Keep Those Breasts Firm…Appropriate

You may have noticed that people working in Big Law are more pissed off than usual lately.  And I can’t say that I blame them.  The threat of associate layoffs still looms large.    A six-figure salary barely keeps you off food stamps.  White shoe firms are crawling with bed bugs.  And herpes.  But it looks like there’s a new kid on the block—a pair of kids, actually—gaining traction as the latest target for Big Law acrimony, at least if the state of affairs in and around my firm is any indication: Boobs.  Or more to the point, how front and center they should be when it comes to dressing for work. [Read more]

Keep Those Breasts Firm…Appropriate: The Reveal

Without further ado… [Read more]

Poor You! (Literally.)

Picture, if you will, my lawyer friend, Caitlin.  She’s a mid-level finance associate at one of New York’s biggest lawyer factories.  She’s been at the Big Law game long enough to be depressed on the good days and on the hunt for sturdy noose material on the bad days—which is to say most days.  But, as luck would have it, after months of furtive interviews, she finally got an offer a couple of weeks ago to go in house at a media company that most people I know, including me, would kill to work for.  So, when we went out to drinks last week to celebrate, I was expecting her to be ecstatic.  I was expecting her to have quit the firm within five minutes of getting the offer.  What I wasn’t expecting was three hours of listening to her waver, almost to the point of tears, about whether she should take the job.

I kept pressing her—what was it about this job offer that was making her so torn?  The (awesome, non-billable) hours?  The (cooler) people?  The (less mind-numbing) work?  Finally, after four Belvedere-tonics, she leaned across the table and lowered her voice.

“It’s just…I’m just afraid…”  She darted her eyes around and leaned in closer, lowering her eyes.

“I’m just afraid of what it’ll be like to feel…”  she whispered, “…poor.”

The offered salary of the new in-house gig?  $120,000 a year.

And now, a couple of weeks later, I’m still not sure what’s more disturbing: the fact that this friend—a worldly, educated, smart, able person—truly thinks that a single lawyer living in New York City on $120,000 could feel “poor” — or that fact that she’s absolutely right. [Read more]

Working, Girls

Hey, you.  Yes, YOU there, the one with the boobs.  You’re a lawyer, right?  Or some sort of Big Law type, at least?  I figured.  I could tell by the bewildered look on your face.  I know, sweetie, I know: It’s confusing being a woman in and around Big Law these days.  First, unless you have a time machine and a magic wand, it looks like you’re not making partner any time soon.  Sorry.  Then, of course, there’s the finding-a-long-term-sex-partner-who-doesn’t-require-batteries problem.  And then, there’s the latest slap: Laminated scraps of “advice” from Citibank your employer about the stupid things that you do to sabotage your career, you (apparently) soft-spoken, smile-happy, invisible moron cow.

And the advice doesn’t stop there.  You can’t even find a good glass ceiling to smack your head up against anymore without tripping over a stack of advice for women lawyers on everything from how to dress for success (Avoid nudity!), to how to toughen up (Sass those boys right back when they act rapey at the office!), to how not to look like a drowned clown corpse at work (Forget it, lost cause!).

At this point, I’m so bored with the heaps of so-called advice from other lawyers and professional counsel-givers that I had to turn to the one person I could think of whose advice never fails.  The one person who knows what it’s like to carve out a niche for yourself in an often cruel, mystifying profession overwrought with over-educated lunatics: My friend, Alanna.  I think you could learn a lot from her. Why?  Because she’s never wrong.

And she’s a hooker. [Read more]

Does This Law Degree Make My Ass Look Fat?

Quick question: You’re a single guy, let’s say in your late twenties to mid-thirties, with a decent job, given the choice between the following two single women to date; which one do you choose?

Choice A: A real-world-hot 28-year-old receptionist on her fourth job in three years, who lives with two roommates in a fifth-floor walkup in some outer borough, aspires to someday have a job that gives her either free shoes or health insurance, and only sounds like an idiot when she speaks out loud.

Choice B: A real-world-hot 28-year-old BigLaw lawyer (I know, just go with me here) who paid off her school debt by herself in three years, lives alone in a doorman building in Manhattan, is funny and down-to-earth, and runs a small, successful side business selling artisanal cupcakes that she bakes in her spare time.

Clearly, you choose Choice A.   Why?  Because, if the status quo in my firm…and in my life…and in my friends’ lives…and in any bar from New York to L.A. is any indication, a law degree confers about as much romantic value to a single woman as a meth habit and a hidden penis.

Don’t believe me?    [Read more]