The whole problem of how best to help your parents in retirement seems particularly knotty to me. To take your example, ogged, suppose you had the extra cash to supplement your mother's retirement income. You would have to somehow make a determination of how much you yourself deserve, which would invite, I think, a lot of stress and second-guessing.
don't go to law school. write a best-selling novel and/or sell a screenplay already. just print out your blog entries, make them dialogue between two or three characters, go to the bank.
Well, if law school's not the answer, think of all the areas where you could cut back your budget. For instance, why subscribe to eight porn sites when just one will do the job? I mean, you know your budget better than I do, obviously, but that would be a place to start.
It's too bad Iran is no fun to go back to. See, if she were Irish, she could go back to where she grew up and sponge off the state in pleasant green surroundings where everyone's nice to the old. This was my dad's retirement plan, which unfortunately he never got to realize.
Between my wife and me, we have 2-3 parents with only limited ability to support themselves in retirement. We're thinking very large house in a run down neighborhood so we have rooms to stick them all. Of course, we do have brothers and sisters so they won't all live with us. Also, none of them are terribly compatible with each other, since they're all divorced and a bit difficult.
Actually, it's too bad I never bought a house in Baton Rouge. My gf's boss, a (nice) restaurant manager, built a house in a posh part of BR, and spent a fortune on it. (about $500,000, maybe not a fortune to bandarlog folk, but a hecukvalotta money down here). Of course, to afford that, he borrowed. He just finished it a few weeks ago. Now he's selling it, maybe for twice that.
#2: I think Kotsko's point is a good one. It's not as if it's too late, per se. I know a fair number of people who've switched careers in their thirties and ended up making good coin. The problem is that there's no magic spell that allows you to escape the road to that coin; e.g., you could make a very good salary as a lawyer, but you'd have to be a lawyer, and work all the hours and do all the drudge work that they do early in their careers. I think it's often the second half that's the real kicker for most people. And if you're unwilling to do that, then, no, three more years of debt doesn't make much sense.
See, if she were Irish, she could go back to where she grew up and sponge off the state in pleasant green surroundings where everyone's nice to the old
The city's probably different. Where my family is from, in the countryside, everyone is slow and boring, and the slowness and boringness of the elderly is not so noticeable.
You could retire her to Indonesia, which also begins with 'I', and is hot 'n' steamy. Cheap, too. It has a special Retirement Visa, which requires that one rent a villa and employ a maid.
Geez, can't you just let me be amusing? My uncle just went back on a policeman's pension and is doing fine. Thriving, even. The point is you have family around for added support (and free meals!), there's a sense of community, lots of services are subsidized, and there's not that much to do anyway, which always helps the pocketbook.
Yeah, then she can take over the chore of hectoring him about getting married. Plus she can wash his clothes and he can mow the lawn. It works out perfectly well.
If it makes you feel any better regarding the tradeoffs and choices that you made, I will probably be getting a couple of hours of sleep a night until the end of next week as a result of the project that I am on. When I think about what I have to do from now until the deadline on my project, I feel a distinctly nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach and there's a good chance that I won't be around the majority of the time when my kid is growing up. Oh well. At least my 401K is doing well.
Ogged, here's what you do, then. Stay at your job another year or two, but use your copious free time to think of ways to better your income following your imminent departure. Then, after I'm granted an MA, you leave for your greener pa$tures and I'll take over your job—I'll move if need be.
AFAIK Tripp, strictly housework and light mockery. There's probably another subclause in the visa specifying a minimum weekly sum to be spent on prostitutes and/or rent-boys.
Thanks. As long as there is no maximum I think I'm okay.
And, ogged, take heart my man! It only takes one. Waiting makes you special, and it will be all the more special when love comes to you. You are a great guy, all you have to do is be a tad more aggresive.
