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Solomon Grundy posted:Just wait until you graduate and have a job and there is no celebrating again ever because there is always something billable that you could be doing instead. I just had a serious internal debate whether to go home for dinner (and then try to work from home later tonight) or just stay at the office and keep grinding away.
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May 9, 2010 00:27
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TyChan posted:From what I understood, and I might not be completely accurate about this, every school has their own "index" value that they will give to your GPA depending on which school you go to. I don't believe they ever discount you, but admissions offices will give you some degree of indulgence/credit if you get a 3.8 at Swarthmore majoring in a tough subject area instead of a 4.0 at some low-ranked undegraduate institution majoring in television. Otherwise, people would be advising you to go for "gut" majors and easy subjects to assure your passage into a good law school. This was demonstrably correct back when I was applying, which was admittedly roughly 15 years ago so perhaps things have changed (though I doubt they changed that much). My school kept GPA/LSAT application metrics for its graduates for what were the top 50 or so laws schools at the time. I compared the GPA averages/medians from my school with the published averages/medians accepted by the laws schools from all schools. My school had roughly a .2 to .3 preference (in other words, the average GPA from my school that got into law school X would be 3.5, whereas that law school's average undergraduate GPA would be a 3.7 to 3.8).
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May 24, 2010 19:41
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Interesting discussion on succeeding as a summer associate by the way. Much of the advice given is really applicable on a much broader basis. I think the advice given is also a subset of some more general advice I wish I had known 15 years ago: don't believe most peoples' bullshit (career services, other practitioners) that tends to allow you to do what you really want to do, particularly if it somehow involves less work, effort, and maintaining a balanced life. Put another way, lots of people will say the "right" thing about work/life balance, about loving strong-minded associates who will pop off and contradict partners, about getting home to see your family, etc. It is pretty much always bullshit. No one cares that you are overbooked. They may say they care, but they don't. They just want you to do more work. No one cares that you really believe in the ethics of balanced and nuanced argument. They want a fast answer that gets them where they want to be. No one cares that your daughter is sick, that your dog just died, that you have no life or hobbies (except to the extent that it is preventing you from making rain). They will tell you they care, they will tell you that those things are important. But at the end of the day, realize that much of the professional world is really about deciphering a code of disinformation. You get a lot of disinformation, and it is really the gullible who believe it. I'm not suggesting that the gullible are stupid or bad people, they are frankly just naive. I had (and probably still have) a lot of it myself. I remember, for example, actually following my idiot career services person's advice and making sure to ask about "quality of life" in my first few interviews. After all, we were law students, and it was important to know that we would be working for a humane firm. All the law firms said they wanted to talk about it. Of course, you learn fairly quickly (or you don't succeed) that it is all just bullshit. Quality of life discussions are really just code for, "This guy doesn't want to work hard." It doesn't matter that you really do want to work hard but just don't want to work 3000 hours a year - you will never explain it in a way that doesn't leave the law firm suspicious that you ever brought it up. I have been thinking about this, and perhaps the best way to break the code on these things is to just put yourself in the position of being the average consumer, partner, client, etc. Imagine your car has broken down and you take it into the garage. You need it fixed the next day. Deep down, the average consumer may talk about caring that the mechanics have been working overtime shifts, have a lot of cars already, and cannot get it done the next day. But in reality, they don't care, they just want their car fixed. The garage that fixes the car reasonably well and gets it done by the next day is going to get more work than the garage that needs to take care of its mechanic's quality of life issues and spends a bunch of extra time and money doing the A+ job when the B+ job would have worked. No, they can't mess up your car and expect you to be happy, but frankly you don't want to hear a bunch of mumbling and shuffling about time schedules, how hard it is to find the problem, and that they already have so many cars in the pipeline. You just want them to fix your car. In general, think of most humans as amoral, selfish pigs. Ask yourself what the amoral, selfish pig probably really wants. He doesn't want you to be happy, he doesn't really care that you stayed up late just the night before, he doesn't care about the social event that you really want to attend or the pro bono work that's really cool that you want to do. He just wants his poo poo done now in a way that makes him look good.
