Letting Go

A few weeks ago, I was catching up with “Howard” (the colleague I interviewed in episodes 3 and 4 of my podcast) After chatting about what’s new in both of our lives, the conversation inevitably turned to the subject that has bonded the two of us ever since we met at the bus stop on that first day of 1L year: the practice of law.  

We both have strong feelings about it. 

Back in law school, Howard was the smart one

I'm Still Here

The big picture

Wow, it’s truly depressing seeing my blog comments overrun by spam. Especially such bad spam. How is it possible that sex toys are out and psychics are in? I’ll never understand people.

Anyway, I don’t intend to abandon it. It’s just that my life has taken some interesting turns since we paid off our debt (including my massivelaw school loan). For one thing, we finally saved up enough for a down payment on a house (which means we’re officially on baby steps 4,5, and 6 of the Dave Ramsey plan) and bought one this past summer. Then I started taking some writing courses at night and trying to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life now that my law career/nightmare is over. I’m still working in a somewhat unchallenging position, but I got a big raise last year so for now it’s working for me. 

One of the most satisfying things that happened in this last year is

Podcast Episode 4: "Money, Get Away"

I know the feeling, man...

Apologies for my absence!  I'm still alive and kickin', and I offer you the final installment of my interview with Howard.  Enjoy.  Also, I talk about what I've been up to the past few weeks (saving money, finding holes in my shoes, etc.), and another encounter I had with a 0L [sigh...].

Podcast Episode 3: WWJD?

This week, I discuss the impact that declining law school enrollment has had on Catholic University's budget.  (Spoiler alert: they're going to continue feeding at the law school loan trough, but some art courses and such are on the chopping block).  Also, part 2 of my interview with Howard, a former law school classmate who is now working in a non-legal position.  Howard and I discuss his first lawyer gig, and why he got out.  And finally, a segment on

Podcast Episode 2: All Over But the Shouting

This week, I discuss my take on an LA Times article regarding the class action lawsuits that disgruntled grads have filed against a number of law schools.  I apologize for some indelicate language I used, but I was a bit worked up.  Also included is part 1 of my interview with "Howard," a former law school classmate of mine.  He recently transitioned to a non-legal position, and in the first part of the interview we discuss why he went

New Beginnings, a Podcast, and a Giveaway...

You may have noticed that I changed my blog name from Attorney to Temp to Legally Obligated.  I did this because I am no longer a temp, and I'm no longer just transitioning out of practicing law, but I still feel compelled to tell my story and to support other people who are deep in student loan debt.  So I thought Legally Obligated would be a more appropriate name.  Anyway, here is my first podcast!  (Scroll to the bottom to listen.)  Hopefully it will help me reach more people who are going through the same things I did.  I experienced some technical difficulties, but I think the next one will be smooth sailing.  So apologies for any volume level variations and such.

My first podcast includes my take on the U.S. News Law School rankings that were released last week, plus a story about an encounter I had with a woman who is considering going to law school, and some other

The Lonely Lawyer

A law school friend of mine (we'll call him "John") called me tonight, in need of some support.  He was feeling bummed out about not having a girlfriend, about his job (as a bankruptcy lawyer), and about his law school debt.

"I can't believe how stupid I was to drop computer engineering for a history major.  And going to law school was such a huge mistake.  But what else was I going to do with my worthless BA?"

"It's ok.  We all did stupid stuff when we were younger.  Just 'cause you dropped engineering back in college doesn't mean you can't go back into that field now."

"Yeah, but I'm afraid if I leave my law job, I may never be able to go back."

"What are you talking about?  Are they going to take away your law license if you try to be happy?"

Lawyers and Anxiety, Part 3: The Sunday Night Blues

Photo courtesy of stockfreeimages.com

I remember when I was practicing law, Sunday nights were the hardest.  Thinking about the coming work week would bring on my anxiety with a vengeance.  It would start working its way through my neck muscles right around the time Mad Men started.  I’d often get headaches from it.  I would also feel particularly glum and hopeless on Sunday nights.  

I didn’t realize that the Sunday Night Blues is a recognized psychological condition, but apparently it is.  Here’s a nice article with tips on beating the symptoms.

