Legal Mystenigmary

Notes, Observations, and Blather

(Because I have no unifying subject, but desire to catch even a short break from ENDLESS interrogatory answers, responses to notices to produce, and the propounding of discovery. Pukey. Icky.)

Moving on. I'm a little gleeful this morning (oops. afternon. where the hell did the morning go? Oh yes, I spent it crafting persnickety responses to questions like "Detail any and all conversations, communications or other interactions between Plaintiff and Defendant concerning the subject matter of this lawsuit. Please state, for each interaction, the date, location, witnesses..." bla bla bla bla bla!). I talked to The Most Irritating Boy In the World last night, and discovered that his recent lack of contact (hello, who averages a week to return a phone call?) is the result of administrative crises in his personal life and not a particular aversion to me or anything. Whew. Again, a vague plan to "hang out" was floated, but no date suggested by TMIBITW -- I think he has an allergy to plans. They must give him hives or piles or something. (Query, readers: what is a pile? do they always have to come in multiples or can you have only one pile? Oh! and while I'm thinking about it, thanks to Chris for his admirable knowledge of military trivia -- if I was less of a techno-phobe, I'd link to his comment or respond there or something, but, as it is, it's lucky that I can figure out how to read the comments even. And now I'm so far afield from the beginning of this digression it's practically a whole 'nother post.) Anyway... right. aversion to plans. it's quite frustrating -- and don't say I should just take the lead and say "hey, how about friday?" I tried that, and he always goes for the "well, yeah, let's see how things shape up." But it's okay. I read that life-changing book "He's Just Not that Into You" (as well as its terribly clever friends, "What To Do When He's Just Not that Into You," and "He Could Be Into You, But Only If You Were Angelina Jolie," and "How to Become Angelina Jolie"), and have realized.... drumroll, please... he's just not that into me. Which is cool, because we're friends anyway, and I can live with the just-friends thing. If only he would stop doing things that are definite "He's Into You" signs, immediately followed by "Ew, He Hates You" signs.

But enough about boys. Let's talk about...

huh.

ok bye.

Please, Sir, May I Have Some More?

Money, that is. (Hey, you, over there -- get your mind out of the gutter!) I've been thinking about it for a while -- how to ask for a raise. See, this is the first actual job I've ever had, with, like, a salary and benefits and retirement gobbledygook, and when they told me the salary, it sounded like so much money, in a big chunk like that, that I didn't even think twice and didn't negotiate really. All well and good. But see, six months later, I've discovered that that number is kind of shockingly low, even for these parts, and that it's definitely lower than the starting salary they paid their last new associate. Also, I've realized that I've been squatting at my "friend"'s place for a year now, and it's so past time to go, there isn't even a way to put it into words. So I've been apartment-scouting. And even in Back-of-Beyondsville, rent is not cheap. Especially because I'm just a little picky about the kind of apartment I want.

But yesterday, I found one perfect, perfect one-bedroom, and one I-think-this-could-work studio in the ideal neighborhood... but even with some finessing of the numbers, I can't afford to rent an apartment and have electricity at the same time. crud. this is sad. granted, it's a teensy bit my own fault, because I didn't HAVE to get a super-fabulous car a few months ago -- but, no, really, I did, though. Because you have to be safe, right? and my car, while expensive, could not be safer if it was a Sherman tank. (PS did Sherman actually design Sherman tanks? Why do we call them that? Was he just a big fan of them?)

Anyway. So I figured out that I'd only need about a $5,000 raise in order to make the apartment, the car, the student loans, and the electricity all happen simultaneously. But, of course, if I wanted to also have groceries and the occasional pair of new shoes, I'd need more like $10,000.

And the bigger problem is -- I don't know how to ask. This is less a reflection on my advocacy skills than on the fact that I don't want to look ungrateful or greedy. The Firm has been great so far about paying bar admission fees, CLE fees, and, I think, Inn of Court fees. I think.  And, given the state of the law concerning our primary practice area, finances haven't been so great lately. On the other hand... I'M BROKE! And I earn less than anyone in the Firm -- arguably, the clerks earn less, but only if they work less than 40 hours in a week - and if we compare their hourly rate to my hourly rate if you divided my salary by the hours I work ("irony" -- i complain about how many hours I work as I while away a good twenty minutes writing this entry. Hey Alanis, what's up?), they make more. urgh.

Don't know what to do. But Mr. Prospective Landlord is waiting for a call from me today to tell him if I'm taking either of the apartments. Although I have no money in my bank account until payday, my best friend just offered to lend me the deposit money. I could, if I wanted, do it. But I can't do it until I have the money to back it up. And to get the money, I have to figure out how to ask for it.

I MISS KINDERGARTEN!

