One Step to Career Security

Lawyers care about free will. Just not their own.

Mens rea matters. Stunning securities suits are lost for want of scienter. What does the reasonable person think? Would an objective observer buy the stock after that earnings report? Who knew what when, and what did they choose to do with the understanding?

If it is good enough for your clients, it is good enough for you.

“But I do! I have all sorts of career plans.”

Bullshit. If you have made your plans solely on the basis of what you have heard from mentors, partners, senior associates, and other (authority) figures within your firm–and especially as part of the “annual review” process–then you don’t have a career plan by any sane definition.

That isn’t a plan, that’s an investment based on a tip you got through the fax machine. The reason is very simple, and you–any lawyer–should know better: you don’t have all of the relevant facts.

This isn’t rocket science, this is IRAC. How leveraged is your firm? What is the spread in partner compensation between the “haves” and the “have nots”? How many departing associates left under their own power, versus being pushed out? What percentage of associates in any given class make partner? Do you have a “sherpa” to go to bat for you? Do you really, or are you letting flattery and congeniality suffice as evidence?

Most of these facts, some of the most relevant to your future career, are things you will never find out or cannot know.

If you wrote an answer on the bar exam based on these facts, you would get a justifiable zero for the essay.

The easiest thing to do is not to care and to assume you already know what you need to know. It is so simple to push forward on the path defined for you. And believe me, your firm undoubtedly has a plan for you. (Do you know what it is? Does it coincide with what you think your plan is?) It is child’s play to avoid noticing the dangerously partial set of facts in front of you.

The one step you can take to improve your position is to educate yourself, so your next steps can be made deliberately, under your own power.

Do not assume you will be the “exception” to the rule that only 10% of an associate class makes it to partnership. Do not assume that everything will get better even if you do make partner. Do not assume your firm is telling you everything you need to know about its own health. Do not assume that gripe blogs or the beloved Above the Law understand the reasons that you got into law.

If you had a client making such blind assumptions, wouldn’t you be ethically bound to smack them (figuratively speaking)?

Whether you stay in a firm or not, the single step that will make the process worthwhile and valuable is to be able to make your decisions under your own power from a reasonably informed state. Get there, and anything that happens after that is cake.

What is the information you most wish you had about your situation? What facts do you need to know in order to answer this question fully? Let me know in the comments, and maybe we can think of a way to discover them.

Random Act of Kindness: Chocolate

It isn’t Administrative Assistant’s Day, or Christmas.

Who cares?

There is no way you are an associate at a BigLaw firm and you have not benefitted from someone there cutting you some slack. And I don’t mean partners: I mean other associates, administrative assistants, legal assistants, trainers, paralegals, HR folks, library folks, and so on.

Look inside yourself and ask: Do I have the slightest doubt that what I did was the right choice?

Count to 10.

Twice.

Now answer the question again, and this time be brutally honest. Write down the answer if you have to.

If the answer is yes, that even the slightest doubt exists, then do this: make someone else’s day by sending them chocolate. Anonymously if you want.

I’ve even picked one out for you. Only $25, and it is undeniably memorable.

Here is the place to go: Mini Exotic Candy Bar Library.

(I am not affiliated in any way with Vosges Chocolates. All I know is that they are magical. And that is all I need to know.)

Making someone else’s day in a completely unexpected way is within your power. And doing something like that feels undeniably good. It won’t answer your questions, or resolve any existential dilemmas. It just feels really good for everyone involved.

And let’s be brutally frank: if doing that is within your power, why would you not?

The Savings Account You Were Never Told About

Becoming an associate in BigLaw is a total rush. Everyone wants you on their list: investment advisors, real estate developers, “exclusive” clubs and dating services. The reason is pretty obvious: your newfound money and the social prestige that supposedly goes with being a lawyer. (Yeah, people joke, but they still think you’re the shit.) Some even mean well, like the fresh-scrubbed guys selling term life insurance, or, um, “art.”

None of them tell you about the savings account that matters most.

More important than any of the accounts you’re setting up, this one earns interest immediately, and isn’t prone to inflation risk. The APY is vastly higher than 10%. (Frankly, in my experience, over 103%, but that might just be me.)

Deposits in this account accrue interest that allows you to leverage much more than the account itself is worth. Hell, you can move mountains.

By now you’re wise to the fact that I’m not talking about any real investment product. If I were, I would have broken several laws by now.

Nobody ever tells you about the return on deposits you make in your psychic savings account, and what it will buy you down the road.

What the hell is a psychic savings account? It is an account of your time, and perhaps money as well, that has nothing to do with your job or even your family (the other side of the dreaded “work-life balance” equation, which is mostly ad-copy poppycock)–it is set aside solely for you.

The most important role this account plays is to give you time, space, and permission to lift out of your obligations and see if you are heading where you want to be heading. But all of that Steven-Covey, airy-fairy NewAge boomtwaddle doesn’t mean much if you never get around to it.

None of that career-building means dookus if you have no time for it–right now.

Start now. Go outside during a workday, for thirty minutes, and find three genuinely soul-pleasingly beautiful things–and one of them has to be an action, not an object. 

So how is this monetary as well? We’ll talk about that next. A guy’s gotta leave some suspense.

So tell me: How did you spend your thirty minutes, and what did you find?

Unrequited Respect Sucks: the “About” Post

I realized yesterday that unrequited respect just sucks. Giving deference and respect to an organization and not having it returned is a kick in the awkward parts. What galled me even more is that I hadn’t noticed it before.

I have worked for two very large law firms in a very large legal market, and follow the ebb and flow of the market with the eye of an unconvinced skeptic. Nevertheless, I do believe that law–even BigLaw–is the right path for some folks.

The worst problems arise for all of those folks who think it is the best path and end up wrong–either discovering it for themselves or having discovery served upon them by a layoff or other incident. Often this happens when one proceeds down the BigLaw path without seeing matters clearly.

My aim is to help people (probably mostly associates) in a few different categories:

• the panicked, who are just beginning to think this might not be right for them;
• the trapped, who have made the realization and are not sure how to get out;
• the parachuting, who are on their way out, whether by their own power or not; and
• the critically satisfied, who are on the right path, but want to be sure to approach it intentionally.

I am not aiming to produce a gripe-blog (although I do have my gripes). Several people have come up to me for advice specifically on how to handle this moment in an associate’s life, and I figured there is no reason not to share some of the thoughts I brought to the table.

So here you go.