Not only did I get my much-sought-after nap(s), but I have to work this weekend. All weekend.
Bah.
Humbug.
If Thanksgiving weren't fast approaching, I'd not be a very happy camper right now.
Showing posts with label Lawyering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lawyering. Show all posts
Friday, November 16, 2007
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Work Ethic
It's a Sunday, and I have work to do. Not household chores, and not errands (although I have to attend to those as well), but honest to goodness, do-it-or-your-job-is-on-the-line employment-related work.
I'm pretty lucky, I suppose. My job is an office job -- a desk job, if you will -- more often than not. I don't have to do any heavy lifting or manual labor; I rarely have to travel for work. And my work is portable. I don't even have to haul my sorry ass into the office to get it done. I'm sitting at home in my PJs, in front of my computer. Give me a computer with MS Word and an Internet connection, and I'm good to go.
What's more, my work is intellectually challenging. I feel engaged by the assignments I'm given; they make me think. Some people go into a specialized practice when they become lawyers. While I respect that choice, I fear that to do so means learning more and more about less and less. I don't want my professional expertise to be a mile deep and an inch wide. I worry I would spend time writing memoranda on the same topics, just plugging in new names to the same tired analyses. Doing something different, and something fresh, requires me to keep my mind sharp. I need to tackle a new body of law, or nuance of a familiar legal principle, grapple with it, master it, and produce a brief explaining why, as applied to the facts of the case on which I'm working, it should result in an outcome favorable to my client.
The down side to all of this is that it's not easy -- not usually easy, anyway. There is the requisite rolling up of the sleeves -- online legal research. Before I can write a compelling argument, I have to learn what the law says. When it doesn't favor the position we're taking, I have to find a way to make it cut in my favor. This takes some serious strategizing. And it can take a lot of my time.
I really cherish weekends. I opted to be a public sector litigator to get good training, but after forsaking the public sector for the private, I decided to make a trade-off. I wanted to go to a firm with a sophisticated practice, where my legal writing wouldn't consist of using the "Find and Replace" function to mark up an earlier memo and appropriate it for a new, virtually-identical case. But I also wanted to go somewhere where I wouldn't be tethered to a Blackberry. The downside of going to a small firm is that I have a salary that, while more than adequate to cover my expenses at present, is now less than half of what first-year associates are making at large "white shoe" law firms.
The upside of working at a litigation boutique, rather than at a larger shop, has always been that I have ample down time. I suppose that's a relative term. At my brother-in-law's wedding just one week ago, people were shocked and aghast to hear that I'm frequently at work until 7:15 p.m., and that even when I get home at 8 p.m. or thereabouts, I have yet to work out, cook, or eat dinner, to say nothing about relaxing. Still, I manage to cook dinner for the Mister (or he for me) about 50% of the time -- not bad for someone keeping my hours -- and I regularly make it to the gym at least two-to-three times per week. At a big firm, these options would likely not be available to me.
But, on weekends like this one, where to procrastinate means risking not only the wrath of my bosses, but also blowing a court deadline, I can't bring myself to ignore looming assignments. It's the right thing to do to buckle down and get the work done.
My sister has always had the "stick-to-it-ivness" to get her work done when it's called for. So does the Mister. Growing up, my motto was "why do today what you can do at 2 a.m. before the project is due?" Rarely suffering any consequences from this approach -- I got As throughout high school, and was accepted into two Ivy League institutions -- I'm surprised that I ever learned to start projects before the eleventh hour.
Maybe it's called growing up. Maybe I've developed a conscience. Whatever the reason, I can't justify to myself any longer the sense in putting off until tomorrow (or at least until later on tonight) what must be done today. I'm thirty-one, so I suppose it's about time. It's just something that surprises me, since it snuck up on me. I don't remember waking up one morning and feeling any different, it's just the case that now, if there is work to do, I know I'll work until after dark, after the gym is closed, over the weekend, whatever it takes, to get a job done.