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May 24, 2010 20:08
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Solomon Grundy posted:It is not so much that we are amoral. Bear in mind that I'm not just lumping partners in here. I'm talking about clients as well. Frankly, my experience is that most clients really do not care at all about the substance behind the work or whether the action is right or wrong. They simply have an objective, and want your answer to be yes, and yes quickly. Though to be fair, in the business transactions practice I do not think you run across deep moral questions as often as most people think. If there is nasty action, it's generally just rich people trying to screw other rich people. Of course, sometimes a company gets acquired and a few thousand employees get whacked, but that's pretty much just ordinary course business practices. Solomon Grundy posted:It is a matter of scale. The grind is not nearly as bad at small firms. But it is difficult to balance workloads perfectly, and occasionally you get overwhelmed and have to start dumping. I usually bill around 160 hours a month, but we recently had a 3 week trial where I and two partners billed around 300 hours for that month. Regular work had to go somewhere, so the associates suffered, too. But in a biglaw firm, that kind of thing happens many times a year. For me, it is once every couple of years. The other part that I would add to this, even at "mid-big law," is that the work often is not steady. You don't get to come in and punch a clock every day from 7-6 with guaranteed work in hand and walk out with 10 hour billed days. A big part of the problem, for me, is that billing is often 4 hours today, 13 hours tomorrow, hey, it's like you billed two normal 8 hour days. Except you were in the office for 10 hours on the 4 hour day trying to find work or at least not look lazy by going home, and you were in the office for 16 hours on the 13 hour day (eating lunch, nonbillable meetings, etc.). 60 hour weeks don't sound that terrible if you think that you are just working 5 days, 12 hours straight per day. But it generally doesn't work out that way. EDIT: In other words, HooKars's boyfriend is the outlier and not the norm. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 22:23 on May 24, 2010 |
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May 24, 2010 22:17
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billion dollar bitch posted:You went a long way for that one. http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/531/531.F2d.63.75--1278.304.html Search for "chink in the Chinese wall."
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May 28, 2010 04:05
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GamingHyena posted:There's no question that the flood of law school grads is putting a massive downward pressure on wages for new attorneys. However, I'm wondering what the flood of law grads will do to the market for those of us who have actually been practicing for a few years. Since law grads have no practical skills and therefore worthless for anything beyond entry level positions, do they really have an effect on wages for 3+ year attorneys? There is always someone younger and hungrier, or just hungrier and smarter, particularly in this day and age. It is not just new attorneys - realize that this economy has turned loose a poo poo ton of fired associates with 3-10 years of experience at BigLaw firms as well as dequitized partners with more experience than that. My firm has been receiving lateral applications from individuals who, on paper, are honestly better than 80% of the existing attorneys at my firm. Of course that's pretty much going to be the case for any firm, given that the applications I'm talking about are top quartile at HYS types with legitimate experience with large banking and corporate clients. It's not going to take too long before someone figures out, "Hey, why don't we drop the existing guy's pay by a few hundred grand a year and hire this new guy as a flyer." Practicing for a few years is not insulation. Insulation is having five-to-ten years left to retire and hoping to ride out this long-term poo poo storm because you already have almost enough cash saved up to make it out alive.
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Jun 20, 2010 21:29
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GamingHyena posted:While I agree with pretty much everything in this post, I think the oversupply of experienced attorneys is more a symptom of a terrible economy than it is for law grads. Are the structural problems on the entry level end of today's legal market (over saturation of law grads increasing supply and outsourcing/legalzoom decreasing demand) really as prevalent as you gain experience? I think that oversupply is noticeable in the event you ever lose your existing job and need to go find another. I have a few peers in other firms who have needed to look for something new, and it is absolutely brutal out there from what I can tell. So if you have something good that you can keep, you're probably okay (at least for now). But heaven help you if you are out there looking. Of course, even if you have something good right now, I think you always need to be aware that you could be the guy in Office Space who ran reports from the fax machine to the engineers, and was a "people person." Basically, confusing tenure with the ability to actually hold your own technically and effort-wise when the wolves are at the door. I still think it is possible that a lot of 10-20 year practitioners who have just kind of kept pace in sleepy little mid-sized cities are going to start feeling pain. Not just because of the economy or oversupply, but because of things like increasing globalization, technology, and the greater sophistication of practice that requires. In part, that is because (in my belief) that the oversupply did not just start happening in the last 1-2 years. The economy tanking has, in effect, put a highlight on the oversupply that has been there for awhile. They have been synergistic. And of course, oversupply almost by definition goes hand-in-hand with the economy. I mean, by definition, if the economy is doing well enough to absorb, there is no oversupply. I think what has actually happened here is that we have been oversupplied for a number of years for anything but a cheap cash driven boom economy. Now that the wheels have fallen off, the system has been exposed. Of course, people were saying similar things at the end of the dot-com era, and just a few years later everything was milk and honey again (at least for five years or so). SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jun 21, 2010 |
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Jun 21, 2010 00:36
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Mookie posted:Yeah basically. The answer is yes, but not this job. Don't take a $100,000 pay cut for a job where you affirmatively dislike the subject matter. It doesn't make sense, because I think there are other $150k per year jobs out there for someone like you where you probably would not hate the subject matter. You don't have to love every minute of it, but I could see being resentful if I stepped away from $100k for a 9-6 where I hated most of the eight hours each day.
