Everyone at my firm is calling me “cupcake.” It’s been this way for the past two weeks. And before you jump to conclusions about my appearance, I want to be clear—I’M A MAN.
We’re not a big law firm. We’re 20 lawyers in a smallish city with a close-knit legal community. Word travels fast. Nicknames stick in a place like this.
Keep Reading ⇒
You know what this is. I went through OCI and came up with bubkes. I’m now writing cover letters and attaching them to my resume. I am assuming it is then being forwarded to mid-level or long-term associates like you. Is this cover letter unique? You never know. Let’s assume it is.
I won’t waste your time going through every single one of my qualifications in the hope that one of them—say my participation in Maynard Pirsig Moot Court—makes you raise an eyebrow and say “whatever.” Not worth our time. But here’s the deal. We all know that—apart from certain things going viral and getting messy—kickbacks can be an efficient way to do business. I propose the following:
Keep Reading ⇒
I was once a young associate in a small firm, and I thought I knew better. As in I knew how to write better than the four partners for whom I worked, including the one partner who only dictated. Most of the time I think I was right, but in retrospect it may not have been such a big deal. Or at least not worth the fight.
For one, I made it a mission to release all legal documents from the grip of the hereins, wherebys, and hereunders of the world. Those words no longer had any business clogging up “my” contracts and memoranda. In my mind, they were coughs in a document, elaborate throat-clearing devices that had no purpose other than to show that the drafter had a genuine fondness for Geoffrey Chaucer or wore an ascot while relaxing and smoking a pipe at home.
Keep Reading ⇒
I have a friend who’s nearly finished with his first year of business school. He’s in the best MBA program in the nation. For anonymity’s sake, I won’t mention what program, but you’re smart. You’ll figure it out.
Anywho, I’ve done a handful of small legal jobs for him—all for free. I figure one day when I have my own firm, he’ll send me some real business. These prosaic legal services are loss-leaders. An investment. There’s usually no brain surgery involved. It’s just small-claims odds and ends, traffic stuff. Simple things. And, most recently, family law.
Hold the GD phone. It’s not that what he wanted was difficult. It’s what it represented.
Keep Reading ⇒
Picture it: I’m at my office’s crappy holiday party, sitting next to our firm’s office manager, who just so happened to be hotter, younger…and hotter than any law firm office manager should ever be. Forget the fact that the firm is too cheap to actually throw a real holiday party, and they’re serving $4 wine, cheese, and even some grapes here and there.
In walks the big head honcho partner, a textbook narcissist who actually thinks that when he talks (and dear God, he talks a lot!) people should actually listen to him. Forget the fact that the man actually crashed the office computer servers by downloading porn (and God knows what else he’s doing in his office). And forget the fact that he’s received death threats at the office from unknown sources (I’ll probably be the next, so its nice to know that I’m not alone), and forget the fact that he met his current wife in the lobby of the building of his prior wife while still married to her.
So, I see him come down the stairs in his blue-pinstripe suit, red tie and white shirt. He’s a pretty decent-looking guy with silver hair, a prominent Greek face and a deep baritone radio voice…but still the biggest pile of garbage walking.
Anyone up for a real-life Dead Man Walking?
He sits down next to the office manager and starts with small talk.
“Hey, [Cathy]. How are things? Enjoying the party?”
Blah blah blah. And then, about a minute later, he drops a bomb.
“So, [Cathy], how’s your vagina?”
Wait. Huh? Did he actually just ask our office manager about her vagina!? And it gets better. Apparently, feeling that a genital interrogation was not quite enough titillation for the evening (remember, this is the firm’s official in-office porn aficionado), he then began to gently rub her thigh for a good 20 seconds. From her thigh to her knee. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Meanwhile, the office manager is staring at me, horrified, with no idea what to do. We look at each other in total astonishment. The man doesn’t even process the wrongfulness of his actions. And if he hadn’t felt the urge to get up for some grapes, I think he might’ve even gone for the jewels. If I’m not mistaken, this lunatic partner might qualify him for the insanity defense in some states.
At any rate, the next day, I go into my office, and I get called into another partner’s office so he can ask me what I saw. I, of course, have no problem spewing the truth all over his bankruptcy-laden desk while he scribbles down some notes on Mr. Named Partner’s most recent in-office sexual escapade. After the meeting, I go back into my office and send myself a letter, which, to this day, sits unopened in my apartment and describes all of the details, just in case I need to refresh my recollection in court someday.
