The Hamster Wheel

Like most kids, my brother and I had hamsters when we were little kids.  Mine liked to escape into my parents' closet a lot, but they both really enjoyed running on their little wheels (or at least we thought they liked it, they were probably cursing us from the sheer boredom).  What does this have to do with anything you ask? The other day I was talking to a coworker, a newer associate like myself, about the never ending tasks.  You trudge through a response to a motion to dismiss, only to have to start drafting discovery requests and then start right in on the next motion response for another case.  Being an associate attorney, well hell, any attorney, is exactly like being that hamster. No matter how hard you run or how hard you work, you're still in the same place you started at the end of the day. You never really do accomplish anything. You don't get to wipe your brow after a hard week and feel a sigh of relief and a sense of accomplishment.  There's no time for that.  Instead, when you finish a big project, maybe one you're even really proud of, you have about enough time to take a quick breath, a bathroom break and get another cup of crappy coffee with fake creamer before you have to read more cases, write more memos, and talk to more clients. And just like the hamster, you're on that wheel alone.  No one to talk to, no one to commiserate with, no one to work as a team with you.  It's just you and the wheel, 50+ hrs a week. 

my husband is great!

there, i said it! and i don't feel bad for saying it, why should i? but the truth is i don't get to say it often enough. when friends call and ask how my husband and i are anything beyond "good" is just way too much. its the unspoken rule among women friends - we're there for you after a breakup, when you're sick of yet another fruitless blind-date, and we're thrilled when you get engaged, but we don't want to hear more than a fine or a good when it comes to a successful relationship.  we women love to kvetch, and its not nearly as interesting when things are going well. i feel bad talking about how great he is to my single friends, because then i'm rubbing it in. i can't talk about it to my engaged friends because then i'm taking away from their great moments to come or passing unwanted advice, and i can't even talk about it with my married friends because if their husband hasn't been mr. wonderful too then i'm saying my husband is better than yours.  i think we should say it more often, to our friends and to our husbands. lets throw out that crappy stereotype that husbands can never live up to wives' expectations, that we can only talk about them when they're doing something wrong. 

let me be the first to start: i love my husband, he's great! he's thoughtful, he's considerate, he's always putting me first and making sure i always feel like a princess. he makes me accountable for my actions and encourages me to be my best. that's just the short version....sorry, its not as interesting as if i was dishing on some terrible, 'you won't believe what my husband did today' story. 

if there's a blog on the internet but no one reads it, how do you know it's a blog?

i started this thing with the hopes that someone would enjoy my ramblings and maybe it would lead to enlightenment, or at least a fun job opportunity. then i realized the only person i was really comfortable with reading it is my husband. i felt a little dorky honestly, i mean, blogging is so 2005! does anyone actually read these things anymore?! well apparently they're not gonna read this one because i can't find it on google, and i even went to the second and third page of results - something i never do (does it really count if its not on the first results page?).  only time will tell...maybe this blog will fade into the white noise of the internet...and maybe it will one day show up on the first results page of a google search. 

the standardized b.s.

at the end of the day at the office i found myself chatting with my boss, the named partner, and another senior associate.  somehow we were talking about the bar exam, and then the lsat, and then standardized testing in general. i have a rather strong position on standardized testing. i understand its a necessary evil but i feel that if we're really gonna do it in this country then we need to do it right and do it fair. so i refused to take the s.a.t. prep course or even study at all for it in highschool. i took it twice, getting 10 points difference between the two sittings - i was meant to get a 1310.  then it was time to take the lsat.  again i refused any overpriced prep classes. i figured that i wasn't all that wild on the idea of law school anyhow, i had better things to do with what little money i had, and if i couldn't get a high enough score on my own then it just wasn't meant for me.  kaplan offered a free lsat practice exam so i took that, never having seen an lsat before i was surprised, as were the kaplan folks, at my score.  i borrowed a three year old prep book, took some practice tests and sat for the exam. i got one point higher than the practice exam! i proved my point twice - there's a reason for standardized tests. they may suck to have to take and not be perfect, but they do try to level the playing field. what turns the playing field into a huge frickin mountain are the prep classes - only the wealthy folks get to do those. 

so back to the chat at the office - yes, i actually said the condensed version of my standardized test history and policy. only to then find out that my boss took both the s.a.t. and the lsat prep courses. so the moral of this story is that i think prep classes are evil and i'm a jackass.

The Truth Shall Set You Free...or Ostracize You Forever

There is talk in the legal world of a woman who graduated from a law school up North and dares to speak out to persuade people not to go to law school.  This is blasphemy! What do you mean law school isn't the greatest thing that ever happened to you?! This woman graduated with the huge loans that most do (somewhere in the ballpark of $100k), searched the market and realized that she could get a job that would maybe pay off her loans in a 80 yrs and she would have to forsake any family and social life to practice law. She did the impossible - she said no! So now she speaks out about the overpopulation of lawyers and the reality of the career, that guess what? it's not all that great. 

All over the news people are outraged because the woman who had the octuplets already has 6 kids and in this economy its a crime against society to bring more kids that you can't afford into the word. Most folks agree, at least to some degree, with that idea. So what's so different about what this lady is saying? There's too many lawyers already, so why encourage more people to become lawyers to fight for the few jobs there are and most can't afford law school - so isn't that a crime against society too? 

This woman had the audacity to point out the elephant in the room and now she will likely never have a legal career or be able to pay off those huge law school debts.  I had one of those moments myself not too long ago...although with not nearly the same consequences. 

I was at a continuing legal education class for new attorneys required by the Florida Bar last year. During the lecture from the attorney help section (the dept that helps lawyers with substance abuse issues, etc) the speaker asked if you knew then what you know now who would not have gone to law school - my hand shot up. The only hand, in a room of 200+.  So I was asked why, and I said because I didn't imagine a law career would mean sitting behind a desk for 10+ hrs a day maybe speaking with 1 person all day, it was not what I bargained for. The room was silent, aside from a few gasps. When the speaker moved on every other attorney at my table told me they feel the same way. 

So why won't anyone else stand up and say how they feel? Is it that bad to speak truthfully and honestly about being an attorney? I guess no one wants to bust the myth Grisham did so well at inventing, no one wants to let on that its really not that cool, not like Law and Order at all. I guess it'd be like seeing James Bond filling out paperwork about his last mission, sorta takes the sparkle out of it.