The Drone, captain of the blog for Heller Ehrman’s suddenly unemployed staffers, went to a lot of trouble to keep his identity secret in the midst of the firm’s collapse.
There was the fake use of British English, and the intentionally misspelled words. There’s also the LinkedIn profile, in which his experience includes a show girl gig in the 1970s. His name was Lola.
“I would purposely do things to trip people up,” he told LegalPad today over Skype phone from Chicago. The humor gave him away to a few people who knew him best, he said.
Now he’s ready to pull back the curtain and step out. And he is responding to a request that came about a month ago from staffers of the soon-to-be-defunct Thelen to launch a blog just for them.
“They said they liked Heller Highwater and found the posts were useful for their own people, and that they’d like their own space,” Thomas MacEntee said.
Turns out, MacEntee is a legal world vet. For the past 25 years, he was a techie at Heller, developing applications and training staff to use them. He also lists Skadden, Latham & Watkins and the USDA on his resume. He’s been a litigation secretary, a manager, a trainer, and applications analyst.
He launched Heller Highwater in late September. While Heller Highwater’s theme was nautical, the emerging theme for Thelen’s support blog is medical, sporting the title “Thelen The Pain.” It will offer similar information, MacEntee said, including how to do Cobra, and how to find insurance on your own, as well as job postings and recruiter info.
Thelenthepain.wordpress.com is up this week in shell form.
MacEntee said he’d like to coach someone from Thelen to take over the blog. Only an insider can provide depth and perspective, he said. Working on a disgruntled employee blog, “you get a lot of wingnuts and a lot of nutcases,” and a person from inside the organization can better separate the real from the hoax. On Heller Highwater, for example, MacEntee said he knew that some of the posts came from management trying to spread misinformation. “They knew that some people would not file a wage claim if they made it confusing enough,” he said.
As for himself, the job search continues. “I’m at a point where I’ve written off finding work in Q4,” he said. He’s looking to get into legal tech consulting, but doesn’t expect law firms to do much hiring until next year.
“I don’t want a permanent position,” he said. “I’d rather get my hands in different types of projects.”
— Petra Pasternak
The ABA has deserted the solo and mid tier firms.
http://endofesq.com/?p=542
Posted by: caretaker | November 18, 2008 at 07:43 PM
He wasn't at Heller for 25 years. That time span includes all the employement that he lists.
Heller Highwater has been a much appreciated forum for information, much of it accurate.
Posted by: Real World | November 21, 2008 at 07:41 PM