The next day, she quit. Six months later, I’m fired. I’m no hero, trust me. I almost let a grown woman die in front of me—and I’m a doctor. But in this case, I had to tell the truth. No grown man should ever get a free pass on a line that lame.
For the last two weeks, things have been pretty awkward around the Heathcare group at my fairly large Midwestern firm. And that’s because we have an unexpected new member on our team. She’s not a first-year, not a lateral, not even a new hire. She merely hails from the General Corporate group down the hall. She’s a fourth-year swap. And when she joined us, we had to give up an existing associate from our department to head down to General Corporate and take her place.
I’ve been wondering why the hell two female lawyers quickly swapped practice groups unannounced and without justification. I’ve been asking everyone. For those of us who don’t know why, it’s all we can talk about. For those who clearly know, they can’t do enough to play dumb and keep their mouths shut. But I think I finally found out.
It’s good to be persistent.
Keep Reading ⇒
Call me crazy, but you’d think my law firm would realize that we’re a group of educated professionals who are more than capable of seeking our own medical attention. I don’t think there’s a soul here who doesn’t know that when you feel chest discomfort and shooting pains down your left arm, the advised treatment is to pop two aspirin and promptly get back to work. And if a female lawyer finds herself pregnant, her health is irrelevant. The best she can do for herself medically is determine the month in which she can absolutely no longer physically hide the fact she’s gestating a spawn and then spring it on management. She will then work until the moment the contractions are unbearable, and the next day, like clockwork, her secretary will send a firm-wide email stating, “Mother and child are healthy and doing great,” regardless of her childbirth experience.
Keep Reading ⇒
This was it. The year I finally decided to do it. After three years of relentless work and zero (count ‘um—zero) vacations or sick days, I told HR, my boss and my secretary last October that I would be taking off the week of January 12. My boss (I’ll call Eric), who’s the partner I work for on most deals, even congratulated me. “Well deserved,” he said. But again, that was back in October.
For the last five years, I’ve missed the annual ski trip in Colorado that my six best college buddies all swear by as the best week of their lives. Low cash flow in law school and years of being too dedicated of a new lawyer, I’ve annually settled for outrageous pictures and inside-joke emails for months following every trip. I finally had enough. And this was going to be my year for serious carving, pricey meals, aged whiskies, fine cigars, hours of poker, big laughs and loose snow bunnies.
I work M&A for a midsize, 40-attorney firm based out of Texas that suffered the dismal economy remarkably well. We’re lean; each attorney handles a lot. Everyone’s capable. I work hard. Eric works hard. But sometimes Eric works hard at creating unrealistic expectations for clients. And now it’s ruining my vacation.
After arriving Sunday and getting in about two hours on the slopes Monday morning, my BlackBerry started exploding. The fear I had for weeks came true.
When I booked this trip, I thought for sure this deal would be long completed. For the last seven months, I’ve been working with a client that constantly changes its demands and refuses to agree to the terms of any LOI. I watched Eric allow the clients to spin their web of unreasonable expectations. He won’t tell them that what they want simply isn’t possible. He’s sometimes a spineless client pleaser like that.
“Look, we’re working for you, guys. We’ll figure this out.”
I had to keep my hole shut and watch it happen. All while everything was needlessly delayed.
Things finally came to a head and suddenly there’s a big sense of urgency to get the deal square this week—of all weeks. The clients are blowing me up because they can’t reach anyone at the firm. No one that I briefed about this deal before I left has done a thing. Eric is nowhere to be found. He hasn’t returned calls. His secretary said he went to a few meetings, but has yet to even be in the office this week. I think he got confused about whose vacation this was supposed to be.
I’m handling everything now. And flying solo without any support from my own goddamn office while the client sits desperate to merge in order to remain operational and avoid losing substantial assets—all while continuing to be irrational about the deal terms. I sent a huge CYA letter to Eric this morning, laying out everything that’s been going on along with my advice. Called twice and left voicemails a few hours later. It’s now 6:00 PM, and I’ve heard nothing back.
Meanwhile, three of my friends are soaking their bones in the hot tub outside my window after multiple runs, talking about the foxy lodge bartender and making plans for dinner. I’m responding to pissed-off emails from my client every five minutes and just got off a call with an attorney on the other side that ended with:
“I’m not going to make you admit it, but just so you know, I understand. No one is facing reality. Your clients are idiots, and I don’t know how you’re going to pull this off.”