I like some of the author’s suggestions (podcasts and bubble baths seem to work wonders for me).  But I think Andrew Weil hits the nail on the head by emphasizing that if you cannot overcome the sadness you feel on Sunday nights, you might need to reevaluate what you are doing with your career and find work that’s better suited to your values.  Wise words indeed. 

Lawyers and Anxiety, Part 2: Let’s Talk About Sex

*** Warning:  This post contains some adult content. ***

Photo courtesy of stockfreeimages.com

I met my husband almost nine years ago, before law school (and well before law school debt).  At the beginning of our relationship, I was at the tail end of my college career and didn’t really have a care in the world. 

Sex was easy.  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights were spent out at the bars with friends, and then we’d stumble home after post-bar time pizza or burgers (“hangover sponges” as we called them).  Even drunk and full of greasy, toxic waste, we’d still find a way to get it on.  I recall one time, after an all day pub crawl, I was freezing cold when my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I got home, so I jumped into the shower with my clothes on.  The water warmed me up and – possibly feeling inspired by a foreign film I’d recently seen at the independent cinema near campus (was it the bathtub scene in The Dreamers?) – I jumped into bed, wet clothes still on, and we proceeded to have one of the hottest sexual encounters I can remember.  I recall different positions, scattered bottles of lube, and waking up wearing his tee-shirt and my high heels from the night before.   

Maybe Jumping into a Volcano Would Help

When I practiced law, I often fantasized about how I would quit my job. I found it comforting to live vicariously through movie characters, particularly when I felt like I was doing a life sentence in the bowels of hell, aka a small-to-midsize firm. Watching this scene from Joe Versus the Volcano helped quite a bit.  In a nutshell, Joe finds out he’s dying from an obscure disease (a “brain cloud”) and realizes he’s wasted his entire life up to that point. His boss ends up on the business end of Joe’s newfound self-awareness.

If you’re having one of those weeks, I highly recommend watching this. It might make you laugh just enough to get you through a hard time at work. It might even motivate you to polish off your resume and see what else is out there. Enjoy!

Lawyers and Anxiety

I was talking with a lawyer friend of mine the other night who wanted some dating advice from me.  A woman on a dating site had messaged him asking my friend to tell her more about himself.  He called me in a panic.

“So tell her about yourself.  What’s the big deal?”

“Well, everything there is to know about me is in my profile.”

“Come on, I’ve seen your profile.  All it says is that you’re a lawyer and you like to watch sports.”

“Yeah, I know, what else is there to tell?”

“Well, what do you think about all day?  What new things do you want to try?  What do you think the meaning of life is?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”

“Haven’t you ever read a book that’s completely out of the realm of what you would normally read?  Or listened to some world radio station at random just to see if you like it?”

“Why would I do that?”


I didn’t know how to respond.  On the one hand, I understood where he was coming from because I used to be him.  When I practiced law, I stopped reading books for pleasure altogether.  And as for music, the only kind I liked to listen to was anything that could put me to sleep at night the fastest.  (I had a hard time sleeping back then.) 

And on the other hand, I knew he needed a kick in the ass.  His lack of engagement with his own life is a classic sign of lawyer malaise/burnout.  So I told him I was going to send him an assignment.  I would send him a list of activities he could perform that might bring him enjoyment and teach him a little bit about himself. 

As I wrote the list, I started thinking more about my previous life as an attorney.  The tone in my friend’s voice revealed some universal truths about being a lawyer.  Lawyers are anxious about virtually every transaction that occurs in their lives (hence, my friend’s panic about the woman who messaged him) and lawyers tend to not cultivate their own personalities and lives since they are often so busy sorting out messes others have made with theirs.  This lack of engagement with one’s own life inevitably leads to more anxiety.  I’ll give you some examples from my own experience. 

When I practiced law, I remember procrastinating all the time.  I would put off writing a brief until the last minute because most of the time, the assignment was just so achingly boring that I had a hard time accepting the fact that I actually had to complete it.  A heavy cloud of deadlines constantly loomed over my head as a result, and a large knot took up residence in my stomach.  

I also had a hard time making decisions.  I would get a settlement offer from a prosecutor or from opposing counsel in a civil case, and my mind would run through every possible scenario for how things could turn out based on how I advised my client to proceed.  It paralyzed me because I could not stop running through these scenarios, even after my client made a decision and the matter was settled.  Settlement only provided more scenarios that involved claims of malpractice or regrets about not pushing the client’s luck at trial and possibly getting a better result.