Re: wolfson's comment: If it makes you feel better, some friends and I were discussing the dating-someone-who-lives-with-their-parent(s) issue when out for drinks a while back and the consensus was that it was not an immediate dealbreaker. If a guy is living with his parents because the parents need assistance and he his helping to take care of them, that's acceptable. If he's in grad school or is saving money for something legitimate (downpayment for a house), that's marginally acceptable but there had better be a clear timeline for moving out. If he's living with them because he's a man-child who just doesn't want to do his own laundry/cooking or is saving money for something stupid (expensive car), well, that is a dealbreaker.
So, if your mother does end up moving in with you, hope of ever resetting your TiVo is not lost. However, landing a woman will be a bit more difficult because we will assume that single man + mother = gay. You'd better not own any cats.
49 - Yes, I understand. Just confirming to all that women do indeed understand that distinction and wouldn't penalize a potential date for it. Might actually get you bonus points, even.
Cripes, ogged. This is a gimmee. Just ask yourself WWSD (What would Sistani Do) if confronted with a female relation whose financial future concerned him. The answer is clear: marry her off.
Hmmm...marrying her off... Would that be a relief because Ogged wouldn't have to worry about her retirement or would Mom Ogged getting married before him be the ultimate pwn?
No one bothered to ask, re: 16, how cw and his wife do anything (at the mineshaft) with at least two parents between the two of them?
Also, in 16, is he the manager of a nice restaurant or a nice person who also happens to be a restaurant manager?
Finally, if anyone figures out how to avoid ever being a first and second year law firm associate, and then move right into the more interesting later work, please let me know. I'm quite prepared to be a big firm summer associate, but the thought of being a bif firm first year associate is pretty far from thrilling to me. I think there must be some strategy whereby one works somewhere that firms see as being as qualification building as being a first and second year associate, but involves doing more interesting work. I'm sure this strategy involves being paid less to do more interesting stuff, but if it actually is more interesting...well, you see where I'm going.
To be honest, if you really, really don't want to be a junior associate in a large firm, you probably don't want to be a midlevel associate in a large firm. It's not that much of a difference. If there were some other kind of employer where you would rather be working, you should probably just do that instead.
wd: a lot of people do clerkships thinking that it gets them out of the grunt work, but it largely doesn't, from what I've seen. But you do start out with the pay of a 2nd or 3rd year, post clerkship, at most firms. But you are still stuck doing doc review -- many of the post clerks do more of it than I do.
But then I applied for one myself. I just need the break, and I don't care how it advances me.
The thing to remember is that it isn't just first and second year that suck, from what I can tell. It pretty much always sucks. One way that people cope is to constantly weave in and out. Clerk for a year, then work for a couple years in a firm, then go to the state's attorney's office, then come back, try to make partner.
I don't think it's for me, personally, but that's one way people do it.
I'm doing my best to keep an open mind going into this summer, especially because the people interviewing me are either constantly lying to me, skilled at self-deception, or fairly happy with their work (they could just be the tiny happy subset which gets selected to conduct interviews). I'm just trying to understand what my options are rather than assuming there's a set career path I have to follow. Thanks for the advice.
I don't mean to be too negative -- lots of people stick around at these places, and they can be great. Whether they are lying to you or not -- who cares, for now? You can't really tell one way or the other. Enjoy next summer. As they go, these jobs aren't so bad, and I'm pretty lucky in a lot of ways, and a bastard for complaining.
Here's the challenge. If you want to be a big firm partner, you pretty much need to have been a big firm associate, so being a first year at a big firm is almost unavoidable if that's the path you want. What's worse, for many other jobs--in-house counsel, high-end small firms etc.--employers, rightly or wrongly, hire almost exclusively from the pool of big firm associates. There are many other paths in the law, and you should consider them. However, if you choose them, do so knowing that you may cut off options later on. Part of the reason many people end up going to big firms is that it keeps their options open for later.
There is a partial exception to the above. If you have the grades and clerkships, you might be able to get a job as an Assistant US Attorney or something similar. Most big firms like former AUSAs.
I would add that being a junior associate at a big firm is like being a 1-L. There is a whole mythology developed around how much it sucks. I worked crushingly long hours as a new associate at a big firm, but I learned a vast amount about being a litigator (including by doing things like document review) and some of it was fun and exciting. Do not believe all the stories you hear.
