questioned about how he got there - which I don't agree with, but that's another debate.

Just take a look at the recent summer or first year classes at places like CSM or S&C or STB and you'll see that while there are often 20-30 Asian women in a class of say 100-150, there are maybe 5-10 (at most) Asian men. I don't know who has it worse in terms of harassment/discrimination/etc. once you're working full-time at a firm, but I don't think it would be crazy to say that Asian men are judged more harshly than any other demographic - yes, including Asian women - in elite law firm recruiting, and by a tangible margin.

I'm on the recruiting committee of my v10, and I would say (at least for my major secondary office) we probably get 2x-3x the number of Asian women applicants compared to Asian men applicants. It might even be higher. And a large majority are Chinese applicants (grew up in China).

This makes sense because law is very much a liberal arts/language/writing type of field, which are the majors most filled with women (whereas STEM fields are dominated by men). For Asian men specifically, they often have additional societal/familial pressure to go into STEM fields like engineering, finance, etc. as well as medicine. Seeing far higher female representation in a field like law makes sense to me of significant numbers of Asian men go into those other fields at a disproportionately higher rate.

That doesn't change the fact that Asian men who end up at top firms have, on average, better stats than probably any other demographic - male or female. Maybe straight white men from certain religious/ethnic backgrounds can lay claim to having similar standards foisted upon them, but at least they have a huge presence in the field already, with parents, grandparents, etc. in the legal industry who provide inside
connections. I've seen too many Asian guys having the same or better stats than Asian women and men and women from other ethnicities (including whites), but end up at lower ranked firms.

[Anonymous User]

Show is so cringe if you're a practicing lawyer. Is Marty Adler a nod to Lipton?

Author was at Paul Weiss in the pre-Barshay era. I don’t know if the character has much in common with Bob Schumer, but there are similarities (like the more accomplished brother). The cafe in the show is called the Jury Box/Room; I understand there’s something similar at PW. Plus all the stuff about diversity being a front was on the nose.

[Anonymous User]

Hey can we keep this thread for the show? Understand the frustration expressed here but there is another lively thread devoted to the ethnic issues.

[Joachim2017]

Show is so cringe if you're a practicing lawyer. Is Marty Adler a nod to Lipton?

Author was at Paul Weiss in the pre-Barshay era. I don’t know if the character has much in common with Bob Schumer, but there are similarities (like the more accomplished brother). The cafe in the show is called the Jury Box/Room; I understand there’s something similar at PW. Plus all the stuff about diversity being a front was on the nose.

Out of curiosity, what's the significant distinction between PW pre- and post-Barshay? Is it a cultural "vibe", types of work/clients, or some combination of everything?

[existentialcrisis]

Show is so cringe if you're a practicing lawyer. Is Marty Adler a nod to Lipton?

Author was at Paul Weiss in the pre-Barshay era. I don’t know if the character has much in common with Bob Schumer, but there are similarities (like the more accomplished brother). The cafe in the show is called the Jury Box/Room; I understand there’s something similar at PW. Plus all the stuff about diversity being a front was on the nose.

Out of curiosity, what's the significant distinction between PW pre- and post-Barshay? Is it a cultural "vibe", types of work/clients, or some combination of everything?

Combination I would have to imagine.

I don’t work at PW, but Barshay (along with a having a reputation as terrible to work with at CSM) brought a bunch of big ticket pubco m&a work with him as well as at least one other partner.

[Anonymous User]

Hey can we keep this thread for the show? Understand the frustration expressed here but there is another lively thread devoted to the ethnic issues.

...Is the show not 50% sex/drama, 30% ethnic issues, and 20% law? So, what, you want us to talk about the 20%? Doomed culture

[Anonymous User]

Hey can we keep this thread for the show? Understand the frustration expressed here but there is another lively thread devoted to the ethnic issues.

...Is the show not 50% sex/drama, 30% ethnic issues, and 20% law? So, what, you want us to talk about the 20%? Doomed culture

I mean you're free to talk about whatever you want I can't stop you. To the extent the show is about race, that's relevant. But if this thread turns into another "Asian men are discriminated against" thread with a bonus of "Jews control everything", well that's just a shame because it won't be much use for discussion about the show.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Hey can we keep this thread for the show? Understand the frustration expressed here but there is another lively thread devoted to the ethnic issues.

...Is the show not 50% sex/drama, 30% ethnic issues, and 20% law? So, what, you want us to talk about the 20%? Doomed culture

I mean you're free to talk about whatever you want I can't stop you. To the extent the show is about race, that's relevant. But if this thread turns into another "Asian men are discriminated against" thread with a bonus of "Jews control everything", well that's just a shame because it won't be much use for discussion about the show.

Nobody would tell black or women lawyers and law students to shut up about the discrimination they believe that they face. I’m glad Asians are speaking up and I’m all ears.