Since I operated inside of an anxiety-ridden world at work, these same anxieties spilled over into my personal life, specifically finances.  I would pay my bills on time, but I had no plan for saving, for paying off my husband’s and my enormous student loan debt, or for saving up an emergency fund that would cover a few months of expenses in the event of an emergency. If I got a bonus at work or we ended up with more money than expected at the end of the month, we used the windfall to pay off our credit card balance, or some other expense would pop up seemingly out of nowhere.    

I got so used to consoling myself with new clothes, magazines, dinners out, even a new car.  I rationalized this behavior with the belief that if I could not enjoy what I did for most of my days, I would at least look good and be well entertained after hours.  I never wanted to budget because the thought of taking stock of my debt would only accentuate the fact that there was no way out of practicing law for the foreseeable future.  Not with student loan payments, car payments, and credit card payments to think about.

And then an amazing thing happened after I quit law.  Not right away, but soon afterward, I found myself feeling a bit more hopeful about my future.  At the end of the workday, I had time to think about what I wanted out of life and to make a plan for how to get there.  In my lawyering days, all I thought about after work was heading for the wine bottle when I walked in the door, or dreading the next morning when I would have to wake up and repeat the same miserable day over and over again.

I wonder to this day if there is a way I could have happily practiced law.  I don’t think there is.  I think if I had continued on the path I was going down, I would have become more and more disengaged with my own existence.  Maybe to the point where I would panic when someone asked me about myself because, like my friend who was emailed by a potential date the other night, I had nothing to say. 

These days, I still suffer from anxiety, but of a different variety.  Now I have many goals I would like to achieve and not enough time to reach them all.  Most of them have nothing to do with work.  I am reading again and enjoying music.  I don’t waste money anymore trying to console myself with material goods that are temporary and can never fill an emotional void.  I am finally dealing with my law school debt, a debt that will soon be a distant memory.  And I am confident that if someone asks me to talk about my life, I will actually have something to say.

Are you an anxiety-ridden attorney?  Do you find yourself disengaged with your life or do you think it's possible to find a good work-life balance while practicing law?

Inspiration

This is a terrific article by Phyllis Coletta.  She is a former attorney who quit the law in order to become a cowgirl.  It is truly inspiring and funny.  I would read it occasionally when I was still practicing law.  It gave me great comfort to know that people with her kind of courage and humor had been where I was and had successfully gotten out.  Thanks, Phyllis.  

What are some of the roadblocks keeping you from leaving the law?  What would you be doing if you no longer practiced?   

The Trap of Student Loan Debt, Part II: Do You Want to Get Out?

Many unhappy attorneys feel they cannot quit practicing law because of the enormous burden of student loan debt.  If you have been considering leaving the law for another field or to start your own business, paying off your student loans affords more opportunity to take risks (perhaps in the form of a lower-paying but more satisfying position), as well as the feeling of hope that comes from building a future, rather than paying for past mistakes.  

A little over a year ago, I found myself in the position of having left my attorney job for a lower-paying one, but still carrying a large student loan balance of over $100K (between my husband's loans and mine).  Since then, I have gained more control over my finances, and my husband and I have decided to take radical steps in order to pay off both of our student loans once and for all.  Before you begin your own journey out of student loan debt, you first need to ask yourself whether you really want out because getting out involves a great deal of sacrifice.  Let's talk a little bit about some obstacles that might be standing your way.

The Lawyer Lifestyle

When you graduate from law school and land your first attorney gig, one of the first things you will probably do is buy some new clothes.  I know I did.  I believe I spent about $800 in my first month as a new attorney on new suits, shoes, and blouses.  How sharp I must have looked while dying a thousand little deaths every time I logged onto westlaw and looked with dread at the number of cases I would have to read that day. 

Another expense many new attorneys take on is that of a car loan.  If only law schools offered a course like Personal Finance 101.  Perhaps I, along with many other would-be attorneys, would have learned the sheer stupidity of financing a depreciating asset.  Ah well.  I made this mistake, but not until I had practiced for almost three years.  Toward the end of my illustrious career, I financed a big, shiny new car in order to assuage some of my depression.  It worked for a little while, but once the new car smell wore off the leather, I was back to pouring myself glass after glass of alcohol when I arrived home in the evening. 

