Me and Asquith Holle, Esq.

Sometimes, usually after a few drinks, I look back on my legal career and think that it really wasn’t so bad after all. But then one face appears before me that haunts me to this day. His name is Asquith Hole, Esq. (“Asq”). I always thought I would one day reflect on my days working with him with laughter. Perhaps when I’m old and senile and giggly about everything…

Asq Holle was a partner with whom I worked at one of my firms. Working with Asq can be most easily compared to having your car break down on a deserted highway—both create feelings of hostility, anxiety, and helplessness. For starters, there were his clients. I quickly realized that there are certain people in the world who will pursue dubious legal claims purely on principle. I learned equally quickly that there are lawyers eager to fight these people’s dubious battles tooth and nail. As my mom succinctly stated, crazy attracts crazy.

I understand that people feel genuinely aggrieved over matters that you or I might consider small. That’s human, and I get it. Heck, I’ve been there. However, when I’ve been deeply perturbed over an otherwise trifling matter, even I have some perspective. For instance, I wouldn’t knock on the door of one of the largest law firms in a huge city and find a corner-office partner to handle my $20,000 (at best) claim. Conversely, if I was a corner-office partner at one of the largest firms in a huge city, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t take the case.

One of the other associates told me a funny story about his experience with Asq and one of his little cases. The case involved very non-complex issues and was worth less than $10,000. The associate traveled to some small town to depose one of the parties. When he arrived, he got to chatting with the opposing attorney. Looking puzzled, the attorney said in his small-town drawl, “Son, I looked you up on your firm’s website. You went to great schools and are working at a great firm. Why are you here?” Smart man. Even he could see what eluded Ivy League Law Review Asq.

Then there was Asq Holle’s personality. Controlling, irritable, edgy, and pompous, Asq was a joy to work with. I can’t even relate to you how much I enjoyed receiving phone calls from his secretary asking me to come by his office immediately only to find, when I arrived, that he was on a long conference call. Once he was finally off of that call, he would take another, then another, while I waited, then waited some more. A conversation that would normally take fifteen minutes suddenly turned into 1 ½ hours with me thinking, “To whom the hell am I going to bill this time?” And believe me, it would not be a good idea to leave. Why would you anyhow? The next time you stopped by his office you were guaranteed to receive exactly the same treatment.

Then there was the yelling. Over nothing. All the time. I remember once he asked me to pull some cases for him. I did. I brought them by his office a day early, hoping that would appease the monster. I placed them on his desk, told him what they were, and was ready for my “thank you.” Instead, I got yelled at for not putting them in a binder, something he hadn’t asked for initially and that I had never done in the past.

Then there was the micromanagement. I was not allowed to send out a three-line enclosed-please-find letter without passing it by him first. To revise. And revise again. At least revising letters was not terribly time-consuming. What was troubling was Asq Holle’s tendency to excessively revise anything and everything. I would stay up long hours into the night revising five-page motions. I don’t even want to talk about the summary judgment briefs…

I was becoming quite irritated at all of this behavior when I had an epiphany. I noted that, more times than not, opposing attorneys would call me directly with issues instead of Asq Holle. That didn’t always happen with other partners, so I was somewhat baffled. One of these opposing attorneys clarified it for me. We were chatting pleasantly, and I guess the guy felt comfortable asking me: “So, is Asq Holle crazy? My partner and I were discussing it the other day, and we kind of think he might be.” I guess I hadn’t really thought about it until that point. Annoying, yes. Maddening, yes. Hostile, yes. Crazy? Well, now that you mention it, HELL YES.

For whatever reason, that attorney’s question resonated with me. I began to review some of Asq Holle’s conduct that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. His behavior wasn’t rational, but more importantly, it really didn’t serve any purpose. I mean, I bill for my time when I work all weekend revising and revising and revising documents, and someone will be paying the bill—the client. When the case is not that big to begin with and you are representing an individual, not a Fortune 50 company, why would anyone proceed that way? I began to ask the same question that my friend/associate was asked at the deposition: why am I here?