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Nov 12, 2010 17:44
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I have been able to compare and contrast (on an anecdotal level), because I went to a small rural public high school, while my wife went to a fairly big name East Coast private boarding school. I somehow managed to get into the same elite undergraduate institution that she did. However, there was an extreme difference in our first year and preparation for the undergrad institution. Pretty much everything she encountered she could say that she had already done, or had a good grounding in it from her high school. I, on the other hand, was basically blasted by everything. That tends to happen to you when your yokel public high school doesn't offer classes like "Calculus" and "Physics." My wife was simply much further ahead than I based on her private high school training, which was hugely different than mine. She had the opportunity to take every AP class (and managed to test out of just about everything). Meanwhile, I was getting blasted in my standard level calculus class (how I did not test in to the remedial level I'll never know). It tends to break your confidence a little bit when the prof says, "Who here hasn't done derivatives and integration," and you are literally the only one in the class who raises his hand. That was sweet, not that it has scarred me to this day or anything (okay, it has). That obviously translates to first and probably even second year performance. What people who talk about "pluck" and "working harder to pick it up and catch up" never seem to loving understand is that the kids who went to private school who literally have about 2-3 more years of worthwhile knowledge than you do aren't exactly sitting around on their asses do nothing. They're often working just as hard as you do, and making sure they keep that 2-3 years worth of advantage. Then there is the simple factor of grades - who on average do you think is going to do better in their first or second year? The kid from a junk public school who doesn't know a thing about calculus or physics or any foreign language, whose English teacher always gave them papers back with, "98 - Nice Work!" on it but never actually taught anything substantive, like not to overuse passive voice? Or the kid who went to a private school and got intense interaction with his teachers, who by the time he entered college had six years of French or some other language, who had been intensely trained in AP subject such that he was capable of acing all of them? Some times it is as simple as the ability to get easy As in the first couple of years. Our undergrad institution required that we take at least 1.5 years of a foreign language. My wife went in to class, her professor listened to her speak and told her not to bother coming back, as she spoke fluent French with a flawless accent. He told her he would just give her an A for each semester. Having six years of French will do that for you, as you started learning it in your early teens. Meanwhile, bumble gently caress from the sticks here had the distinct pleasure of competing with kids like that, while having no language background whatsoever. That type of superiority in prior training can (as I have seen it first hand) lead to superior grades, particularly in the first couple of years. So if you are undertrained by a crappy public high school (and realize that most people are not going to Stuy or some other "comparable to private" high school, they're going to some intercity dump, some generic "pretty good but not great" suburban public high school in some place like Indianapolis, or in large parts of the country, to crappy rural dumps like my high school), you are often immediately going to start off with a tangible GPA deficit in college compared to your peers. Those superior grades in the first few years (or even more) are obviously a huge boon and advantage to average GPA over the four years, and to getting in to the professional or graduate schools of your choice. For an even starker, straight up example, I was literally the only kid in my class who left the state to go to college - all of the other kids were in-state, and by far the great majority went to public state schools. Meanwhile, I took a look at the alumni email list for my wife's school year and it was stunning, A at Harvard, B at Stanford, C at Princeton, D at Yale, etc. Seriously, the kid who got into Brown was basically a disappointment and shame upon this school. None of this touches on the basic value of learning these things (higher math, languages) while you are in those magical teenage years where the mind is simply more supple and able to absorb these things completely. As anyone will tell you with languages in particular, for example, it is much harder (and some say even impossible) to learn them with a fluency and lack of accent in your late teens and twenties, compared to those magically early-mid-teen years. Now to end my rant with some realism (and to forestall an obvious point/question): yes, I realize that my school may have been particularly horrible, and I also realize there are plenty of private schools that are not particularly special (religious schools, for example, where the curriculum isn't any better, but the school achieves some religious need of the parents/child). But I'm more than willing to stick to my thesis as one that is generally applicable, even if not in each specific case. As to the why save for college part? Well, one reason, as was partially mentioned earlier by a couple of people, is if you are high income but not so high an income as to be able to (without pain) cash flow the tuition payments out each year. When you are in your forties or fifties and your kids are off to college, I think a lot of parents just want as a psychological matter (let alone financial) to be focused on getting to retirement in one piece. Dumping 1/3 of your $200,000k pre-tax (so roughly $130-140k after tax perhaps) salary into tuition, room, and board for a couple of kids doesn't help with that. Yes, if you have the money saved the college is going to take it. But from my experience with a lower class (or at least blue collar) family, the schools basically think that every cent the parents make that doesn't go to shelter, food, or clothes is available to pay the college. If I am at an income level where I know the college is going to expect me to cash flow it each year (or take out loans), I think I would prefer having the money ready to go in advance by having saved for 8-10 years prior, rather than the alternative. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Dec 20, 2010 |