Some other attorneys from white shoe firms might even go out and join a country club or buy a boat, or some other such nonsense.  All I can say about the many trappings of the lawyer lifestyle is that if you want to leave the law for good, you first need to decide that you are not going to be a miserable workhorse the rest of your life. 

You Don't Understand the Difference Between "Want" and "Need"

Many Americans, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, equate their need for certain  luxury items with their need to breathe oxygen.  To name just a few examples:

• cable TV (guilty)
• smart phones (guilty)
• restaurant lunches
• gym memberships (guilty)
• new cars every three years
• a car for every member of the household over the age of 16
• Starbucks (guilty)
• "stuff" from Target (guilty)
• the latest gadgets for the kids
• vacations at Disneyland
• stainless steel appliances

This list is certainly not exhaustive, but you get the idea. 

If you want to get out of student loan debt so you can leave the law, or just to have some peace of mind, you need to evaluate your lifestyle and start labeling things as "wants" and "needs."  In no time, you will see that most of the things in our lives are really just wants.  One way to start evaluating is to focus on what Dave Ramsey calls "the four walls."  This would be food, shelter, utilities, and transportation.  Anything beyond that is not a need.  (Clothing fits in there, too, but most Americans have an abundance of it.) 

One of the first things my husband and I cut out when we decided to get out of debt is cable.  For the time being, we get by on Internet (which he needs for his job), netflix streaming, and hulu.  We used to pay over a hundred dollars per month on cable and now we pay about $40 (which is mainly Internet). 

Another expense we cut was transportation.  We used to have two cars, but when we moved, we cut back to just one.  This may not work for everyone, especially if you do not have reliable public transportation where you live.  But you certainly do not need two car payments, or even one car payment, in order to get to work and back.  What we did was sell my husband's car, which was almost paid off, and we used the proceeds toward our emergency fund (about five months of living expenses in the bank).  When we sold our house, we used those proceeds toward the emergency fund as well.

As for my car, we have been making extra payments on it for the last five months and I am proud to say we just sent in the last payment a few days ago.  It is actually "our" car now, and it is enough for us. 

You Justify Student Loan Debt Because of the Tax Break

While some borrowers are eligible for a tax break on their student loan payments, please do not justify hanging onto these loans simply for the tax break.  A few considerations:

• There are income limits on who can claim it.  (In 2010, the income limits were $60K for  individuals or $120K for couples before the credit was phased out.)
• You can only deduct a maximum of $2,500 no matter how much interest you paid on your loans.  (My husband and I paid over $5,000 in interest in 2010, so the tax break didn't help all that much.)
• Beginning 2013, you will only be able to deduct student loan interest for the first 60 months (5 years) of repayment.  Many people with advanced degrees are on 20-30 year plans (myself included).
• Student loans are generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy. 

The Bottom Line

If you want to put student loan debt behind you, you need to decide you are not going to keep up with the Joneses, you are going to cut back on luxuries, and you are not going to chase a soon-to-be-obsolete tax deduction.  Ready?  Stay tuned for my next entry on how to start budgeting and make extra cash to put toward those loans. 

   

The Trap of Student Loan Debt, Part I

Many people who would like to quit practicing law have an enormous hurdle to overcome before they can even consider it: all that student loan debt they took out to receive those invaluable JD's (which caused that slew of doors to fly open upon graduation, right?  Or did you miss that?).  

Rather than repeat myself by reminding you that a JD does not make one more marketable, and in fact works against one's marketability, I would like to discuss a more positive topic, that of paying off these soul-sucking debts and getting out of student loan prison forever.

Before I left the law, I assumed that the size of my debt would render me unable to pay off my loans any sooner than the 25-year repayment period I had agreed to just a few months after graduation.  I think the fact that I was practicing law somehow helped me justify a longer repayment period.  After all, if I was actively using my degree on a daily basis, the expense seemed like the cost of doing business.  And since I owed about $80,000, I figured 25 years seemed reasonable.  

Once I left the law, I began thinking more about my financial future and became angry that I had made such stupid financial decisions.  I had basically trapped myself into working full-time in a field I hated for the better part of my adulthood.  Was I going to die a bitter, alcoholic ex-lawyer, still owing thousands to Sallie Mae upon my death?  I couldn't believe my life was becoming an Arthur Miller play.