Once I had allowed myself to ask that question, life became easier. When Asq Holle yelled at me once again one day over nothing, I snapped back. Other associates had speculated that pushing back would be a good technique to use with him. I assume they thought that standing up to him would gain his respect. That turned out to be faulty reasoning. But what it did give me was freedom. We didn’t work together after that, and I could finally let the poison drain from my system.

Tomatoes Don’t Move

On a day-to-day basis, I am a relatively serene person.  I’m glad to have finally rediscovered my tranquil side because for five years it was notably absent.  I was, after all, a practicing lawyer.  Do you remember the scene in Tootsie where Sydney Pollack, an agent, tells Dustin Hoffman that he can’t get him any work because no director anywhere will work with him?  Dustin Hoffman’s character, Michael Dorsey, is “difficult”.  In fact, he is so difficult that he gets fired from a commercial because, when playing a tomato, he refuses to sit down.  “Tomatoes don’t move,” Michael tells his agent in self defense. 

I identified with Michael Dorsey’s irritation when I worked in BigLaw.  The inanities of large firm culture really seemed to overwhelm me.  Unlike Michael, I never vocalized my disdain (okay, almost never), but I would constantly stew over things that were clearly misguided and ask myself “why in God’s name would you choose to proceed that way?”  There were usually some expletives thrown in there, too.  I just found certain things rankling. 

For instance, I worked at one firm where there seemed to be a strong and perplexing aversion to research memos.  I was told early on that my particular section really didn’t do those.  What then, I asked, should I type in their stead?  Oh, nothing, I was told—just give me the cases you find.  Okey dokey, I said to myself, so, if I am to understand this correctly, you want me to print out cases from Westlaw and hand them to you without any analysis?  Well, I guess I can do that.  But you might want to hire someone else for the task—say, for instance, a monkey (albeit a smart monkey)—because I could train a monkey to enter search terms on Westlaw and hit the print button.  I think I actually saw that on Animal Planet.  And, by the way, what are you going to do with the cases once you get them?  Come into my office and ask me why I think a certain case is relevant?  If that’s the case, wouldn’t it really be a time-saver in the end to have me draft a short little memo?

What elicited an even a bigger “why?” was the next step in the process—writing the brief.  Not that I would know much about that process since the partners in my section rarely trusted associates to draft anything.  In the mind of my section heads, briefs were too beautiful, too sacred to be sullied by the dirty hands of the salt mine workers.  Funny, I thought.  Aren’t drafting memos and briefs the bread and butter of associate life?  Who, then, you may ask, would draft the briefs if not the obvious contenders?  The partners, of course.  That’s odd, I said to myself.  At other firms partners would rather stick hot pokers in their eyes than sit in front of the computer and cite cases in a brief. 

All of this is to say that the partners in my section did a lot of work that clients do not typically pay partners to do.  Why these particular clients were willing write us a check every month was beyond me.  Again, “why, why?”  It’s also to say that I ended up doing a lot of things that clients didn’t typically pay mid-level associates to do, i.e., document review and performing the monkey routine on Westlaw.  I felt stuck in a phrase, watching the skill set I had accrued flag.  I didn’t take one deposition or argue one motion when I worked there—both activities in which I had gained experience in the past.  In my mind, if I continued down this road, then, like Michael Dorsey, I would soon be unemployable.

I noticed that other associates around me didn’t tend to be bothered by these things to the extent I was.  They kind of laughed along with me when I pointed out these disturbing trends, but they didn’t seethe with anger.  I kind of felt I was the only person who wasn’t waltzing through life in a daze.

In truth, I was the one in a daze.  The business management in my section was not going to change, no matter how asinine it seemed.  I don’t to this day waver when I characterize my former section as poorly and inefficiently run.  There is, after all, a problem when partners are billing 2300 hours/year and associates cannot meet their 2000 billable hour requirement.  However, I was the one that would have to change—not my actions, but the level of distance I chose to put between myself and the situation.  If I couldn’t manage this task, I would have to make a more significant change.  I eventually did the latter by leaving the practice of law.  And I started dressing in drag.

