Legal Mystenigmary

I think Wendy's might still be hiring...

When I started this blog, I vowed that I wouldn’t write anything in it that I would be embarrassed to have discovered by someone at the Firm. Now, having written reams about Irksome and other boy-related issues, that resolution has clearly fallen by the wayside – but I still think it’s tacky to bemoan or criticize co-workers’ behavior behind their backs – plus, I really don’t have much to complain about. … Ok, who’s waiting for the “but”?

And here it is – but today, I simply must take a tiny moment just to note that I have finally discovered why that “self-starting,” “independent” person is so in demand in the want ads – it is because there is, in fact, such a thing as asking too many questions and needing too much supervision. I never believed such a thing was possible. It is. It is actually possible to have an employee who, even though she may be motivated by a true desire to do the best job possible, asks so many questions and expects so much guidance as to be only a drain on resources and patience. One who refuses to operate independently or to use the power of, oh I don’t know, INTELLIGENCE in order to extrapolate their own answers to questions from common sense or the two hours of instructions that were already given, and instead expect me to want minute-to-minute updates on the fact that they opened a book. Closed a book. Took a note. Breathed in and out. These employees need to know that I DO NOT CARE!! Be an adult!! I am not your work mommy!! We don’t work on a slave ship or sweat shop – you don’t have to account for every movement of your workday to me – get your damn work done and stop asking me if you should staple things at the top left or the top right – a) that’s common sense, and b) seriously, does anyone actually care about those things? Other than Anonymous Lawyer, of course. Ugh.

Poor Unfortunate Souls

So I have to agree with G. here – this guy is scary. I warn you to click the link only if you have a particularly strong stomach for carping whiny sorts who think the world owes them everything they wanted on a silver platter and are plenty pissed they didn’t get it. I, personally, don’t so much, and so had to give up after the first few (incredibly long) diatribes. But the three or four I read were enough to make me want to write very nasty things in his comments – since I think that’s pretty mean and uncalled-for, I’m just going to write them here J well, not mean things, so much as – wow. I am torn between feeling sorry for this guy and wanting to drum him out of the profession asap. I mean, I completely understand how it feels to not get everything you wanted the first minute you walked out of law school -- even after being on law review at a well-respected regional school and graduating in the top (ok, I'm getting carried away -- you don't need to know all that!) -- anyway, doing fairly well in law school, I went on about twenty interviews at BigLaw and got - not one job (as anyone who's slogged through the archives is well aware). I know it's frustrating and demoralizing and it hurts! And while I was so confused and angry that I didn't have an actual paycheck or pretty business card at graduation like the rest of the ed. board, when I sat down to take stock, I found that, while some of my failure to be employed was the result of the bad market and a glut of new attorneys, some of it was certainly due things *I* was doing -- not interviewing well, not researching firms properly, etc. And I think this is what that guy's missing -- that if you feel "betrayed" by the fact that the mere possession of a law degree did not garner you a six-figure paycheck immediately on graduation, particularly when graduating from a school who staffs some of the best firms in the state and some of the better ones in the country, that it might just be *your* fault. It's not the LSAT's fault that time got called before you could figure out where to seat the green alien, it's not your contracts professor's fault that you couldn't recognize basic principles -- it's pretty much just yours. To not recognize that in what must be at least his mid- to late-twenties is just sad. And to remain a lawyer is even more sad. If his only goal is to make lots of money, there are (again, as pointed out by G.) quite a few more professions in which he could do so -- and even if that isn't the goal, there's no reason to be a lawyer if you don't love it. None.

Furthermore, for the legal profession, or for lawyers at all, to be successful, to do what it is/they are supposed to do, it/they has to be respected. And it's hard enough to get and keep that respect without little twits like that maligning it from the inside merely because they didn't get lucky with a big job offer after sitting around in bars for three years spending daddy's money (ok, I have to admit I spent some of daddy's money too, but I'm not whining about how I didn't land a Skadden job!). The committees on character would do better to be sniffing out this kind of destructive attitude in new admits, rather than getting all worried over a few late bills from one's college years.