I got into a bit of a dust-up with a lawyer on LinkedIn the other day. She wrote something that I did not agree with, which was clothed in reverence for human rights, so I countered with my usual intelligent and incisive commentary, informed by my long history in the legal profession.
Those of you who read my stuff know that I am not the world’s biggest fan of law firms who address mental health issues by offering pizza and yoga classes, while refusing to acknowledge that the principal cause of their people’s suffering is overwork.
I was spending time with some young folks the other night. I heard a phrase which was new to me, but apparently not to the rest of the world. “C’s get degrees” has something to do with prioritizing the enjoyment of life, and physical and mental health, over stressing out to achieve high grades. Are the people who live by this adage low on ambition or high on life? I really don’t know. I suppose that it depends on your perspective.
Out here in the country where I now live, it is a good thing if your septic tank is located on a lower elevation than your house. If it is not, you need something called a macerator to grind up the poop so that it can be pumped up to your septic tank, because as we all know, shit rolls downhill.
To put this in the context of a law firm, one might note that the most senior partners are usually on the highest floor of the office building.
Dictionary[dot]com defines a “Citiot” as follows:
“a city dweller who, when visiting or vacationing in the country, is perceived as being condescending to the locals and generally ill-equipped to be in a suburban or rural setting: applied especially in upstate New York to a tourist from New York City.”
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.
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.
“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.
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.