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Dec 20, 2010 00:47
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entris posted:SlyFrog, your wife sounds pretty awesome, any chance she'll be single soon? No, no (but by our choice, given that I make more than enough to feed the family, she is actually currently self-studying to start off a career as a professional), and hell no. Two chicks at one time - cool. Two dicks at one time (or two dicks spaced apart in time) - not cool. As for Scotch chat, Laphroaig. I don't give a poo poo about how many years it's aged in a cask or whether it was swished around in the mouths of young virgins before being stored away.
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Dec 20, 2010 22:37
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quepasa18 posted:We wore tams at Hamline. I thought tams were the standard for all doctoral level degrees. Mortarboards at Michigan (if I recall correctly). That doesn't mean they're not retarded. Tams are much more awesome. (Though I had no idea they were called tams until roughly 5-10 posts ago.)
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Feb 17, 2011 20:45
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Linguica posted:You remember incorrectly, there were quite a few people at last year's graduation wearing tams. (I didn't, I think they look ridiculous) Perhaps some were wearing tams. My recollection is that the vast bulk wore mortarboards. Again though, this was 10 plus years ago.
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Feb 18, 2011 00:50
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Defleshed posted:We really are a third world country unless you're a CEO Okay, some of this poo poo can go too far. My neighbor the aircraft mechanic, with 4 cars, a 52" flat screen, central air, and 4 kids (that he can actually support) begs to differ. The inequalities are bullshit, but they are still (mostly) inequalities of the "poor" and middle class living better than 80% of the world, with the wealthy living far better than they should comparatively. Good god I'm going to get all political, but I do think we can tend to forget what we have in this country. Just because law has become a particularly lovely gig for new graduates doesn't mean that life is over for all of America. Of course, perhaps that has something to do with my having just watched a television show about South American gold prospectors who (as individuals wearing no protective gear) wander out into the jungle, mix a bunch of potentially gold bearing soil and loving MERCURY in a kid's wading pool, take the bits of gold (that the mercury binds to) by hand, and BURN OFF THE MERCURY WITH A BLOW TORCH while standing over and breathing in the fumes. Good lord. Blowtorching off mercury by hand. Sheesh. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Feb 19, 2011 |
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Feb 19, 2011 18:04
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GamingHyena posted:Why should the miner complain when there is probably some poor schmuck in Somalia sitting the in ruins of his burned out village surrounded by the bodies of his family who would jump at the chance to peacefully huff mercury in the jungle? Just because someone somewhere in the world is worse off than you doesn't mean your problems don't matter too. Because our problems can, at some point, become problems of abundance. There is a degree to which we really secretly (even if we don't want to admit it) want to be extremely wealthy and have everything at age 30. It's also fine to be pissed off that the wealthy are hording wealth and positioning themselves to do so even more, and that the income divide is growing. But there is a difference about being pissed off at relatively inequality and suggesting that we have it so bad that we are essentially a third world country. Plus, there is a degree to which having gratitude for the things you do have (particularly when you are nowhere near having to huff mercury or sit surrounded by burned out bodies) helps you have a better life. To be frank, the "we're third world" thing just caught me in the wrong way. Having just had a friend die in an honest to god third world country because they didn't bother to actually maintain the highway that caved out from under his 1980s car, something struck me as irritating about comparing that to high tuition costs for graduate school in the US. In short, Buddhism, or something. Yeah. EDIT: You know what, I get it. Someone posted another "hey, this sucks, we're like a third world country lol" exaggeration and I jumped down his throat. Obviously exaggerations like that are made all the time here. This one just bugged me for some personal circumstances that I've just experienced firsthand, had that not been the case, I would have certainly been all aboard the pity party myself. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Feb 19, 2011 |
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Feb 19, 2011 19:23
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HooKars posted:I never even got an interview for a paralegal job in my year and a half off and I applied to a ton of them - despite going to a good school, doing well, and having been a paralegal at two firms prior to law school. We hired someone as a paralegal who had a JD a few years back. Swore that he understood he would be working as a paralegal, would be dumped on by attorneys as a paralegal, that we didn't care he had a law degree and didn't ever want to hear about his law degree, that he would never be hired as an attorney by us even if he personally saved seventeen clients from a building fire, etc. About nine months in, we started hearing about how he could do more, because he had a JD, and really wanted to move up. We fired him, and it is viewed as a failed experiment that won't be repeated.
