Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: A Lost Decade in the World's Worst Profession »

The Philadelphia Lawyer is the anonymous mind behind the popular blog The Philadelphia Lawyer. He lives outside Philadelphia with his wife.

Welcome to the world of the Philadelphia Lawyer-a man of two identities. By day he is a mild-mannered attorney, one who has practiced in a wide variety of legal fields from criminal to corporate to personal injury, earning himself a stellar reputation in the Philadelphia legal community as a hardnosed and astute litigator. By night, his drunken and drug induced escapades are all that keep him going, as he moves from bar to party to bed in the hopes that somehow he can escape the boredom and mental inertia of his job.

Based on the anonymous blog called the Philadelphia Lawyer, HAPPY HOUR IS FOR AMATEURS is a juvenile, raucous, and entertaining memoir that follows the antics of one lawyer in Philadelphia from law school to law practice as he devotes 10 years of his life to one of our country′s most popular yet unsavory professions. Satirizing office culture like never before, his story offers a wry and hilarious look into the monotony of the nine to five workplace and the debauched release that goes on when the sun goes down. Whether it′s dabbling in S&M with buttoned-down career woman, chasing nitrous balloons with shots of Jim Beam, or overdosing on anti-nausea medication for cancer patients to stave off his hangover, HAPPY HOUR IS FOR AMATEURS is episodic escapism in its most enjoyable form, as one man does whatever he can to avoid the unfortunate realities of the law and excruciating tedium of office life.

Publishers Weekly

In this nihilistic memoir, the author, creator of the Philadelphia Lawyer blog, addresses both the bankruptcy of the American legal system and his own predilection for substance abuse. His pseudonym, he says, refers both to the city where the author practiced and to a disparaging term for an unscrupulous lawyer. A former frat boy, the author entered law school for lack of better ideas only to find that the material bored him and his studies interfered with getting drunk. Still, he persisted, and his quest for big money led him through criminal law, civil litigation and personal injury law. Although he never gets rich, he is able to ingest large quantities of drugs in the company of equally debauched friends. The author writes with intermittent brio, and his critiques of his profession are pointed and astute. However, the endless tales of sleazy sex and drunken escapades might go over well with bar-stool buddies, but on the page they make a depressing blur. Other people barely seem to exist for him: of his future wife we learn little more than that she has a "dancer's ass" and "amazing nipples." With a lot more empathy and self-awareness, the author might have created a devastating portrayal of the current debasement of the American professional classes. (Oct.)

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Author's Note xi

1998 1

Chap Stick 6

Breaking and Entering 17

Hat Trick 28

Ten Percenter 41

How to Not Get a Job Offer 54

Twenty-six 66

Squirrelfucker 80

Thirty Years 97

Lisa 105

The Crab Orgy 117

Marshal? 127

The Train Wreck Defense 138

3-to-1 156

Meet the New Boss 172

The Costanza Method: Part I 182

The Costanza Method: Part II 196

Sudden Asshole Syndrome 210

Everything Went Pink 223

Newspaper Guys 238

Getting Your Money's Worth 245

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame (Well, More Like Ten) 258

Last Roulette Wheel on the Way Out of the Casino 274

"Justice" Junkies 282

Plan B 288

Everything Went Wrong 293

Gone 299

Acknowledgments 307