Discovering Discovery

ugh. I have just finished organizing my office for the coming week (yes, it's 12:30pm. i'm slow. organization does not come naturally to me. go away.), and realized that, somehow, I'm going to be stuck in discovery hell this week. And I would like to take this moment to pout, stamp my inner foot, and run a little inner monologue about how it isn't FAIR! this ties into my earlier post, about the have-cake-will-eat BigLaw Lawyers. Basically, my theory of the first-year-associateship equation goes thusly:

BigLaw:
Plus: The salary is amazingly fantastical, and allows you to pay off your college loans, your Jimmy Choo habit, and your Chelsea luxury loft, while still leaving something left over for dinners at the four-stars of your choice.
Minus: The work itself is painful, repetitious, and dull, and is usually comprised of working on discovery demands involving lots of silly paperwork. You never get to leave the office to do a deposition, arbitration, trial, or anything else that could make you remember that, hey, you're actually a lawyer and not just a file clerk. You are fully aware of your place as a wholy replaceable cog in the machine.
(And if you don't believe me, check out this first-hand account.)

Not-So-BigLaw (Note: this may go only for my firm, and not all medium/small firms out there):
Plus: The work is fantastic, and the partners make an effort to give you interesting assignments. You're aware that you're important to the firm, and it cares about setting you up with opportunities that will help you along the path you've chosen. You're not only leaving the office, you're conducting trials and depositions, going to settlement conferences with actually negotiating plans, and meeting clients, judges and other attorneys way before most of your peers. You're drafting appellate briefs that you actually sign, and, for the most part, your opinion and intelligence are respected.
Minus: The salary is painful to confess to anyone, including your parents. In order to afford the new car that is a necessary part of all this traveling for work, you have to live rent-free somehow, somewhere, and occasionally with people who don't like you all that much.

Now, see, this theory makes sense. It makes the world balance: pay bad, work good. Work bad, pay good. But SOMETHING has to be good. and let me tell all you budding lawyers and non-lawyers out there -- dealing with discovery demands is somewhat akin to having to clean the Taj Mahal with only your toothbrush and a bar of hotel soap. (that is a crappy crappy simile. which is a signal that it's time for lunch. If we're all lucky, I'll come back later and fix it -- if not, feel free to suggest your own...)

Even *I'm* embarrassed to know me right now...

I am listening to Enya. To quote that most second-most quotable show of Gen-Y-ers : "And this from the cry for help department..."

I swear, I haven't even looked at an Enya CD since high school (which, yes, thank you, WAS NOT last year. Did I tell you yet that last week, after I finished the deposition of a plaintiff and everyone was getting up to leave, Mr. 28-year-old Plaintiff stands, looks me up and down, and goes "are you even *old* enough to be a lawyer?" grrrrrrrrrr. I cannot believe someone actually said that. I mean, I joke about people thinking it constantly, but apparently some people out there have not yet learned to distinguish between inner and outer monologue.). But it's an apocalyptically rainy Monday (well, actually, now it's settled down to just a grey, icky drizzle, but it's still pretty Ark-ish), and I'm tired and grouchy because I'm tired because I didn't do ANYTHING this weekend that should properly make me tired, and I have all of this damn non-fascinating paperwork to do, and all the secretaries that do anything for me are out on vacation, so I have to figure out how to call and convince surly court personnel to tell me the things I need to know, and I'm sitting here thinking, I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE! I miss school, my life when I was in school. I miss the luxury of saying "hey, don't feel like class today, think I'll spend the day on my own couch, in my own apartment, watching my own TV. I hate thinking that those things are luxuries. I hate living in someone else's house, and someone whose orientation to the world makes me wildly uncomfortable, to boot. I'm just an angry little ball of "I hate" this morning. I'm tempted to blame it on the job, but that would make me just like all those lawyers I detest and despise, who ape or, worse, actually believe the requisite world-weary party line, that working as a lawyer is inherently dreadful and painful, and the only reason to do it is because you were gypped in law school/college/the womb into thinking that law school would lead to that magic gold at the end of the rainbow, and now you've taken the loans and stepped into the golden handcuffs, and you can't do anything BUT work as a lawyer becuase only that pays enough. Which I firmly believe is pathetic. (watch this space for a further rant on the topic -- basically, something along the lines of "wanting to have your cake and eat it too, while an utterly nonsensical cliche, is exactly what's wrong with the whiny BigLaw Lawyers. You sold out for the six-figure job, why on earth would you think that there wouldn't be a downside? crazy person.")

Um. I forgot what I started out talking about. But I think it had something to do with being whiny. But it seems that pondering the whiny-grouchy is only making it worse, and the Enya CD seems to have found a scratch and won't play anymore, and so it can't feed into my bad mood anymore, so maybe I should just suck it up and play that game, where if you smile a lot and act like you're in a good mood, you actually ARE in a good mood. Wish me luck!