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Mar 5, 2011 06:09
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HooKars posted:I can't say I really get the same fear that seems to exist about someone who is currently an attorney at a major firm and knows what it's like, doesn't like being an attorney and wants to actively quit their current position, and has prior experience being a paralegal and wants to go back to their old job. It's why I'm hoping my job hunt will end up being differently this time around. I haven't given it enough time to say for sure but it's not going so smoothly so far. Your position might be better, but it seems to me you have a bit of a dilemma. If I were interviewing you, you would have to figure out how to carefully navigate the following two issues, the answer to one of which would imply bad things for the other, and vice versa. 1. I would be concerned that you were just using the paralegal position as a way to segue out of a nasty current position, to give yourself a less painful place from which to regroup and go after that attorney job you really want at a non-miserable place. 2. If you really sold me that you don't like the attorney life, never want to be an attorney again, and "just" want to be a paralegal, I would immediately be concerned that you're really kind of a slacker and don't like hard work, and want to hide as a paralegal. Hope you understand I'm not taking a shot at you. I get it (and frankly, I'm the first one to understand that one can still be willing to work hard but just not want to work the insane hours of a law firm attorney, or work hard doing hated job X). But I don't think most partners get that (or they have their suspicions no matter how you frame it), so I'm just putting on my "generic partner in a law firm" hat and telling you what you might run into.
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Mar 5, 2011 19:15
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HooKars posted:No it's cool, its good to know what the concerns would be. I never make it to the interview round though - any suggestions on something good to put in a cover letter about wanting to transition my career? Not particularly - everything I can think (such as suggesting that you do not like being responsible for client generation, huge hours, etc.) is negative and does not really read properly. The only thing I can think of immediately, and I have not exactly thought it through so it may be stupid, is to strongly note that having experience both positions, you are comfortable now in wanting to work as a paralegal. That at least is fairly neutral but also somewhat compelling to me - you have had the opportunity to work as both (as opposed to many recent law grads who have never worked as a paralegal or an attorney) and are making a knowing choice without compulsion (i.e. you have the opportunity to have a job as an attorney that you are voluntarily passing up). I think you have essentially already been using that line of reasoning, right? Of course that line of reasoning then begs the follow up question, "Why?"
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Mar 6, 2011 04:23
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HooKars posted:Contract specialist and junior copywriter and editor positions are my current favs. You can't have copywriter. That's my current dream/obsession job/way out that I know I'll never go do.
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Mar 6, 2011 21:25
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MoFauxHawk posted:Rubenstein attended the Law School on a full-tuition scholarship, which lifted the burden of paying for law school from his parents and enabled him to follow a nontraditional career path after graduation. As a result, he built the experience and connections that led to him becoming one of the most successful businessmen in the United States. He is the founder of The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms. . . . Haha, the huge scholarship donor to the University of Chicago Law School basically said, "gently caress law, this sucks, I'm going to go be a businessman." SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Mar 9, 2011 |
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Mar 9, 2011 04:14
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BigHead posted:Dear people who write motions: please refrain from calling the other side "absurd" in your pleadings. You are both represented by, like, eight law firms which you are paying a fortune for. Trust me, they've managed to not sound absurd in their complaint. If anyone is absurd, it's you with your dumb 50 page motion to dismiss that has a 0% chance of succeeding. Good luck on this - this is the equivalent of asking gamers not to call every player but themselves "noob."
