This is my very first article that is not about the legal profession – but it might as well be.
I know a recently graduated professional, finally free to make his mark on the world, and eager as hell to go out and make something of himself. It is not an easy job market out there, as we have all heard. It apparently has something to do with us evil Boomers having ruined the world, but that is a topic for another day.
I have been over-weight for a good long while. My wife, Maureen, is not shallow. She loves me exactly as I am. But she is smart, beautiful and talented, and her marketability far exceeds mine, so why take chances?
For about 15 years, I stopped eating chocolate, cake, pie, muffins, ice-cream, fudge, etc., etc., but I substituted bread, goat cheese, nut butter, and organic honey, and kept gaining weight.
For smart people, when it comes to getting paid, lawyers can be stupid.
You don’t get to insult my intelligence and depend on it at the same time.
~ Rachel Wasserman
Imagine that you could bake up a bunch of perfect gingerbread cookies in the shape of a lawyer wearing a suit and holding a briefcase, and then say a few magic words and breathe life into them. They would then jump off of the cookie sheet and immediately start billing hours. I bet that there is at least one law firm Managing Partner who has fantasized about how great it would be if all of their Associates just fit the cookie-cutter mould that the firm wants, did what they were told, did not try to disrupt the system, and never complained.
Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember ~ the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you. ~ Zig Ziglar
A friend of mine told me that my name had come up in a conversation with another lawyer, who said that some of what I have posted of a personal nature is inappropriate, bad, and blameworthy, and that by extension I am a bad, bad, man.
My friends Jim and Sheila love dogs. They used to share their residence with a rescue dog named Henry. Dragons live forever, but not so little dogs. So when Henry got sick and his demise was imminent, Jim built a coffin for Henry so that it would be ready when needed to carry Henry to his final resting place in the woods.
While Jim was building his coffin, Henry would see him working on it. After it was finished, Henry could see the coffin, just sitting there and waiting for him.
“Micromanagement is like cutting grass with scissors; it’s tedious, ineffective, and a waste of time.”
~ Lisa McLeod, author and keynote speaker
My wife’s name is Maureen. I love Maureen more than I love life itself. I also annoy her a fair bit. One of the things that I do to annoy her is clean the kitchen frequently. So frequently, in fact, that she has accused me numerous times of cleaning stuff up before she has finished with it.
“It is an ill wind that blows no good.”
~ John Heywood
I recently wrote what I thought was a rather nifty article about the ills in the legal profession, and concluded, as I often do, that many of them can be traced to a culture of greed in Big Law. I got that part past my editors without a problem.
Those of you who have read my stuff before may have seen my article titled, “Beyond Pizza and Yoga: Let’s Get Serious About Mental Health for Lawyers,” in which I advanced the theory that billable hour expectations, a dearth of mentoring, cultures of disrespect, and lack of transparency around career paths, all contribute to the mental health crisis in the profession.
Back a long time ago when I had a modicum of influence in a law firm, I used to include a sentence in every offer letter to associates to the effect that we expected our lawyers to be part of the solution to issues that they encountered at the firm, not part the problem. This was a contractual obligation to come forward to management to address issues that they might have, and to help us to resolve them. They were not supposed to just whine about whatever issues they encountered.