I should backtrack a little here and fill you in on my professional transitions since my first temporary gig ended.  That gig netted me about $380 per week.  Once that job ended a few short months later, I obtained another job at a call center (my personal low), and then miraculously I was offered a permanent, full-time position at my husband's company working in customer service.  This all happened within one month after leaving my first temp job.  The salary at my customer service position?  $33,000 per year.  Not quite the almost $60k I was making as an attorney, but it would do since it came with benefits and a guaranteed paycheck.  When I accepted that position, however, I did something radical.  I decided not to quit my call center job right away, and instead I cut back to part-time three evenings per week.  So I was working about 55 hours per week, with a combined income (from both jobs) of about $42,000 per year.  Coupled with my husband's income, we would still be doing pretty well, except for our crippling student loan payments. 

My payments totaled about $565 per month, and my husband's were $180.  So basically, we were paying two mortgages, our real mortgage and our student loans.  And the payments were only going to go up because we were both on graduated repayment plans.  Thinking about these numbers is what led me to work two jobs and try to come up with a plan of action.

I didn't have time to think long because about a month after working my two jobs and getting used to my new, hectic schedule, my husband was offered a position with a higher salary about two thousand miles from where we lived.  In a matter of three weeks, we had to put our house on the market, find an apartment in our new city, and pack up.  It was exciting, but scary.  I had no idea what I would do for work, but I was looking forward to the opportunity to start over with a clean slate in a completely different area of the country, where no one would know me as an attorney. 

Fast forward a month after we arrived (which was November of last year).  I am once again an administrative assistant (pretty high level) and I assist professionals on an individual contract basis as needed (a few hours per month).  Everyone I work for knows I used to practice law and no one seems to have a problem with it.  And the real plus side is that I now make 30-40% more than what I used to as an attorney.  This can be attributed in large part to a different job market, but since my husband and I have managed to keep our expenses down, it has made a huge impact on our budget, so much so that I am now hopeful about seeing my student loan balance decrease to zero within the next few years.  

I can't really attribute my new found hope to a simple increase in salary, though.  In reality, I can attribute it to discovering Dave Ramsey's plan for living debt free and building wealth slowly.  It's funny, I disagree with him on so many things - religion, politics - but his books and podcasts have been so inspiring that I don't really care about our differences, as long as I am getting out of debt. 

And I am, more and more each month.  In fact, this month my husband and I are paying off our car (the big shiny one I bought a year and a half ago to try and make me feel better about practicing law), and then we are on to the student loans.  It is not easy, and I am still resentful of the law school scam, the higher education scam, and every other scam I've been taken in by as an adult.  But I figure if I am ever going to have a chance at the life I want (a little cabin somewhere with my dog, my husband, and some good books wouldn't be bad), I am going to need to pay off my "stupid tax" sooner rather than later.

I am going to discuss more of the particulars of my get-out-of-student-loan-debt plan in my next post, but for now I just wanted to put something positive and hopeful out there.  A year ago, I was miserable and depressed, thinking I would forever be in debt and would never be able to have children or even take a vacation.  And now I am getting closer and closer to being debt-free.

Life can be so shitty sometimes, but every once in a while it is simply amazing. 
  

Are your student loans or other debts holding you back from the life you want?

Does Quitting Law Lead to Happiness?

One of the questions I get from a lot of people (mostly through anonymous emails) is whether I am happier since quitting my lawyer job. I think the answer is more complicated than whether I am more or less happy. What I do know is that when I was practicing law, most of my days were spent feeling trapped and hopeless. At the same time, however, the outside world provided me with validation in the form of respect (from non-lawyers), interest in what I do (again, from non-lawyers), and approval from my family and friends (mostly non-lawyers).

Since quitting the law, I feel more at peace and hopeful about finding my purpose in life. I do not wake up each day dreading work, although some days I find work a little unchallenging. Since we both now make more money, my husband and I have more control over our finances, and have created a plan for paying off our student loans within the next two to three years.

But.

The outside world does not provide nearly as much, if any, validation anymore. When people find out I used to practice law, they inevitably ask me whether I plan to take the Bar in the state in which I currently reside. When I tell them no, they seem puzzled and I can tell they are probably wondering whether I "burned out" or was disbarred, or had a nervous breakdown. Rather than try to disabuse them of any such notions or explain my choices, I tend to simply change the subject. This is a struggle, since leaving the law was a major decision and it is a part of who I am, but I also think it is healthier at this point in my life to look forward rather than dwell on the past.