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Apr 30, 2011 02:58
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Solomon Grundy posted:(But now I am up at 5:30 on a Saturday to make up the time) This right here. I've never considered "quality of life" to be, "Still work 60-70 hour weeks, just pick when to work the hours." A lot of people do think that's quality of life though. Admittedly, it's better than "work 60-70 hour weeks, but don't pick when to work the hours." But not much, in my opinion.
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May 22, 2011 01:25
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cendien posted:To answer your question more directly though, my understanding is that schools do tend to give preference to elite undergrads, but I doubt it is so much as to constitute a full 0.2 in GPA. It did when I was applying. Admittedly that was 10+ years ago now.
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Jun 2, 2011 23:11
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Incidentally, Star Wars - long flight down a tight trench. Tiny exhaust port in a big giant egg. X chromosomes/Y chromosomes each vying to impregnate the big giant egg. Inexperienced virgin farm boy is having difficulty finishing, until his buddy tells him just to relax and go for it. Two white photons with tails go streaking down the "exhaust port." Intense look of relief and relaxation on formerly inexperienced farm boy's face. Egg blows up, everyone happy. Enjoy it bitches.
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Jul 10, 2011 01:39
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gohuskies posted:And the exhaust port is 2 meters wide? She's a big girl. Tatooine thick they call it.
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Jul 10, 2011 02:11
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Torpor posted:I live in perpetual fear of not catching some meritorious claim or not doing some neat strategy or not being as good of a negotiator as some of the better neighborhood defense attorneys. You've got to work hard on this right now. It is (in my opinion) a very dangerous mindset that is easy to fall into when practicing law, and it can have bad effects on your life. I have similar issues after practicing for 10 plus years, and it can reach a point where it can eat up your life. You don't want to have your non-office hours time be spent thinking about what you might have hosed up, whether you missed something in a contract. You don't want to wake up at three in the morning wondering whether that indemnification provision you drafted really catches all of the possibilities. If you can't correct it, I would actually pretty strongly advise finding a different line of work, because otherwise your life, not just your working life, can become pretty miserable. MoFauxHawk posted:Still not one person in this entire thread has sent me their resume when I've offered a couple times to give them to my dad who runs a small labor law firm in a really convenient location in downtown DC. It makes me wonder how hard people are actually trying here. He's not hiring now though. I'll go one better. I'm a partner in a large Twin Cities law firm. I'm listed in the alumni contacts directory, and have said it is okay to contact me. In my ten plus years of practice (including five plus as a partner), I've been contacted by exactly one student from my law school.
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Jul 13, 2011 15:55
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nm posted:As a UMN alum (if you're UMN), I will say that no one has ever pointed anyone to this list. I didn't even really knew it existed. Nope, Michigan, sorry.
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Jul 13, 2011 23:29
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I always love these discussions. If I recall correctly, roughly 2-3% of U.S. households (so combined incomes, not just individual incomes) make more than $200,000 per year. Something like 15-20% make more than $100,000 per year. So when we start talking about individuals with incomes above $100,000, or in particular individuals or households with incomes well above six figures, I think we've moved solidly out of the "middle class" range. Wouldn't "middle class" by definition have to be somewhere near the middle? Even 15-20%, let alone 2-3%, is not exactly in that ballpark. This topic is always interesting to me, given that I came from a blue collar background (i.e. real blue collar, not "My dad only had 15 direct reports," blue collar). My parents would think it utterly hilarious if I described my situation as middle class essentially at any point since I started private practice.
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Jul 16, 2011 22:12
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Roger_Mudd posted:This is called "a made up reason not to hire you because I'm a douche". This is correct, along with an added helping of, "I'm a pathetic alpha male wanna be who cannot admit weakness (my firm is too loving pathetic to be able to float another full time associate) so I'm going to get my rocks off making something up to break someone over."
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Jul 23, 2011 03:54
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taichijedi posted:I'm probably way off base, but I would guess asset management. gently caress me that's sexy keep talking.
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Jul 31, 2011 03:08
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Roger_Mudd posted:I've been notified that tomorrow I will receive a low paying but legal job offer. Congrats! You will now be working in a miserable profession in terms of the work you do, but with all the benefits of low pay. I think this thread has been focusing too much on the "no jobs" stuff lately, and not enough on how the job itself will twist and corrupt you as a person. Clearly we need more, "The futile search for money is the only salve for my empty soul, for I have chosen a profession that makes monsters out of men," chat.
