Note: I don’t like having to edit myself. Most of the stuff that I have bouncing around in my brain is work-related. Please remove my given-name from your links to me, I’d rather not be fired for the stupid shit that I write about on this site. Or better yet, remove the link in its entirety. I don’t write this thing to get famous, you know.
It’s been over five years since I embarked on my present career path, six if you count my time spent as an administrative minion. During those six years, my bouts with career ennui have been few and far between. This isn’t to say that I haven’t ever experienced job dissatisfaction—I’m talking about career angst. I’ve wanted to be a lawyer for a long time. It was never high on my list of my priorities, but the mild commitment that I had made to that life pursuit was unwavering. To be honest, it did not require much introspection. You get prestige, a decent salary, and job security (in theory) at a relatively young age. As far as the actual mechanics of legal practice go, I had some vague idea that there would be a lot of writing—which I could do—as well as a fair amount of oral persuasion—which I could learn. I got to law school and took to it. I was good at going to law school. Reading cases was fun and taking law school exams was easy. Sadly, I wasn’t as good at finding a job. But I eventually found my way, and my career is now more than I could have asked for or even deigned to dream of six years ago, when I was a college senior on the cusp of graduating with a sub-3.0 gpa. But in the past week, I’ve really started to question why I do this for a living.
This, not incidentally, coincided with an up-tick in the amount of time that I’ve been spending at work. My firm isn’t a sweatshop. On most days, I punch in at 8:30 and punch out at 6:30, hours that are pretty fucking pathetic relative to those that sweat-monkeys working at big, prestigious Manhattan firms labor under. Nor do I have family commitments, or a girlfriend that’s even close to a time-sink. Claire studies more than I work, if you can imagine that. Of course, I’m a high-priced lawyer and she’s a 1.5L, so my time is valuable and hers is not. But I digress. So I was working hard and running up against deadline after deadline over the past three weeks. Most of these crises were self-imposed because I’m an inveterate procrastinator. But that didn’t make them any less stressful. Which is the crux of the problem. I hate being stressed. I also hate to be challenged. Before I go any further, I want you to know that I’m not a pussy. I can handle stress. I can handle hard work. I also understand that although I’m being asked to do a lot of things that I’ve never done before without the benefit of someone holding my hand, but with the constant fear that I’m about to screw the pooch, the experience is still valuable in the sense that it’s an expeditious way to learn how to do something. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t hate having to go through it. It’s not pleasant.
Case in point, I’m handling a lot of matters for the head of our litigation department. One of our cases was handed off to me by a 6th year associate, who left the firm in December. If you ever took the time to sit us both down and substantively quiz us on how to be a litigator, you’d quickly realize that there’s a huge gap in ability between that associate and me. To put it delicately, I’m a moron who’s never done anything, and he’s not. But in any case, I was charged with the responsibility of becoming Departed Associate v.2.0. The partner that I’m working with is notoriously hands-off. Which is great, obviously, if you know what you’re doing. Not so great for me. Either I’m very good at projecting the veneer of confidence, or Head of Litigation Department really doesn’t give a shit what happens in this case, something that I can’t accept because the dollar amounts at issue aren’t insignificant. I cover my ass and give him full disclosure—listen, I’ve never run my own case before, I haven’t taken a single deposition, I haven’t even second-chaired a trial; but by the way, I can definitely do this and I appreciate your faith in me. The only portion of that speech that Head of Litigation Department apparently hears is the part that’s completely bullshit. What the hell. Large firms aren’t supposed to be this way. I intended to spend my first three years out of law school doing nothing more substantive than bitch-ass document review after bitch-ass document review.
So I’m off to Iowa to meet with our client’s CEO. Head of Litigation Department flakes out on me a day before our scheduled trip and I’m flying solo. Before I leave, he lathers me with a barrage of false compliments, as well as one decent piece of advice: “Just bullshit them. Make a big production out of everything. They just want to know that we’re working hard and doing a lot of smart lawyer shit on their behalf.” This will be hard to do. The client is peeved because even though we’ve won summary judgment on liability, litigation on damages has dragged on for over two years now. That’s the difference between plaintiff’s work and defense work. Defense is easy: delay, delay, and more delay. It’s weird. Defense clients would much rather pay law firms boatloads of money to essentially say, “fuck-off” again and again to the other side instead of pony up the money for a fair settlement, even if a quick settlement would cost less than years of our legal fees. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, are constantly bugging you about when they’re going to get their money. But barring settlement, getting money means going to trial and I’ve never litigated a case. At the Iowa meeting, I try my best to be aggressive, hard-nosed litigator. Lots of, “we’re going to put their fucking feet to the fire,” and “this case is going to trial within the next year come hell or high water.” In other words, I talk up a storm of fucking bullshit that I hope never happens. It better have worked, since it pained me to say it. I guess that’s what being a young lawyer is all about—constantly pretending to be something that you’re not. It’s starting to wear a little thin.