It's sad for leonard, but isn't he a zen monk anyway? This sort of thing is always happening to them. Only usually it's their teachers, burning down their huts and so forth.
I thought working at a firm might be ok (mostly, I thought the money might be nice), so I did the on-campus interviewing program. Turns out my misanthropy has not spared about 95% of the lawyers in this city. Jesus Christ. Now I'm back to my original plan of being poor but hopefully happy.
I'm doing some clemency work for an attorney right now who shares an office with 3 other women - it is the most laid-back environment I've ever seen. They're on the north side in a residential-ish area, by the north branch of the river, there is an old dog that lays around the office, and she does real estate closings and wills occasionally to get by so she can do the public interest stuff that she loves.
Not only have I realized I dont want to work at a firm, I think they've realized they don't want me either. So many interviewers looked at my resume and said "are you sure you want to work at a firm?"
didn't LizardBreath avoid that? Not that she seems happy in her job. Where the hell is she, anyway?
Nope, suffered through it. (Out of town for the weekend.)
And there are all sorts of career tracks that let you get to the interesting stuff earlier -- prosecutor, either federal or state, public defender, working for a very small firm -- the problem is that pretty much all of them except federal prosecutor close down your other options for later practice in the way Ideal described above.
Well, I guess if you're amazingly brilliant you can get a staff job in the appellate division of DOJ. I think I know somebody who did that.
I would think that might be a good way to transfer into a big firm job later. If you could score a job in the solicitor general's office (of a future admin), I bet that you could get anyjob you wanted after that.
It's not too late to go to law school.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:28 AM
Because taking three years to rack up more debt will solve all my problems.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:33 AM
The whole problem of how best to help your parents in retirement seems particularly knotty to me. To take your example, ogged, suppose you had the extra cash to supplement your mother's retirement income. You would have to somehow make a determination of how much you yourself deserve, which would invite, I think, a lot of stress and second-guessing.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:35 AM
This is why we need socialism.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:35 AM
Right. Particularly knotty if one is married, and has children.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:38 AM
Of course I meant to say, "This is why we need ice cream socials". Stand down, J. Edgar.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:41 AM
Right. Particularly knotty if one is married, and has children.
From the previous post, it doesn't sound like that's going to be an issue.
Posted by Kieran | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:45 AM
don't go to law school. write a best-selling novel and/or sell a screenplay already. just print out your blog entries, make them dialogue between two or three characters, go to the bank.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:47 AM
I'm sorry, I seem to have walked into a Fidelity commercial.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:48 AM
It's all fun and games until your mom is eating cat food, SP.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:49 AM
Well, if law school's not the answer, think of all the areas where you could cut back your budget. For instance, why subscribe to eight porn sites when just one will do the job? I mean, you know your budget better than I do, obviously, but that would be a place to start.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:49 AM
"what are you going to do with that?" if made in reference to what I think it is, is one of the more obnoxious questions that can be asked.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:49 AM
But text, not everyone's seen a talking emo schlong before.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:54 AM
It's too bad Iran is no fun to go back to. See, if she were Irish, she could go back to where she grew up and sponge off the state in pleasant green surroundings where everyone's nice to the old. This was my dad's retirement plan, which unfortunately he never got to realize.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:57 AM
It's my mom's first choice, too. She's just not sure that, as you point out, she'd be able to stand Iran now.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 10:59 AM
Between my wife and me, we have 2-3 parents with only limited ability to support themselves in retirement. We're thinking very large house in a run down neighborhood so we have rooms to stick them all. Of course, we do have brothers and sisters so they won't all live with us. Also, none of them are terribly compatible with each other, since they're all divorced and a bit difficult.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 11:07 AM
I hear housing is hot right now.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 11:07 AM
Actually, it's too bad I never bought a house in Baton Rouge. My gf's boss, a (nice) restaurant manager, built a house in a posh part of BR, and spent a fortune on it. (about $500,000, maybe not a fortune to bandarlog folk, but a hecukvalotta money down here). Of course, to afford that, he borrowed. He just finished it a few weeks ago. Now he's selling it, maybe for twice that.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 11:12 AM
13: the thing to do is wait and see.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 11:14 AM
I agree on general principle, but this I think would be hard to take in without saying something foolish.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 11:25 AM
#2: I think Kotsko's point is a good one. It's not as if it's too late, per se. I know a fair number of people who've switched careers in their thirties and ended up making good coin. The problem is that there's no magic spell that allows you to escape the road to that coin; e.g., you could make a very good salary as a lawyer, but you'd have to be a lawyer, and work all the hours and do all the drudge work that they do early in their careers. I think it's often the second half that's the real kicker for most people. And if you're unwilling to do that, then, no, three more years of debt doesn't make much sense.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 11:32 AM
if you're already taking it in, the question is superfluous, isn't it?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:06 PM
Unless asked during one of those mildly uncomfortable intervals.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:13 PM
I can see how the intervals might be uncomfortable, but not mild.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:17 PM
See, if she were Irish, she could go back to where she grew up and sponge off the state in pleasant green surroundings where everyone's nice to the old
You're kidding, right?
