Personal Lives
Busy Lawyer Compares His Life-Stylist to ‘Outsourced Wife’
Posted Nov 8, 2007 12:29 PM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A partner at a New York law firm doesn’t want to reveal his name, but he did tell the New York Times he is a client of lifestyle manager Allison Storr.
The 39-year-old Storr helps her clients by arranging parties, tracking down the right hairstylist, finding trendy places to visit, choosing the right wardrobe and even finding potential friends.
“Ms. Storr calls herself a personal manager, but her duties go far beyond that,” the Times says. “Her clients, all of them men, pay monthly fees of $4,000 to $10,000 to have her be their personal decider in nearly all things lifestyle-related.”
The law partner told the Times that Storr helped organize a successful ’80s theme party at his house in the Hamptons for about 200 friends on a $5,000 budget. He thinks of her as an outsourced wife. “The nice thing is that when I ask her to do something, she gets it done and there’s no negative feelings,” he said.
An interior designer who helps one of Storr’s clients describes her unusual business this way: “Allison collects people and shares them.”
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Comments
Zinge
Nov 9, 2007 7:33 AM CST
What a loser… The lawyer that is.
Bob M.
Nov 9, 2007 7:59 AM CST
Agreed.
Skwrrl
Nov 9, 2007 8:23 AM CST
An interesting commentary on what “the market” thinks a “woman’s work” is really worth. As an attorney and a single woman, I can’t help but think anything other than “I wish I could afford that service.”
John G
Nov 9, 2007 9:34 AM CST
$50,000 a year - or over $100,000 - to have someone choose your suits and haircut and furniture, and organize your parties! Where does someone who needs that service find time to get (or the ability to attract) the 200 friends that were invited to the party? Maybe that was part of the service, too ... or maybe they were Facebook friends, and the consultant runs his site for him.
JCG
Nov 9, 2007 9:38 AM CST
As a woman attorney, I have often said that I would love to have an old-fashioned June Cleaver-type wife. Someone who could run errands, pay bills, take my car to the shop, stay home and meet the plumber, etc. But paying someone to locate a hairstylist and find you friends???? That is truly pathetic.
Ken
Nov 9, 2007 9:40 AM CST
Very telling that the “partner at a New York law firm doesn’t want to reveal his name.” Gee, I wonder why <cough> <cough> pathetic…
DLawyer
Nov 9, 2007 9:40 AM CST
Okay - this is sad. He needs someone to run his life. That’s pitiful. He needs to stop trying to make a billion dollars a year, get married, have kids and really enjoy life. Stop an dsmell the roses. What’s even sadder is that he would probably never give a “real wife” 10K a month.
Mark
Nov 9, 2007 9:51 AM CST
I can’t wait to get one of these. This isn’t pathetic…its efficient. People hire personal assistants and party coordinators all the time and no one says that is pathetic. This is just an example of a person bundling all of these types of personal services together and selling them to hgih networth people. People that make enough money to afford this service are usually busy, and don’t have the time to think about these types of administrative issues…so why not hire someone else to handle the details.
dhs
Nov 9, 2007 9:53 AM CST
Out of curiosity, do we now accept the use of the term “decider” as referring to a person (i.e., a decisionmaker) rather than the actual pre-dubya definition, which had to do with a tie-breaker after a drawn contest? Was this author’s use of the term tongue-in-cheek? Where is our language going?
Monica M.
Nov 9, 2007 9:57 AM CST
This just shows how ridiculously self important law firm partners are. Pathetic.
Anon
Nov 9, 2007 9:58 AM CST
So this is what the pursuit of the almighty dollar has wrought? People like this loser are so busy working to make more money than they will ever need that they have to hire someone to find them friends, and are such dorks from having no social interaction or time to think of anything but work that they need someone to make “lifestyle” choices for them, like which clothes to wear and how to cut their hair?!?!
Wow. Sounds like a really rich life. NOT!
Good for the vulture picking over the carcass of what used to pass for a man, I say.
