“我还是一个难看、笨拙、一身肥肉的男孩。我觉得非常郁闷，”弗洛姆回忆说，

"I was one of two kids in my class at the end of hiring season who didn't have a job.

“到了应聘季节快结束的时候，我们班有两个人依旧没找到工作，我是这两个人中的一个。

Then, one day, one of my professors said that there are these guys starting a firm.

有一天，我听我的老师说有些家伙开了一家律师事务所。

I had a visit with them, and the entire time I met with them, they were telling me what the risks were of going with a firm that didn't have a client.

我就去拜访他们，在交谈的整个过程中，他们给我强调到一家还没有一个顾客的公司干活的风险。

The more they talked, the more I liked them.

他们越是这样说，我越是喜欢上了他们。

So I said, What the hail, I'll take a chance.

所以我说，即使是地狱，也应该试一试。

They had to scrape together the thirty-six hundred dollars a year, which was the starting salary."

他们每一年只有3600美元的收入，这是最初的薪水来源。

In the beginning, it was just Marshall Skadden and Leslie Arps, both of whom had just been turned down for partner at a major Wall Street law firm,

起初，经营这个律师事务所的只有马歇尔·斯克登（MarshallSkadden）和莱斯利·阿尔普斯（LeslieArps）——此前他们希望成为华尔街一家大的律师事务所的合伙人，但被拒绝了

and John Slate, who had worked for Pan Ann airlines.

另外一个合伙人，就是在泛美航空工作的约翰·斯莱特（JohnSlate）。

Flom was their associate.

弗洛姆成为了他们的合伙人。

They had a tiny suite of offices on the top floor of the Lehman Brothers Building on Wall Street.

他们在华尔街雷曼兄弟大楼的最上一层拥有几间办公室。

"What kind of law did we do?" Flom says, laughing. "Whatever came in the door!"

“你知道我们的法律业务开始怎么做吗？”弗洛姆笑着说，“但不管怎样，最终一切都还是送上门来了。”

In 1954, Flom took over as Skadden's managing partner, and the firm began to grow by leaps and bounds.

1954年，弗洛姆成为了世达律师事务所的任事股东，这时，事务所开始飞速发展。

Soon it had a hundred lawyers. Then two hundred. When it hit three hundred, one of Flom's partners, Morris Kramer, came to him and said,

事务所拥有了100名律师，很快这个数字就变成了200，当事务所的律师达到300个的时候，弗洛姆的一个合伙人——莫里斯·克莱默（MorrisKramer）找到他，

he felt guilty about bringing young law school graduates.

对他说自己觉得心虚，因为很多律师都是刚从法学院毕业的年轻学生。

Skadden was so big, Kramer said, that it was hard to imagine the firm growing beyond that and being able to promote any of those new hires.

世达已经够大了，克莱默说，很难想象再扩大规模和增加雇佣人员的事务所是什么样子。

Flom told him, "Ahhh, we'll go to one thousand." Flom never lacked for ambition.

弗洛姆告诉他：“啊哈，我们的计划是达到1000名员工。”弗洛姆从来就不缺乏野心。

Today, Skadden had nearly two thousand attorneys in twenty-three offices around the world and earns well over $1 billion a year,

现在的世达律师事务所已经拥有了2000多名员工，23间分布在世界各地的办公室，事务所每年的收入已经超过了10亿美元，

making it one of the largest and most powerful law firms in the world.

它成为了世界上规模最大实力最强的律师事务所之一。

In his office, Flom has pictures of himself, with George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton.

在他的办公室，挂着他和乔治·布什、比尔·克林顿合影的照片。

He lives in a sprawling apartment in a luxurious building on Manhattan's Upper East side.

他现在住在曼哈顿上东城区一栋豪华住宅的休闲公寓里。

For a period of almost thirty years, if you were a Fortune 500 company about to be taken over or trying to take someone else over,

在过去的30年中，如果你接管了一家福布斯五百强的公司或者接管的是另外的一家公司，

or merely a big shot in some kind of fix, Joseph Flom has been your attorney and Skadden has been your law firm, and if they won't, you probably wished they were.

或者你注定要成为大亨，那么，约瑟夫·弗洛姆就应该是你的律师，而世达就应该是你选择的律师事务所——如果不是，那么你最好再认真考虑考虑。