Posted by billyfrombelfast | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:31 PM
The city's probably different. Where my family is from, in the countryside, everyone is slow and boring, and the slowness and boringness of the elderly is not so noticeable.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:35 PM
I'm fairly sure state pensions can't support anyone in rip-off Ireland, nice neighbours or no . . . .
Posted by billyfrombelfast | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:47 PM
Is there no schoolteacher pension to help out?
Otherwise it sounds like the situation my single uncle solved by moving in with his mother for the last 20 years of her life.
Surprisingly it didn't seem to hurt his dating any.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:48 PM
You could retire her to Indonesia, which also begins with 'I', and is hot 'n' steamy. Cheap, too. It has a special Retirement Visa, which requires that one rent a villa and employ a maid.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:49 PM
Geez, can't you just let me be amusing? My uncle just went back on a policeman's pension and is doing fine. Thriving, even. The point is you have family around for added support (and free meals!), there's a sense of community, lots of services are subsidized, and there's not that much to do anyway, which always helps the pocketbook.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 12:59 PM
I hope you all saw Mark Danner's commencement address with the same title as this post, which appeared in the NYRoB and which you can see here.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 1:17 PM
Hey, Anthony, what are the duties of the "maid?"
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 1:42 PM
So ogged's mom will move in with him, big deal.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:21 PM
Yeah, then she can take over the chore of hectoring him about getting married. Plus she can wash his clothes and he can mow the lawn. It works out perfectly well.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:38 PM
Even money says she'll bring women home to meet him.
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:41 PM
she can take over the chore of hectoring him
What do you mean, "take over?" Believe me, you're all minor league compared to my mother when it comes to hectoring me.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:45 PM
If it makes you feel any better regarding the tradeoffs and choices that you made, I will probably be getting a couple of hours of sleep a night until the end of next week as a result of the project that I am on. When I think about what I have to do from now until the deadline on my project, I feel a distinctly nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach and there's a good chance that I won't be around the majority of the time when my kid is growing up. Oh well. At least my 401K is doing well.
Posted by D | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:50 PM
Ogged, here's what you do, then. Stay at your job another year or two, but use your copious free time to think of ways to better your income following your imminent departure. Then, after I'm granted an MA, you leave for your greener pa$tures and I'll take over your job—I'll move if need be.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:55 PM
ogged,
Believe me, you're all minor league compared to my mother when it comes to hectoring me.
Oh. And you have difficulty relating to women? Imagine that (shuffles feet and whistles quietly).
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:55 PM
there's a good chance that I won't be around the majority of the time when my kid is growing up
This is a real concern, you're right. You totally should have moved to Vietnam to become a male model, you know.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:55 PM
- what are the duties of the "maid?"
AFAIK Tripp, strictly housework and light mockery. There's probably another subclause in the visa specifying a minimum weekly sum to be spent on prostitutes and/or rent-boys.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:58 PM
And you have difficulty relating to women?