Internally raging about how true that is, I could only respond by saying, “I’ll get back to you after I review with them what we discussed.”
I’m a simple guy. Don’t think I expect too much. And all I was expecting this week were a couple days to mentally check out and wear the thousands of dollars in ski gear I bought in my early twenties when I thought my future life as a lawyer would afford me extensive recreational opportunities.
Instead, with a slew of hours of work ahead to finish this deal, I basically booked myself on a weeklong cock tease.
Report your anonymous tales of Associate Abuse. Email them to .
Join Bitter Lawyer on Facebook. Follow on us Twitter.
Buy Bitter Lawyer merchandise.
What the hell is it about men that makes them get such a kick out of making women feel uncomfortable? Seriously.
The IP boutique firm I worked for until recently had two offices. One in Palo Alto, one in San Francisco. I worked in the Palo Alto office, but one day I was called to visit the San Francisco office to meet with a client because the deal partner was unavailable and I was the most up-to-date. Not a problem.
While I knew most of the attorneys in the San Francisco office by name, there were several I had never met in person. So I was excited to introduce myself and say hello. It’s the larger of the two offices where most of the partners are based, so obviously I thought it’d be a great opportunity to get some face time.
Keep Reading ⇒
I’m living inside the warhead of the biggest “bad news bomb” of my life, and I don’t know how best to drop it. The longer I wait, the more nuclear it feels. And it’s starting to look like it’s scheduled to detonate at my parents’ house on Christmas, turning a modest home in Reno into Hiroshima.
In about two weeks, I’ll walk into my childhood home, drop my bags, pet my dog and tell my parents that I failed the California bar exam.
See how dramatic I’ve become? In reality, lots of people are in my shoes right now. About 3,800 people—or 44% of takers—to be exact. (I use those numbers when I want to feel better about myself.) In reality, only 1,850—or 30%—of those who took it for the first time didn’t pass. Yeah, I use those figures when I’m being honest with myself.
I’m far from a haughty Ivy Leaguer with a pitch-perfect pedigree, but I certainly never thought of myself as a bar failure. Finding out the weekend before Thanksgiving was like the bottom falling out of a legal career that was already in a ditch. It was bad enough that I already had a pretty decent job offer rescinded, but failing the bar was a massive blow that I cannot rationalize or blame on economic factors. Regardless of tireless studying and massive preparation, I didn’t pull it off—and that’s a tough lump.
Accordingly, Thanksgiving was ruined. (Why the bar committee decided to post the results before a major holiday seems like a sick joke to me. But I guess I would be singing a different tune if my name had appeared on the pass list.) After four days of clicking through every letter of the alphabet hoping for a slight typographical error, I flew from Los Angeles to Nevada, walked into my childhood home, dropped my bags, pet my dog and didn’t tell my parents I failed the California bar exam. I just ate pie. And felt like an asshole.
In fact, I haven’t told anyone yet. And the fact that I haven’t is why I’m about to implode from the gut-wrenching stress, anger and anxiety that have been poisoning me for weeks. I’m abusing myself—and I deserve it.
Sure, everyone from law school already knows just by looking. But I’ve managed to crudely avoid all of them. And luckily not many have reached out to me. (I guess it takes a real d-bag gunner to call someone who you know didn’t pass to gloat about how you did.) But other than those fools, the people closest to me—my parents, my new girlfriend, my real friends, my bosses—are all still in the dark.
Every time my mom or dad calls, I either pretend to be really busy or lose service just as we start talking about my life. The mad-cool, crazy-hot girl I started dating last month has no idea the bar exam even exists (which is why I asked her out to begin with), but she’s sure to be unimpressed when she hears I’m not technically a lawyer. And while I don’t think the powers that be at the chintzy collections litigation firm I’ve been interning at the last couple months have ever considered my bar status, it hardly bodes well. But they’re the least of my concerns. As long as I keep drafting summons and complaints for chump change, passing the bar would hardly convince them to hire me.
This all probably sounds like a pathetic pity party, but this was definitely something I did not expect—and cannot afford. The thought of looking into my father’s eyes and telling him I fell short haunts me. And the anticipation of my mother making some snide remark about how I should have spent less time on the golf course this summer may cause me to bitch slap her before she even opens her mouth.
Ho, ho, ho—Christmas is going to suck this year.