I'm proud of myself for making this change. I know that to do otherwise would leave my colleagues in the lurch. And I owe them more than that. But it's more than that. They haven't bought my loyalty (even though I'm earning more than I ever have in my life), and it's not the fear of getting let go that motivates me either. I just know that, when my name gets signed to a court document, I want to be proud of what I've written, certain that I gave it my best shot. Truth be told, I don't just work hard these days because most of the work I produce becomes a matter of public record when filed with the Courts. I just want to know that I didn't half-ass it.
So when I go to bed tonight, I may not be up to date on Ugly Betty, and I may not have finished watching The Illusionist on DVD yet, but at least I'll know that I can walk into the office tomorrow confident that I've
done what I was supposed to do.
I'm pretty lucky, I suppose. My job is an office job -- a desk job, if you will -- more often than not. I don't have to do any heavy lifting or manual labor; I rarely have to travel for work. And my work is portable. I don't even have to haul my sorry ass into the office to get it done. I'm sitting at home in my PJs, in front of my computer. Give me a computer with MS Word and an Internet connection, and I'm good to go.
What's more, my work is intellectually challenging. I feel engaged by the assignments I'm given; they make me think. Some people go into a specialized practice when they become lawyers. While I respect that choice, I fear that to do so means learning more and more about less and less. I don't want my professional expertise to be a mile deep and an inch wide. I worry I would spend time writing memoranda on the same topics, just plugging in new names to the same tired analyses. Doing something different, and something fresh, requires me to keep my mind sharp. I need to tackle a new body of law, or nuance of a familiar legal principle, grapple with it, master it, and produce a brief explaining why, as applied to the facts of the case on which I'm working, it should result in an outcome favorable to my client.
The down side to all of this is that it's not easy -- not usually easy, anyway. There is the requisite rolling up of the sleeves -- online legal research. Before I can write a compelling argument, I have to learn what the law says. When it doesn't favor the position we're taking, I have to find a way to make it cut in my favor. This takes some serious strategizing. And it can take a lot of my time.
I really cherish weekends. I opted to be a public sector litigator to get good training, but after forsaking the public sector for the private, I decided to make a trade-off. I wanted to go to a firm with a sophisticated practice, where my legal writing wouldn't consist of using the "Find and Replace" function to mark up an earlier memo and appropriate it for a new, virtually-identical case. But I also wanted to go somewhere where I wouldn't be tethered to a Blackberry. The downside of going to a small firm is that I have a salary that, while more than adequate to cover my expenses at present, is now less than half of what first-year associates are making at large "white shoe" law firms.
The upside of working at a litigation boutique, rather than at a larger shop, has always been that I have ample down time. I suppose that's a relative term. At my brother-in-law's wedding just one week ago, people were shocked and aghast to hear that I'm frequently at work until 7:15 p.m., and that even when I get home at 8 p.m. or thereabouts, I have yet to work out, cook, or eat dinner, to say nothing about relaxing. Still, I manage to cook dinner for the Mister (or he for me) about 50% of the time -- not bad for someone keeping my hours -- and I regularly make it to the gym at least two-to-three times per week. At a big firm, these options would likely not be available to me.
But, on weekends like this one, where to procrastinate means risking not only the wrath of my bosses, but also blowing a court deadline, I can't bring myself to ignore looming assignments. It's the right thing to do to buckle down and get the work done.
My sister has always had the "stick-to-it-ivness" to get her work done when it's called for. So does the Mister. Growing up, my motto was "why do today what you can do at 2 a.m. before the project is due?" Rarely suffering any consequences from this approach -- I got As throughout high school, and was accepted into two Ivy League institutions -- I'm surprised that I ever learned to start projects before the eleventh hour.
Maybe it's called growing up. Maybe I've developed a conscience. Whatever the reason, I can't justify to myself any longer the sense in putting off until tomorrow (or at least until later on tonight) what must be done today. I'm thirty-one, so I suppose it's about time. It's just something that surprises me, since it snuck up on me. I don't remember waking up one morning and feeling any different, it's just the case that now, if there is work to do, I know I'll work until after dark, after the gym is closed, over the weekend, whatever it takes, to get a job done.