Ok, now I've just become a blank screen for the projection of all possible male failings. Let's stick to the text here.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 2:59 PM
Anthony,
Thanks. As long as there is no maximum I think I'm okay.
And, ogged, take heart my man! It only takes one. Waiting makes you special, and it will be all the more special when love comes to you. You are a great guy, all you have to do is be a tad more aggresive.
Are you feeling any better?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:02 PM
a blank screen for the projection of all possible male failings
Another candidate for blog motto.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:02 PM
Re: wolfson's comment: If it makes you feel better, some friends and I were discussing the dating-someone-who-lives-with-their-parent(s) issue when out for drinks a while back and the consensus was that it was not an immediate dealbreaker. If a guy is living with his parents because the parents need assistance and he his helping to take care of them, that's acceptable. If he's in grad school or is saving money for something legitimate (downpayment for a house), that's marginally acceptable but there had better be a clear timeline for moving out. If he's living with them because he's a man-child who just doesn't want to do his own laundry/cooking or is saving money for something stupid (expensive car), well, that is a dealbreaker.
So, if your mother does end up moving in with you, hope of ever resetting your TiVo is not lost. However, landing a woman will be a bit more difficult because we will assume that single man + mother = gay. You'd better not own any cats.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:05 PM
For a while there I thought you meant the etiquette of dating someone who lives with your parents.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:09 PM
Look people, my mother is not moving in with me. I won't even live in the same city, barring something unarguably pressing.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:09 PM
I still can change my career path you know. I just don't think I could do the UNDERWEAR modeling is all.
Posted by D | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:09 PM
Here's the thing: ogged wouldn't be living with his mom. His mom would be living with him. Completely different.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:09 PM
49 - Yes, I understand. Just confirming to all that women do indeed understand that distinction and wouldn't penalize a potential date for it. Might actually get you bonus points, even.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:13 PM
There's no reason you can't moonlight, D.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:17 PM
Cripes, ogged. This is a gimmee. Just ask yourself WWSD (What would Sistani Do) if confronted with a female relation whose financial future concerned him. The answer is clear: marry her off.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:20 PM
Hmmm...marrying her off... Would that be a relief because Ogged wouldn't have to worry about her retirement or would Mom Ogged getting married before him be the ultimate pwn?
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:26 PM
No one bothered to ask, re: 16, how cw and his wife do anything (at the mineshaft) with at least two parents between the two of them?
Also, in 16, is he the manager of a nice restaurant or a nice person who also happens to be a restaurant manager?
Finally, if anyone figures out how to avoid ever being a first and second year law firm associate, and then move right into the more interesting later work, please let me know. I'm quite prepared to be a big firm summer associate, but the thought of being a bif firm first year associate is pretty far from thrilling to me. I think there must be some strategy whereby one works somewhere that firms see as being as qualification building as being a first and second year associate, but involves doing more interesting work. I'm sure this strategy involves being paid less to do more interesting stuff, but if it actually is more interesting...well, you see where I'm going.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:38 PM
You could work for environmental defense. The environment needs a lot of defending these days, you know.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 3:41 PM
w/d: didn't LizardBreath avoid that? Not that she seems happy in her job. Where the hell is she, anyway?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 4:20 PM
To be honest, if you really, really don't want to be a junior associate in a large firm, you probably don't want to be a midlevel associate in a large firm. It's not that much of a difference. If there were some other kind of employer where you would rather be working, you should probably just do that instead.
Posted by Duvall | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 4:31 PM
wd: a lot of people do clerkships thinking that it gets them out of the grunt work, but it largely doesn't, from what I've seen. But you do start out with the pay of a 2nd or 3rd year, post clerkship, at most firms. But you are still stuck doing doc review -- many of the post clerks do more of it than I do.
But then I applied for one myself. I just need the break, and I don't care how it advances me.
The thing to remember is that it isn't just first and second year that suck, from what I can tell. It pretty much always sucks. One way that people cope is to constantly weave in and out. Clerk for a year, then work for a couple years in a firm, then go to the state's attorney's office, then come back, try to make partner.
