The Firm
The Firm is a 1991 legal thriller by American writer John Grisham. It was his second book and the first which gained wide popularity.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
3mentions
3people
2017–2022years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- From John Grisham's "The Firm" :
Avery taught Mitch all about billing clients for his time. As an associate he could bill $100 an hour. His future progress at the firm, he was warned, depended on how much income he made for the firm. He learned that it was acceptable to bill clients more than he actually worked. 'If you think about a client while you're driving over to the office in the morning,' Avery told him, 'add on another hour.' He could bill clients for twelve hours a day, even if he never worked twelve hours a day. Mitch also learned that Avery liked to bend the firm's rules.
- To leave the country, you need an exit visa which requires the consent of your employer or sponsor.
So, no.
Personally I would never take the risk of taking employment in an autocratic country that requires an exit visa. They could pay me annual seven figures, but it makes no difference because they'd be able to extract whatever they want from me as a condition of departure. Imagine being held in a cell at the Riyadh airport until you wire them all the money in your foreign bank accounts. Nothing at all stops them from doing that.
If you don't believe this could happen to Western expats, read this story about KPMG employees in Saudi Arabia:
https://www.ft.com/content/45f2eda8-9219-4aa5-9434-277d74ea1...
'Several former employees suspected they were under some form of surveillance by KPMG Saudi Arabia while working in the kingdom. One says he was followed by a car whenever he left his compound while exit negotiations were ongoing. He says he had safety concerns “every day” during this period “and any time I stepped out of the security of the compound”.
'Another former employee only agreed to speak to the FT from a hotel landline while travelling in Europe in case their mobile phone was being monitored. “As you know we are being watched in Saudi,” the person said.
'A third former employee says that when he finally left Saudi Arabia for good, he deliberately took a circuitous route via Bahrain so as to avoid being tracked or blocked from leaving by the firm or its government contacts. He compared the behaviour of KPMG Saudi Arabia’s leadership and the fear it instils in employees to the John Grisham novel The Firm, a thriller in which a lawyer becomes entangled in a corporate plot. “I was in fear for my own safety,” he says. “I would not have taken my young family to the Middle East had I known. [That fear] just should not exist today.”
- You can't set your 'limit' to 105, when the current price is 101. That's a market order.
Even if you could, why would you want to buy at 105, when the current price is 101? Just to don't have to pay 0.25 in fees!? That sounds like "The Firm" from John Grisham where rich people would rather pay $2 to lawyers than $1 in taxes.