I'm proud of myself for making this change. I know that to do otherwise would leave my colleagues in the lurch. And I owe them more than that. But it's more than that. They haven't bought my loyalty (even though I'm earning more than I ever have in my life), and it's not the fear of getting let go that motivates me either. I just know that, when my name gets signed to a court document, I want to be proud of what I've written, certain that I gave it my best shot. Truth be told, I don't just work hard these days because most of the work I produce becomes a matter of public record when filed with the Courts. I just want to know that I didn't half-ass it.
So when I go to bed tonight, I may not be up to date on Ugly Betty, and I may not have finished watching The Illusionist on DVD yet, but at least I'll know that I can walk into the office tomorrow confident that I've
done what I was supposed to do.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Life in Six-Minute Increments
A practicing attorney since 2001, I have spent the better part of my career billing my time. I'm on the clock from the moment I walk into my office until day's end. If my bosses have reason to call me at home (they were gracious enough to let me be on my honeymoon, but they did call me with work-related questions and assignments, amongst other times, two days before my wedding, the day my grandfather died (three times), and two hours after I got out of surgery this past Thursday), then I keep billing even though I'm not at my desk or in court.
The life of a litigation associate requires an continued effort to bill as much as possible (albeit reasonably). Our boss' salaries, and, to a slightly lesser extent, our own, depend on attributing to various clients the time we spend performing tasks that further their causes. We don't work for free. While some time may be discounted or written off, and other bills will go uncollected, for the most part, the harder we work, the more our firms thrive.
I bill in fractions of an hour. One-tenth of an hour is the smallest amount I can bill. That means six-minute blocks.
(I shudder to think how much time I could bill if I were focusing on the legal memorandum I have to get out tomorrow, rather than penning this post. But -- damn it -- it's 8:44pm, and I want some time for myself. In truth, I suppose the mental break will allow me to return to the brief somewhat refreshed. That said, I doubt it'd be a justifiable allocation of time.)
Even bathroom breaks and lunch breaks have to be weighed against how much time we want to spend in the office.
In theory, the associate who bills the most is the biggest asset to the firm. Of course, that could mean a penalty for being too efficient: if it takes you only six hours to do what it'd take your colleagues ten hours to do, then unless your time is billed out at a higher rate, the result is that you have brought in less revenue than your colleague.
The thing is...
I always swore I was the type of person who worked to live, rather than vice-versa. And it's now 8:49pm, and I'm still at the office. With miles to go before I sleep (to sleep, perchance to dream). I'll be up before 8, and at work before 9:30, with plans to do it all over again tomorrow. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It's not that my efforts go unrecognized. I've held my job for over 22.5 months now. I've gotten two raises, and, often enough, have praise heaped on me. My bosses seem to take my input seriously. I get to go to court. I take depositions. I question witnesses in major proceedings. I'm developing skills and, I suppose, a valuable base of knowledge.
But something has got to give. I'm not the hardest working associate out there, and I'm certainly not the highest compensated. Even so? I'm making more than I ever have in my career, and I'm working harder. It's nearly always dark when I head for home.
I don't have any children yet. I just come home to an apartment with my husband and two cats (more on them later). No one really depends on me to do much in terms of domestic upkeep. If I sleep in, I just forego a shampoo, and no one is any the worse for it. If I don't feel like cooking, I order takeout, and life goes on. Groceries can be ordered online, as can pharmaceuticals and other household supplies -- I even outsource my laundry (no, I don't just mean dry cleaning).
So what suffers? My health, for one. I've gained a bunch of weight -- only small amounts, over time, but the cumulative effect is not a happy thing. I don't make it to the gym nearly as much as I'd like; considering what I pay in membership fees, I'd be better off paying a body-double to pose as me. And my relationship with the Mister.
When you're constantly exhausted, when you give the best of yourself, the hours when you're most awake, and when you're at your most coherent and productive, what do you have left over for the person you love best? It's amazing: perhaps, when you factor in hours spent sleeping side by side, he gets more face-time with me than anyone else. But when you discount it? How many six-minute increments does he get?