All this is to say that when one is weighing the decision of whether to quit law, one must consider how self-assured he or she is. If you are the type of person who must please your family or cannot live without a shiny job title, quitting might not be a good option at this point. Let me be clear that I do not sit in judgment of those who need approval from family or who enjoy working in a seemingly prestigious field. I get it. I used to be like that. I am just cautioning those who need these things to think twice before quitting the law. Try to create a support system that will be in place once you take the plunge.

You may also want to think about what you plan on doing with your free time once you begin working fewer hours per week at a job that most likely will not require your undivided intellectual and/or emotional attention 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  You need a hobby.  Or a passion of some sort.  Otherwise, you may end up falling back into law because you need to do something that the world recognizes as valuable, rather than what will bring you fulfillment or may actually be useful.

One thing I began doing when I left the law was reading more about personal finance and trying to come up with a financial plan for the future that would hopefully lead to a dignified retirement for me and my husband.  I did not consider this a "hobby" at the time, but these days, when I am not working like a mad woman, I tend to be reading up on finance or listening to podcasts about it, or looking at spreadsheets documenting my journey out of student loan hell.  I believe this now officially qualifies as a hobby.

What are some of the obstacles that have been holding you back from leaving the law?

Finally, an Accurate Depiction of the Average Lawyer

Wilfred is a new show on FX about a suicidally depressed ex-attorney named Ryan.  Ryan is the type of person who balks at the ingredients label on the protein powder he blends into his pill-laden suicide shake.  In the first episode, Ryan attempts to overdose the night before starting a new job in "contract administration," a job his sister managed to snag him at the hospital where she works as an Ob/Gyn.  Ryan's suicide attempt goes mysteriously awry, and he ends up dog-sitting for Wilfred, the titular character whom Ryan sees as a belligerent Australian in a dog costume. 

My favorite scenes in the first episode involve Ryan arguing with his sister about his career plight.  When Ryan suggests that he might not be happy in contract administration, Kristen reminds him that he is "not really a hot commodity right now," so he should basically take what he can get.  There is also a later scene in which Ryan tells his potential boss (Kristen's colleague) about what sort of "work" he would prefer over contract administration.  I won't spoil it for you.  Suffice it to say, I only wish I could have displayed that much honesty when leaving my lawyer job a year ago.  (Alas, I have never been one to burn bridges.  I still get birthday cards from my ex-boyfriend's mom, to put this particular pathology into perspective.)

If you are a disgruntled lawyer or have simply taken a wrong turn career- or life-wise, check out Wilfred.

You may have to create a hulu account in order to view the above video.  If you do not want to bother with that, you can always find episodes on FX's website.   

My Top 6

Below is a list of the most humiliating, ridiculous, and/or evil things I ever witnessed or took part in when practicing law, from least to most egregious.

6.  Perry Mason and the Case of the Felonious Air Freshener.  While interning at a county prosecutor’s office as a 2L, I attended a suppression hearing at which my assigned prosecutor/mentor argued that racial profiling was perfectly Constitutional, so long as the officer had a separate, valid, objective reason for pulling over a defendant.  (Which is unfortunately true by the way.)  In this case, the defendant, a young black man, had an air freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror, which “tended to obstruct” his view of the road, and therefore violated a statute.  The prosecutor won the hearing.  I told him I understood why he won, but I still believed it was unjust that an officer could selectively enforce a statute that millions of drivers violate every day.  He argued that the officer was not necessarily engaging in racial profiling.  I rhetorically asked him how many soccer moms the officer pulled over that week for hanging air fresheners from their rear-view mirrors.  My “mentor” then refused to speak to me for the rest of my summer internship.  I should have known then that I was not cut out to participate in a system that routinely defends absurdities.

5.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  During my 2L and half of my 3L year, I clerked for a solo practitioner who was just about the moodiest, most inept attorney I had ever met.  He even warned me during the interview that he was moody.  Each morning I would greet him with a smile and a hello, but never once did he look at me or even grunt in my direction.  We communicated only in writing, though the office comprised only about 300 square feet.  Eventually, my pay checks started bouncing.  Then he asked me to lie to his wife about his whereabouts on a couple of occasions.  She could tell I was lying for him and he apparently caught hell for it.  He basically accused me of purposely lying badly in order to get him in trouble.  Then one day, he asked me to perform a google search for him on his computer, during which I inadvertently saw his search history.  Apparently he was into swingers clubs.  I pretended not to see anything since he was breathing down my neck the entire time. 

