When I was just a wee lad, my father instilled in me the need to be perfect. If I scored 98% on an exam, his only comment was “What happened to the other two marks?”
Tag: mental health
I like being retired. I really do. But someone called a pandemic and everyone showed up.
My plans to travel the world have been on hold for a while. So, now and then I get bored. When that happens, I think about whether I should go back to work. Thankfully, the thought usually passes quickly.
Let me tell you about a real person, whose real name is not Emily.
Emily is a superstar. She does it all and has been doing it all for an awfully long time.
Categories
Targets (On Our Backs)
Law firms give lawyers minimum billable hours targets to meet. There is nothing wrong with setting expectations, I guess. The theory is that you make the lawyers aware of the firm’s expectations, and they then work to achieve them. Transparency is good.
I met Paul at my very first job as a lawyer. Paul was a commercial real estate lawyer. He was hard-working and extremely capable. Paul thought quite a bit of himself and other people who he considered to be intelligent and diligent. However, Paul did not suffer fools gladly.
Categories
Translations From Lawyer Talk: Part Three
Due to popular demand (I have now asked myself to do this ten times) and as a continued public service, I am providing some more translations from Legal Talk to Plain English.
When I practiced law, I was fairly good at doing the many things that a lawyer has to do in order to deliver great client service. I always offered to meet at the client’s office. I listened carefully to the clients to ascertain their goals and concerns. I insisted that I work to a deadline and if the client did not volunteer a deadline, I prompted them to set one. I frequently made the deadline on Monday so if I got overwhelmed with work, I could finish the project up on the weekend. I almost always met my deadline, and on the rare occasion that I was having difficulty doing so, I would call and explain the situation and give the client options, such as having me work all night to meet the original deadline, extending the deadline or having an associate take over the project.
We lawyers like to use definitions in our writing. It makes the substance of the document easier to read because it allows the drafter to avoid repeating things or using terms in an inconsistent manner. I am going to try that here, knowing that I may offend someone or other.
In this article, ‘marriage’ means a romantic relationship (whether or not having a sexual component) between any two or more people of any genders or without a gender, whether or not sanctified by a religious or civil ceremony of any type, and ‘spouse’ means any of the human beings who are involved in such a relationship. I hope that I have included everyone, but I will not be surprised if I have not. Frankly, I am having trouble keeping up.
Categories
Game Over
I met Maria when she landed her first job as an associate at a medium sized law firm in the Toronto area. She was capable, intelligent, and eager to learn. However, just how hard lawyers work in law firms seemed to catch her by surprise. I guess that they don’t tell you about that in law school.
There is a steep learning curve in the area of law in which Maria commenced her practice. A great deal of training takes place in the first year or two, after which a good associate will hit their stride and become downright useful. Maria was a good associate. She persevered and right on schedule as she approached her second anniversary at the firm, Maria was becoming downright productive.
As often seems to happen, just as she was becoming valuable to her firm, Maria chose to leave. She departed for greener pastures just shy of her third anniversary at the firm.
Some forty years ago, I knew a young lawyer in her third year of practice. My acquaintance had just given birth to her first child. She took what was then considered to be a lengthy maternity leave of 6 months (3 months being standard) before returning to work at a mid-sized downtown Toronto law firm, where she was the only female associate in her department and one of only three female lawyers in the firm. Having taken such a long maternity leave, the firm looked at her as a slacker.