I met the Mister later in life. I was already an erstwhile Mrs. -- someone's discarded baggage. He didn't get to enjoy me, and I didn't get to give to him what I could have given, what I did give, when I was new, when I was one of "those innocent young maidens unicorns always come to," as Molly Grue once said. Don't get me wrong -- I'm still plenty scrappy and not without moxie -- but I used to have energy. And now I don't -- at least not like I did before. And it's only going to get worse.
You have to wonder: it's the work, and the billing for it, that keeps money in my bank account, food on my table, and a roof over my head. I can't just quit it. But it's the Mister, and the time I spend with him, that keeps me alive. How am I supposed to strike a balance?
The life of a litigation associate requires an continued effort to bill as much as possible (albeit reasonably). Our boss' salaries, and, to a slightly lesser extent, our own, depend on attributing to various clients the time we spend performing tasks that further their causes. We don't work for free. While some time may be discounted or written off, and other bills will go uncollected, for the most part, the harder we work, the more our firms thrive.
I bill in fractions of an hour. One-tenth of an hour is the smallest amount I can bill. That means six-minute blocks.
(I shudder to think how much time I could bill if I were focusing on the legal memorandum I have to get out tomorrow, rather than penning this post. But -- damn it -- it's 8:44pm, and I want some time for myself. In truth, I suppose the mental break will allow me to return to the brief somewhat refreshed. That said, I doubt it'd be a justifiable allocation of time.)
Even bathroom breaks and lunch breaks have to be weighed against how much time we want to spend in the office.
In theory, the associate who bills the most is the biggest asset to the firm. Of course, that could mean a penalty for being too efficient: if it takes you only six hours to do what it'd take your colleagues ten hours to do, then unless your time is billed out at a higher rate, the result is that you have brought in less revenue than your colleague.
The thing is...
I always swore I was the type of person who worked to live, rather than vice-versa. And it's now 8:49pm, and I'm still at the office. With miles to go before I sleep (to sleep, perchance to dream). I'll be up before 8, and at work before 9:30, with plans to do it all over again tomorrow. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It's not that my efforts go unrecognized. I've held my job for over 22.5 months now. I've gotten two raises, and, often enough, have praise heaped on me. My bosses seem to take my input seriously. I get to go to court. I take depositions. I question witnesses in major proceedings. I'm developing skills and, I suppose, a valuable base of knowledge.
But something has got to give. I'm not the hardest working associate out there, and I'm certainly not the highest compensated. Even so? I'm making more than I ever have in my career, and I'm working harder. It's nearly always dark when I head for home.
I don't have any children yet. I just come home to an apartment with my husband and two cats (more on them later). No one really depends on me to do much in terms of domestic upkeep. If I sleep in, I just forego a shampoo, and no one is any the worse for it. If I don't feel like cooking, I order takeout, and life goes on. Groceries can be ordered online, as can pharmaceuticals and other household supplies -- I even outsource my laundry (no, I don't just mean dry cleaning).
So what suffers? My health, for one. I've gained a bunch of weight -- only small amounts, over time, but the cumulative effect is not a happy thing. I don't make it to the gym nearly as much as I'd like; considering what I pay in membership fees, I'd be better off paying a body-double to pose as me. And my relationship with the Mister.
When you're constantly exhausted, when you give the best of yourself, the hours when you're most awake, and when you're at your most coherent and productive, what do you have left over for the person you love best? It's amazing: perhaps, when you factor in hours spent sleeping side by side, he gets more face-time with me than anyone else. But when you discount it? How many six-minute increments does he get?
I met the Mister later in life. I was already an erstwhile Mrs. -- someone's discarded baggage. He didn't get to enjoy me, and I didn't get to give to him what I could have given, what I did give, when I was new, when I was one of "those innocent young maidens unicorns always come to," as Molly Grue once said. Don't get me wrong -- I'm still plenty scrappy and not without moxie -- but I used to have energy. And now I don't -- at least not like I did before. And it's only going to get worse.
You have to wonder: it's the work, and the billing for it, that keeps money in my bank account, food on my table, and a roof over my head. I can't just quit it. But it's the Mister, and the time I spend with him, that keeps me alive. How am I supposed to strike a balance?
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