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Aug 2, 2011 02:07
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blar posted:This is why I don't get people from wealthy families enrolling in law school. I mean why toil away like some peasant when you could just move money around and sit on a non-profit? Do they just work these jobs for a few years then get the hell out? I was too TTT to ever step foot in these places so I may not know how this part of the game is played. It's not just people from wealthy families. Realize as well, there are plenty of partners who have made more than enough money to retire forever at the age of 45-50, yet they still put in another 20 years of miserable partner hours. Not miserable in comparison with some associates, but that's like saying hitting yourself in the hand over and over with a hammer isn't miserable compared with hitting yourself in the crotch. My 10+ years have led me to realize that there is something in some people (perhaps most people) that makes them keep doing this poo poo. Most of the people I work with really don't seem to question it. And I don't say that in the "they do, but they just don't whine about it," sense. You really get the feeling that they are insensate creatures. I talked with one guy recently about being there until two in the morning a fifth night in a row (and we don't do that New York thing where you work until midnight but then show up at 10:00 the next morning; this guy is in before 7:00 every day). He just kind of shrugs and gives a "Huh, work's gotta get done," response. I swear, sometimes I want to just start punching them in the head to see if they just mutter, "Yup, I guess someone's gotta get punched in the head, might as well be me," and then shuffle back into their offices. It is really hard to describe. There is some quality that these people have that just seems to keep them soldiering on without questioning the grand scheme of things. Whether it's a need to keep score using whatever stats you can have as an adult (hours worked and pay) or something else, I don't know. Of course, the fact that they are in the vast majority makes me presume that I am the one with something wrong with me, something missing. I just don't fundamentally understand it. I have no idea why any person on this planet, who is making $500,000 and could easily live on $300,000 if they scaled back their hours accordingly, would prefer to spend their free time reviewing yet another 80 page M&A agreement instead of reading a book of their choice, learning to paint, etc. Of course, the idea of scaling back your hours doesn't really work in the end. Because that's the other part of large law firms. There's some type of odd cult, even in the partnership ranks, that says that anyone who wants to work 40-50 hour weeks and take the concomitant pay cut is complete dead weight who needs to be cut loose. Even if you're willing to take the financial hit, it's like your nonconformist choice pisses them off.
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Aug 7, 2011 21:48
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Solomon Grundy posted:All it takes is coming to your office once, and having NOTHING TO DO. It has happened to me twice. Come in, look at the files that you looked at yesterday, and nothing new has happened, and the phone is not ringing. Water your (dead) plant, clean your office, wonder who you will send bills to at the end of the month, and how you will make rent and payroll. It is terrifying. Sure. But by that logic, you should bill 24 hours per day (presuming that you are successful enough to get the business, and many of these people are). At some point, business owner or no, you have to make a determination of how much is enough. By the way, I have nothing to do right now, and haven't had a hell of a lot to do for a few months. Thanks for terrifying the hell out of me. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Aug 8, 2011 |
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Aug 8, 2011 03:09
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prussian advisor posted:You know, I've encountered a lot of cynicism about IBR and PSLF, and while I'm pretty sure neither of those programs are going anywhere, it's hard not to be disturbed when just idly contemplating the possibility because the consequences would be so horrible for almost every law student. My cynicism is that rather than actually cause law schools to lower their loving tuition prices to correspond with the actual value of getting the law degree, IBR just has all of the United States taxpayers paying for stupid overpriced degrees. It's awesome that we've created a system that subsidizes lazy law school profs with everyone's tax dollars, rather than actually changing the tuition to be something people can actually afford to pay back. I admit that IBR disgusts me a little. I'm not raging at people who take it, but the program is a bit gross in some of its incarnations. If I'm trying to be good and view the program charitably, the best way I can look at it is that we're essentially giving people in the military, government jobs, etc. some additional hidden salary for 10 years to offset their lower wages. (Except that anymore, I'm not sure that the average government attorney really has a lower salary than the average private sector attorney.) Even then, I really worry about how this program creates moral hazards in terms of people's willingness to incur indebtedness. Why not max out those loans, if someone else is paying for it? I've already read some internet posts from people who have essentially said, "Sure I took more loans than I needed to in order to live a better life in law school - what's the difference between $100k and $150k when IBR is paying it back?" SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Aug 21, 2011 |
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Aug 21, 2011 17:53
