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]

How Screwed Are the 1Ls?

Q:  As a 1L hoping to score a summer gig with a big law firm for my 2L summer, all of this layoff news does not bode well.  Given the fact that law firms are slashing people left and right, delaying start dates for first year associates, rescinding offers, and offering year-long delayed start dates, what is going to happen this August when current 1Ls go through recruitment?

Obviously the competition will just be worse as law firms will be hiring less people….but how bad will it be?  Is it time to plan a volunteer trip building houses in a third-world country or something so that I can say I did something interesting my 2L summer (and hope that I can score a big law job after my 2L summer)?  I’ll be clerking at a non-profit law firm this summer, and am reasonably ranked at my Tier 1 law school, so in any other year I’d have an OK shot at big law.  I know that people who are in the top 10% at T14s will be ok—but what about the rest of us? Let me know if it’s time to pack my eurotrip backpack. [Read more]

Life, Death, and Halter Tops

There have only been a handful of moments in my legal career—nay, in my life—when I’ve felt there was a decent possibility that all the people surrounding me in a particular space were about to collectively crouch down, bare fangs, and storm forward in a sweeping, feral frenzy of rage, ripping out the throat of whichever poor bastard happened to be in charge.  Typically, this feeling has only kicked in while, say, waiting on the tarmac at O’Hare during a blizzard, or sitting in my 1L Property Law class on the day my professor announced that she didn’t believe in teaching black letter law. But last Thursday, it happened in a 6th floor conference room in my tense, hungry little corner of BigLaw. [Read more]

The Layoff Code

You may not be aware of it, but you have the same problem I do: Them.  We see Them every day—in the firm’s dining room, in the hallways, in the elevator banks.  Even if we don’t realize it, They’re all around us.  Hell, some of Them are us.  They’re a constant reminder of our BigLaw mortality, a reminder that no matter how much of a superstar you may think you are at your firm, you’re always just a few billable hours away from joining Their ranks: victims of stealth layoffs.  And no, I can’t figure out how to act around Them, either. [Read more]

How Do I Handle a Bad Law-School Hook-Up?

Q:  OK, so I did something bad. I’m at a top 30 law school and I hooked up with a classmate.  He’s been kind of distant and is now saying we should just be friends.  I know it was just a bad bad idea to begin with, but, what’s the best course of action from here on out? Block him from Gchat, Facebook?  Or just act like nothing happened and forget about all of this nonsense?  I’ve just never been the type of girl to hook up with a guy without being in a relationship so I’m kind of at a loss about why he doesn’t have feelings for me and what to do from here on out. [Read more]

Sex, Drugs, and Billable Hours

My first intervention went down pretty much exactly like the ones you see on TV.  Well, except that there were no cameras.  Or tears.  Or therapists.  And it took place in a shoebox office in a law firm instead of, say, in my living room, surrounded by friends and family. Still, the core elements were the same: I had a serious issue and it needed addressing. No, I wasn’t a junkie, or an alcoholic, or addicted to fetish porn.  My issue was far more dangerous.  More destructive.  More worthy, apparently, of the powers that be at the firm stepping in to make sure the situation didn’t get further out of control.

The issue?  My billable hours were too high.  [Read more]

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