I don't think it's for me, personally, but that's one way people do it.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 4:50 PM
what Duvall said. Unless the idea of running document production really excites you.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 4:51 PM
I'm doing my best to keep an open mind going into this summer, especially because the people interviewing me are either constantly lying to me, skilled at self-deception, or fairly happy with their work (they could just be the tiny happy subset which gets selected to conduct interviews). I'm just trying to understand what my options are rather than assuming there's a set career path I have to follow. Thanks for the advice.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 4:59 PM
I don't mean to be too negative -- lots of people stick around at these places, and they can be great. Whether they are lying to you or not -- who cares, for now? You can't really tell one way or the other. Enjoy next summer. As they go, these jobs aren't so bad, and I'm pretty lucky in a lot of ways, and a bastard for complaining.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 5:03 PM
another thing people do is leave to work as corporate counsel for a firm's client, then come back. Or stay in-house, if they prefer it.
don't let me or anyone else scare you. I have to keep a happy face through most of the day, and when I get a chance to bitch anonymously, I take it.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 5:07 PM
I hear there's a lot of money in accounting.
Leonard Cohen just went the Billy Joel route, being fleezed by trusted advisers. 70 y.o. and starting from scratch.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 6:55 PM
w/d
Here's the challenge. If you want to be a big firm partner, you pretty much need to have been a big firm associate, so being a first year at a big firm is almost unavoidable if that's the path you want. What's worse, for many other jobs--in-house counsel, high-end small firms etc.--employers, rightly or wrongly, hire almost exclusively from the pool of big firm associates. There are many other paths in the law, and you should consider them. However, if you choose them, do so knowing that you may cut off options later on. Part of the reason many people end up going to big firms is that it keeps their options open for later.
There is a partial exception to the above. If you have the grades and clerkships, you might be able to get a job as an Assistant US Attorney or something similar. Most big firms like former AUSAs.
I would add that being a junior associate at a big firm is like being a 1-L. There is a whole mythology developed around how much it sucks. I worked crushingly long hours as a new associate at a big firm, but I learned a vast amount about being a litigator (including by doing things like document review) and some of it was fun and exciting. Do not believe all the stories you hear.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 7:29 PM
It's sad for leonard, but isn't he a zen monk anyway? This sort of thing is always happening to them. Only usually it's their teachers, burning down their huts and so forth.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-20-05 9:11 PM
The person who fleeced Cohen, or one of them, was a tantric monk. Yay Tibet!
Perhaps ogged should go into money management in the music biz.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-21-05 5:31 AM
I thought working at a firm might be ok (mostly, I thought the money might be nice), so I did the on-campus interviewing program. Turns out my misanthropy has not spared about 95% of the lawyers in this city. Jesus Christ. Now I'm back to my original plan of being poor but hopefully happy.
I'm doing some clemency work for an attorney right now who shares an office with 3 other women - it is the most laid-back environment I've ever seen. They're on the north side in a residential-ish area, by the north branch of the river, there is an old dog that lays around the office, and she does real estate closings and wills occasionally to get by so she can do the public interest stuff that she loves.
Not only have I realized I dont want to work at a firm, I think they've realized they don't want me either. So many interviewers looked at my resume and said "are you sure you want to work at a firm?"
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 09-21-05 7:58 AM
didn't LizardBreath avoid that? Not that she seems happy in her job. Where the hell is she, anyway?
Nope, suffered through it. (Out of town for the weekend.)
And there are all sorts of career tracks that let you get to the interesting stuff earlier -- prosecutor, either federal or state, public defender, working for a very small firm -- the problem is that pretty much all of them except federal prosecutor close down your other options for later practice in the way Ideal described above.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-21-05 8:06 AM
Thanks for the advice everybody.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-21-05 10:11 AM
Well, I guess if you're amazingly brilliant you can get a staff job in the appellate division of DOJ. I think I know somebody who did that.
I would think that might be a good way to transfer into a big firm job later. If you could score a job in the solicitor general's office (of a future admin), I bet that you could get anyjob you wanted after that.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 09-21-05 11:00 AM