When Work Attacks

I have a love/hate relationship with my job, well rather my job has a love/hate relationship with my body. File folders have killed my cuticles. Stress has chipped away my nails. Stress has also caused me to eat (ok well I know its hasn't forced me too, but emotional eating happens and we do have cake for birthdays... yes blame the birthday cake). Brain drain has depleted my sense of humor and random pieces of law have overtaken my thoughts. I quote statutes not movies and people ask me questions and my internal billable clock begins. Driving home I see torts and negligence, in my home I see the same. That wet spot in the grocery store... negligence? The plane crash on the news, the derailment of a train... The street widening project by my house is not just good, its condemnation in action!

They say law school teaches you to think different, but practicing law makes you react differently. But the best part is finding the perfect case after hours of researching or getting a great judgment for your client. Yes I love my job, but sometimes I'm not a fan of what it does to me!

What to Expect When You're Practicing

I feel like this should be a class in law school. It should include lessons like:

• how to handle your mentor leaving
• what to wear when you will be inspecting a roof
• how to climb a ladder
• how to copy & paste draft discovery
• how to knock and enter a partner's office
• what do you do when people don't like each other
• how to balance your caseload
• what not to wear, law office edition
• whom do you trust
• when do you tell someone you are too busy to take on something new
• being a rainmaker (and what the hell is one)
• how to handle the weight you'll gain your first year

No one gives you a guidebook, and the training wheels come off way too early.  My mantra "Pretend you are calm and cry when you get home."

All in (4) Day's Work

Alas, it is finished! That not so brief, brief.... yeah my name is officially on a Fifth Circuit brief! As stressful as it was, I am so glad I got the experience. I am grateful to the partner who indulged my writing and trusted my fact-finding. The hardest part proved not to be in the words, but the darn style! I'm not sure how many times we redid the pagination, table of contents, table of authorities, spacing... you get the point. I do not know how our secretaries do it! They are wonderful, and the paralegals... THANK YOU!! You are the glue that holds the mess of a firm together.

In other new, I got a makeover! Thank you to Jenn at MunchkinLand Designs!! She is awesome guys, seriously. Check her out, have her redo your blog. She knows just how to make you be more you! So leave me some love everyone, let me know what you think! And happy almost Friday.

Tales of a Lawyer

I was drafted a couple of days ago to help some partners in our office with a brief. (Really, quite the opposite, a brief is not well, brief). I, first year associate, practicing circa 2011, was asked to help with a 5th circuit brief. Wow! Awesome, but due in 4 days? Wowzers! Needless to say this has been quite the whirlwind last couple of days.

I have learned more about a case than I ever needed (or probably wanted) to know in a mere 3 days and attempted to become an expert in damages law (no small feat). The brief is due today, and well as much as a great experience this has been,  I would (and hubs would love) for me to return to normal. Pray for me! ~The Completely Stressed Out, Exhausted Blonde

Lawyering

So I'm often asked what its like to "lawyer" or my family will ask how lawyering went today. I'm not sure how many TV dramas people watch, but no I do not represent criminal, I do not spend time in the jail brokering deals,  nor do I spend time in the courthouse.

I spend my days researching issues, drafting motions and discovery, and responding to opposing counsel's motions... aka I write a lot. I also do other random things like find documents that contain certain words or find a case that says xyz and was most likely heard in such and such year... (you new lawyers know what I am talking about). But mostly I'm learning about what it means to practice law. It's so not what they teach you in law school.

No one stops to teach you how to draft discovery or write a motion and yes you may learn what terms means, or what some of the various motions do, but no one teaches you to draft them and do it well! No one teaches you what it's like to bill hours, to think about what you are doing ever 6 minutes, or didn't do. Law school doesn't tell you about filing at midnight or juggling several cases for several partners. They fail to mention what its like to exist in a firm. They try to tell you, but its hard to explain.

What they do teach you in law school is to think, rethink, and think again. Question why things are they way they are and to never stop. Look at every issue and look at it again.

The practice of law is just that, you practice every day, hoping to achieve perfection. But law is an ever changing, ever evolving concept. Each judgment rendered is a potential new twist and turn to the law.

So, as you're reading this, I'm not going all Alex Cabot on someone, I'm sitting in my new-to-me, with the Aggie-colored carpet office billing typing away! ~The Illegal Blonde