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prussian advisor posted:If by "some hidden salary," you mean "the ability to work in these sectors at all" or "having a practical route out of an otherwise unavoidable lifetime of debt enslavement," sure, I guess. I'm not sure you actually read what I wrote. In any event, I'll spare you the trouble of a SUPERLATIVE FILLED, HOW DARE YOU NOT FIGHT THE MAN, IT'S THE SYSTEM THAT MAKES US DO THIS response back from me. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Aug 22, 2011 |
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Aug 22, 2011 03:41
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Defleshed posted:I dunno, I read what you wrote and it came off smug as gently caress and I think his reply was pretty spot on. What's smug about it? Tuition is ridiculous and the law school system is a giant scam, so the solution is to have everyone pay for the giant scam? So the government can now subsidize the giant scam. I think that's a pretty loving stupid solution. If people had read what I wrote instead of insecurely launching from their platform of poor, oppressed law student, you'd have realized that my problem was that it doesn't solve, but instead subsidizes, a lovely system. It keeps funneling people into a system where there are already too many attorneys. Now people can go and rack up huge debt for the lottery ticket chance of a BigLaw job and if they fail at that, the public can pay for the lottery ticket. And yes, there is moral hazard involved. I'm sorry, but I shouldn't have to pay for your $1,000 computer that you really didn't need. And you know drat well that's a strawman in the first place - I can probably live with your in reality $2,500 Alienware "law school computer" that's really needed to play Bad Company 2, but I don't think the public needs to subsidize people taking another $50k in student loans spent on personal small luxuries because, "Hey, it all gets paid back by the government anyway." That's why I said I try to look charitably at it. I don't really believe in, "It costs so much, I'm owed a law school education, so someone else should pay this." Instead, the positive spin I can put on it is that it really amounts to subsidizing a low government/nonprofit salary for 10 years, essentially bringing that salary more in line with what those positions should be paid based on private sector comparables. Stated another way, it's the government's way of indirectly juicing salaries for certain government/nonprofit jobs (just that the government effectively immediately deducts that additional salary and pays itself back over 10 years). SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Aug 22, 2011 |
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Aug 22, 2011 15:19
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atlas of bugs posted:that's a cool post, definitely gonna reread it while I literally summer in France on my IBR money That's fine, just keep your French anchor baby away from here.
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Aug 22, 2011 19:08
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cerebral posted:I once met a partner at a firm that boasted that he had never taken more than a half day off in 40 years with the firm. I've taken a single one week vacation during my entire 10+ year tenure with my firm. Frankly, that's not me being a martyr. When you bill by the hour, any time that you're not in the office is time you have to make up somehow. I'd rather go home an hour earlier 50 or 60 days out of the year than take it all in a single one week burst. Welcome to billing your time, have a nice loving day.
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Aug 31, 2011 21:20
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cerebral posted:I know that in the legal profession I'm the maladjusted one, but I just can't fathom signing up for that. I've got to be fair, that's me. Most other people at my firm take a week or two a year (but not all - I've got a partner down the hall that makes me look like a slacker, as I do not recall him taking even the single week off that I did in the 10+ years I've been there). As much as I rant and rave, I do need to give some perspective (and not seem quite so dedicated as "one week in ten years" sounds). I have taken single days off here and there over the years from time to time, so it's not like I've worked 6-7 days a week without fail for the entire 10+ years. And I have no problem getting the hell out of the office at three in the afternoon occasionally if I feel like it. That's my point though - private practice for a large firm is miserable enough. Everyone has their preferences. For me, I'd rather go home at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. 50-60 nights per year (or get out at 3 in the afternoon 15 times per year, whatever way you want to look at it) than take the 50-60 hours off that a week's vacation implies. It's not like billable hours break down that easily, but the general concept applies.
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Sep 1, 2011 02:06
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CmdrSmirnoff posted:You know what, despite leaving the house at 7am and not getting back until at least 7pm every day this week and clocking something like 150km/day on the odometer in my first week of work/articling in crim defense, I don't really feel my soul has been raped or that I otherwise wasted my life. It's kinda nice doing a) actual legal work after 3 years of bullshit, and b) helping absolute lowlifes. Everything's fun for awhile. Come back to me in 15 years and let me know how 7-7 is working for you, or more importantly, have you ex-wife and bitter kids come back to me and let me know how it worked out for them.
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Sep 10, 2011 03:29
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SlyFrog posted:Everything's fun for awhile. Come back to me in 15 years and let me know how 7-7 is working for you, or more importantly, have you ex-wife and bitter kids come back to me and let me know how it worked out for them. P.S. Am drunk and bitter, ignore former post.
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Sep 10, 2011 03:30
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