BLaw
Nov 9, 2007 10:09 AM CST
I disagree with those who think this is pathetic. Personal assistants, errand runners, party planners, and the like are nice luxuries for those who have more money than they can spend. I think we all would love to shun the drudgery of mundane tasks! It sounds like Storr & Co. has rolled all of this into one great service.
And dhs—I think you’re confused about your English-language history. My OED says that the primary meaning of decider is and always has been essentially synonymous with “decisionmaker.” They list its use as such as far back as 1592! So our language is “going” nowhere but where it has been.
Steven F
Nov 9, 2007 10:24 AM CST
This fellow is smarter the posted comments acknowledge. He had the very good sense NOT to reveal his name, so his clients and acquaintances do not know who this shallow, foolish person is. Equating a paid personal servant, even a highly paid one, is offensive; what about love, commitment, and life partnership? And to pay so exorbitantly for these services? And needing, or even wanting, to pay to be told what’s “trendy”?
sbk
Nov 9, 2007 10:36 AM CST
It’s not just laywers…but other New Yorkers with too much money and not enough time. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/fashion/08storr.html?ref=style
cfb
Nov 9, 2007 10:47 AM CST
Wow. That consultant really has an amazing idea. Her clients may seem kind of lame, but she’s definitely one forward-thinking businessperson!
Michelle
Nov 9, 2007 10:58 AM CST
An outsourced wife? Has he no soul?
Susan P.
Nov 9, 2007 11:03 AM CST
tIt may be the writer’s characterization, and not the services that the consultant offers that is objectionable. If “tracking down the right hairstylist, finding trendy places to visit, choosing the right wardrobe and even finding potential friends” were changed to “finding a place for a relaible haircut, letting him know about good new restaurants that had opened, making sure that he didn’t just dress in white-collared blue shirts, and letting him know the advantages and disadvantages of various online dating sites,” it wouldn’t seem half as bad. Some people have more money than time, and may need help so that their free time is time that can be spent just kicking back. They’re paying for research. Surely, we can all understand that.
DLM
Nov 9, 2007 11:07 AM CST
I saw “outsourced wife”, and I thought it was going to be a story on re-branding the world’s oldest profession…
elizabeth
Nov 9, 2007 11:22 AM CST
This woman who is the “life-stylist” probably works just as hard as we do as attorneys, and has found her niche - at least for now. She has my support, even if the cultural evolution which brought about her niche has some pretty pathetic potential. However, I cannot help but feel embittered by the fact that I spent 10 years post high school and over 100K of my life and money, all while having my children, and BEING that wife-type person for someone else, and now, in my fourth year of practice, I have to confess I have never seen that kind of income. Maybe I chose the wrong career.
JTC
Nov 9, 2007 11:28 AM CST
Oh kiss off people… change the perspective… say a married couple that are both lawyers with next-to-no free time. Personal Assistants are very useful.. This person just happens to be the badass of her chosen occupation. She is a highly skilled version of a personal assistant. If the benefit of her additional skills is worth the cost to someone, who gives a ****,
SLJ
Nov 9, 2007 11:30 AM CST
I really do not understand the multitude of negative comments. If this man had a wife, she would be doing the majority of the things that Storr is doing for him. I think it is intelligent to use your time wisely. Part of every ones success is networking and who you know (think about it). Why shouldn’t he have someone do this type of work for him so he can spend his time doing what he wants and if that is making more money, more power to him. I believe we all look to family, friends or our partner for the same advice Starr is giving this man. I believe it is money well spent. Besides I thought this was a modern society if he decides to work, make money and stay single who the hell are we to judge! I think it is Great!
Monica P.
Nov 9, 2007 11:33 AM CST
Are you kidding? This is great! How many times have I complained about needing a wife myself? It’s tough being single…. Heck, maybe if this whole lawyering gig doesn’t work out, I’ll become a life stylist. I’d be great at it!
