Deal Goggles

I should’ve seen this one coming, I know.  I’ve had enough experience by now with sexual humiliation at the hands of Big Law to have known better.   But no matter how seasoned, how street smart you may think you are, this one sneaks up on you without warning.  One minute, you’re cruising along on a string of all-nighters for a fire-drill deal with a senior associate you know only well enough to find mildly repulsive; the next minute, you’re pinning him up against the wall of a file room with your Prada pencil skirt hiked up around your waist, clawing at each other like starved lunatics.  The culprit: Deal Goggles.  And let me assure you from recent personal experience, by the time you realize you’re wearing them, it’s way too late. [Read more]

Prelude to a Kiss

I may not be a doctor, but I can spot a good epidemic when I see one. No, I’m not talking swine flu. Or Mad Cow. I’m talking about a bug that’s more contagious, more debilitating. A bug that seems to be tearing through scores of Big Law associates faster than you can say “stealth layoffs.” As much as I’ve tried to find one, there’s just no immunization you can get to ward this one off-and it looks like my fellow Big Law drones haven’t found one, either. The plague in question? Young female associates getting themselves embroiled in ridiculous sexual situations with vile, insane partners. And as far I can tell, a cure is still a long way off. [Read more]

Losing Your Mind: A Primer

There are a few moments in any young lawyer’s life guaranteed to perk up the day. Closing a deal after a marathon of strained, sleepless nights. Winning a case after three years of document review and trial prep. Finding out you haven’t been included in the firm’s latest slaughter. But none comes close to the thrill of witnessing your opposing counsel have a public, full-out mental breakdown. Call me a sucker for schadenfreude, but there’s just a greasy comfort that sets in when you realize that there’s someone—anyone—outside of your own tortured corner of Big Law who’s closer to losing his mind than you are. Only thing is, that comfort comes with strings—and if you’re not careful, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll double back and take a nice, firm chokehold right around your own neck. [Read more]

The Myth of the Cool Partner

It’s happened—after a few years and a few thousand billable hours, I’ve finally found him.  Sure, there have been loads of false starts along the way, but I think this time it’s for real: I’ve finally met the worst partner in the entire firm.  At first, I thought the winner might be Russ, the firm’s resident stone-faced robot and reigning Big Firm Savant.  But no.  Then, for obvious reasons involving hidden harnesses and coconut-flavored lube, I thought it could possibly be Ian, our favorite slave-driving Pervert, Esq.  Wrong again.  No, in the past few weeks, the true winner has revealed himself to be a creature far more insidious, more vile: the Cool Partner.  And I’m here to warn you—he’s a type more dangerous than you’ve ever imagined. [Read more]

Respect the Ring?

Quick question: When you think of the average married, middle-aged guy slogging his way up the Big Law partner track, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?  A pasty, bloated puppet?  A bald head?  An over-worked, under-stimulated robot, bunking in at the office while the wife lies safely, if not securely, back at home?  Well, if the state of affairs in and around my firm is any indication, you’d be off the mark—way off the mark.  Because as far as I can tell lately, when it comes to  Big Law romance, a wedding ring is the new corporate aphrodisiac. [Read more]

Bring On That Client Contact

I’ll admit, this is probably a bad idea.  But I’m sorry, I can’t help it any longer. I’ve had one in every other job I’ve ever had and it’s about time I had one at the firm.  I’m not going to be particularly picky about it.  I just want one—I need one.  Because it occurred to me last week, sitting in my giant bed in the middle of the night, alone, watching an old Law & Order marathon, if I don’t get the juices flowing soon, I’m going to dry up, die of boredom, and go the way of every leading lady lawyer the Dick Wolf gang has ever offered up—which is to say nowhere at best and crumpled in the trunk of a car at worst.  In other words, it’s time: I need a work crush.  Stat. [Read more]

They Can’t All Be Happy Endings

I’m not completely delusional.  I popped my Big Law cherry long enough ago to realize that this job—this life—isn’t for the faint of heart.  I’ve come to expect that on any given day, the Big Law grind will leave me ravaged with exhaustion. It’ll leave me straining to remember the faces of my family and friends.  It’ll leave me ranting at inanimate objects in the middle of the night and craving even just the tiniest hit of sleep, sex, style, sanity.  What I didn’t quite expect, though, was that it would leave me lying naked on a table in the middle of a hotel with some guy’s latex-covered hand crammed halfway down my throat. [Read more]

The Deadliest Sin?

A few things are bound to happen when you spend 76 straight hours closing a bond offering in a windowless office the size of a handicap toilet stall, eating nothing but stale candy corn from a nearby vending machine and fantasizing about unconsciousness.  First, you make peace with the fact that showers are for people far luckier than you.  Second, you start obsessively calculating what your hourly salary might be compared to, say, a teenage babysitter or a shoe-shine guy.  Maybe you start to hallucinate a bit.   Or wonder if it’s possible to slit your wrists with a stack of post-its.  And then, finally, you catch sight of your pale, desperate reflection in the desktop monitor and you realize the pathetic, obvious, predictable truth: You’re wildly jealous of the people your firm recently laid off. [Read more]

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