Eventually, I was able to put in my notice so I could relocate for the summer to complete a clerkship.  I tried not to think about what a nasty, weird person he was until I was forced to disclose on a job application that I had worked for him.  The prospective employer contacted him for a reference and he told them he would not hire me because—wait for it – I am “not a people person.”  I got the job anyway because I think the firm knew what a crazy kook that guy was.  As for his ineptness, apparently the local bar association caught on because a few months after starting my first job out of law school, he was publicly disciplined for lying to a judge during a sentencing hearing.  To top it all off, years later I received a friend request from him on facebook.  Ignore!

4.  Ebenezer Scrooge or Henry Potter?  My supervising attorney once asked me why everyone thought he “owed them a fuckin’ living.”  Apparently, his secretary had been fishing around for a bonus since she was coming up on her ten-year anniversary with the firm.  I told him perhaps she wanted to feel appreciated for being a loyal secretary.  He complained that she screwed things up a lot and she was not the one bringing in all the money.  He then turned to his computer to retrieve an electronic file and realized he had no idea where to find it because his secretary organized everything for him.  So he shouted for her to come in and find the file, all the while acting completely impatient about it.  After she left, I pointed out that he seems to need her help quite a bit.  He ignored me and asked me to sit in his chair and type an email he dictated because he was lousy at using Outlook.  He seemed to rely on his employees quite a bit, though in his mind he owed them nothing.

3.  Just Following Orders.  I once represented a client who had some developmental disabilities as well as a raging drug and alcohol habit.  His various ailments rendered him unable to recall events that occurred more than five minutes ago.  His neighbor was similarly disabled, and they hated each other. He had various cases pending, and he was really bothered by his neighbor, so my supervising attorney told me to get a restraining order against the neighbor.  I raised my concerns about the client’s memory problems and asked for any advice on how to handle direct examination.  “Wing it,” was the response I received.  I pressed the supervising attorney a little and asked if he had any other advice, and he responded, “I’m your boss.  Just do it.”  So I tried my best to prepare the client, although he could not actually recall any specific disputes with the neighbor.  A few days before the hearing, I became concerned about going through with the hearing since I did not believe I had a good faith basis for trying to get the restraining order.  (You know, pesky ethical rules we attorneys must consider from time to time).  I raised this concern with my supervising attorney and he spat, “I told you before, I’m your boss.  Just do it.”  So I did it.  Is it any wonder the judge declined to issue the order and instead told the two men to just stay away from each other?  My supervising attorney seemed happy with the hours I billed for undertaking this worthless endeavor, though, which is really all that matters.

2.  It Would Be So Much Easier to Catch Criminals If Only They Would Endanger More Lives.  During a drunk-driving negotiation with a prosecutor, I noted that my client’s driving was not that horrendous, in that he was only pulled over for speeding 5-10 miles per hour over the posted limit, a fairly common charge.  Normally, this would put a client in the “non-aggravated” category for drunk driving.  I argued that some drunk drivers actually swerve into the wrong lane or drive the wrong way down a one-way street, which is certainly more dangerous than minor speeding.  The prosecutor’s position: he would rather the client had swerved or driven in the wrong direction, because it’s much easier for the police to spot him as a drunk driver.  Oh-kaaayyyyyy...

1.  It’s a Good Thing He Didn’t Die or We Would’ve Had to Deal with a Damages Cap.  One of my firm’s civil clients was a boy who had been sexually assaulted.  My job was to perform research to determine the average settlement or jury award in similar cases.  One of the similar cases I found involved a teenage girl who was raped on a church camping trip.  My supervising attorney’s reaction?  “That’s just a teenage girl.  We could get a lot more money for this kid.” 

Does anyone else have horror stories they would like to share about the practice of law?

Worst Client Ever?

For those of you who have had the privilege of practicing in such a prestigious field as family law, you may want to check out this video posted by Gregory Forman, an attorney and family court mediator in South Carolina.  I am still laughing...

"I will pay you two dollars now and my mother will help with the rest."