Tiyelaw
Nov 9, 2007 11:36 AM CST
This is what we have come to. More technology, more disposable income, less time to enjoy it. The outsourced wife - more like the next level of turning every aspect of human existence into a commodity. I see the utility in this thing. I just don’t get a good feeling about it.
venicelaw
Nov 9, 2007 12:36 PM CST
What I find most laughable about Anonymous Partner’s outing of himself is that he placed a niggardly $5,000 budget on a party for 200 of his best “friends” at his “house in the Hamptons”—- while extravagantly dropping $4-10k monthly on a person to tell him what’s cool and what’s not. He’s definitely not.
Catherine
Nov 9, 2007 12:39 PM CST
So a busy guy hires someone to do what a 1950’s style wife would do. Isn’t that better than marrying someone who has no career of her own just to get the social beneifts of a spouse? Storr is a “gal Friday” for hire and the market is there. Waht’s the problem?
Ann
Nov 9, 2007 1:36 PM CST
Being a ‘real’ wife in a two income marriage, I think the concept is great for working people. I hardly have time for my business with all the demands of my husband’s life and business - we both need an ‘outsourced wife’. As much as I love doing wifely household and planning duties for my husband, the cost benefit of continuing my profession and hiring domestic help makes more sense. Of course I’ll keep the best and most fun wifely duties to myself.
Wow
Nov 9, 2007 2:06 PM CST
Wow—What a gig. And it’s legal!
Michelle
Nov 9, 2007 2:31 PM CST
While others of you refer to a “gal Friday” or assistant, the attorney at issue himself characterized the woman at issue as an outsourced “wife.” It is his characterization that is most at odds with my own world view. My bias is to hope that those of us privileged to have had a law school education, and living in this so-called modern age, would hold a view of one’s spouse as a friend, lover, and companion on the spiritual journey, and not as one’s valet, social secretary and personal shopper.
Ann
Nov 9, 2007 4:19 PM CST
The single man everybody is ripping on clearly has an understanding of the monetary value women’s help has in marriage. As he has not been fortunate yet to find as you say a ‘friend, lover and companion on the spiritual journey’ he has indeed acknowledged and placed a high value the importance of the external unrecognized tasks women have done for their husbands over the centuries. Kudos for him - when this man does find his solemate, she will never feel that her man does not value or acknowledge all the helpful tasks women do for their men. And Kudos for him for not marrying the first person to come around just to do these tasks. He obviously knows that a real good wife is worth waiting for. He is not degrading the term ‘wife’, he is demonstrating the importance of the extras most take for granted. Many marriages fail or are troubled when such tasks are taken for granted.
June Cleaver
Nov 9, 2007 6:57 PM CST
I note that many of the comments from male names denigrate the tasks Storr handles, but would not dare to demean those same things if done by a stay-home wife or homemaker.
The reason so many states divide evenly a couple’s property in a divorce, if if one earned all the money and accumulated the property, is ostensibly that the wage-earner could not have accomplished his (usually) success and wealth had it not been that the missus did exactly what Storr does.
At least Storr itemizes what she does and lets the wage-earner pay in cold cash rather than in trade. In many divorces that’s a big cause for so much bitterness; the homemaker cannot pull up those receipts and say, “This is what I did for you/us for 20 years, and I deserve half.”
Bully for you Storr, and you don’t have to kiss him goodnight!
Michelle
Nov 9, 2007 10:43 PM CST
I hire men to do my landscaping, clean my pool, and fix my car, but do not call them “outsourced husbands.” I do not denigrate the tasks they perform but nor do I suggest that those tasks are the sum and substance of what constitutes a husband.
angela-from DC
Nov 11, 2007 4:36 PM CST
Hey Vincelaw,
you couldn’t think of another word for “cheap” or you just missing the good old days like KRAMER and DAWG.? Unbeeeweevable….
Anon
Nov 12, 2007 3:45 PM CST
Angela from DC should invest in an etymological dictionary. The word “niggardly” has nothing to with the racist expletive to which she alludes. It is of Scandinavian origin and simply means “stingy.”
Angela-from DC
Nov 14, 2007 4:04 PM CST
Angela-from DC is very aware of the origins of the word and knows like many words it has multiple “original” meannings in several languages but hey any defense is better than none..
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