Date Night

This topic has been covered many times, but it bears repeating. Marketing is key, and you need to get started early. I say “get started early” not because, as a first-year associate, you really have much to market. I remember sitting in these marketing meetings that my first firm forced the associates to attend and thinking, how do I market my “practice”? At that point, my “practice” consisted of document review, and, strangely, I didn’t view this talent as very marketable. Naturally, it wasn’t.

So if you technically have little to market, why should you get started early? Well, because “marketing” is really less daunting than it sounds. You don’t have to start scheduling dinners with the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Not yet, anyway. In the early years, marketing can be as simple as forcing yourself to eat lunch away from your desk. Invite your law school friends to join you for lunch. These law school chums may very well advance to a General Counsel position with a company whose business you would like to acquire. Also, you can simply get involved in your community. What interests you? Art? Dogs? Well, then maybe you should get involved at your local museum or humane society. Attend their functions. Meet people. There are always a wealth of business people and lawyers who share your interests and, also, view such events as networking opportunities.

It doesn’t so much matter what you do, but you need to step away from the desk and put yourself out there. As my wise partner mentor told me, he would work to target a particular client and, in the process, meet other people that he wasn’t directly targeting who would later give him business. Marketing, he said, is like dating. It is hard to say exactly how you should go about meeting people, but the one thing that doesn’t work is staying at home.

Notworkenoughtofillthedaylius

I remember the devastating day it happened: I had reached the end of the internet. You are probably getting the wrong impression of me. I am not a huge fan of the internet, and, under normal circumstances, I don’t spend much time on it. But a few months ago, I was an addict. To make matters worse, my condition was highly contagious. The other associates that workedin my section at my old firm suffered from it as well.

What, you ask, was the cause of this widespread plague, and how can I keep it from infecting me and my co-workers? I’m sad to report that there is no known cure at this time, but it is at least helpful to know the cause. The medical name is notworkenoughtofillthedaylius. It’s street name is “bored out of my mind.”

So, how did it begin to spread at my firm? It started with the departure of several of the partners in my section. Not all the partners, mind you, just the ones with business. What followed was several months of reassurances from management that, despite the fact that we were all sitting around twiddling our respective thumbs, our jobs were secure. They informed us that they were working to fix the problem. So, my fellow associates and I waited. And waited. And waited.In our offices. In front of the computer. With nothing to do. Computer screen beckoning. We seemed to collectively figure out that although we had no memos to revise, our Facebook pages needed some fixing. And our Linkedin pages. And our…I’m sure you understand the genesis of our disease by now. Sadly, given the lack of work and number of layoffs proliferating, you are not immune.

“Bored out of my mind” syndrome has other known symptoms besides excessive internet use. For instance, you may experience lack of interestin making nicey-nicey with partners, frequent two-hour lunches, or inability to make it to the office before 10 am. Additional symptoms include frequent coffee breaks, “working from home” approximately once a week, and excessive happy houring at approximately 4 pm.

Those infected with the disease often mistake it in the early stages for elation. They erroneously think, “This sure the heck beats 60-hour weeks in the salt mines!” However, as the weeks draw on, then the months, they see the truth. Seven-day work weeks start to seem like heaven on earth.

The truth is, the disease bears many similarities to depression. Let’s face it–going to work and having nothing to do for endless hours is no fun, and anyone who has beenin that position would agree that it’s much worse than being superbusy. What’s worse, having nothing to do allows the mind to go wild. Suddenly, all you can think about is how long the firm will continue to sign your paycheck. You are terrified that the ax is going to fall, and you have no work activities to divert your mind from that sense of doom.

Having experienced this condition myself, I sadly don’t have much advice as to how to deal with a slow legal market. I think what got me through the situation was simply knowing that I wasn’t alone. Everyone I worked around was experiencing the slow down as well, and, as the saying goes, misery loves company, right? More importantly, even at the darkest hour, I think I fundamentally knew that I would find my way out of it. And, although it took longer than I would have wished, I did. You will, too. I’m not saying that you can avoid a layoff through sheer force of will. I wish you could, but you can’t. I am certain, however, that whether you are laid off or stuckin your office worrying that you will be, the market will turn around and you will find work. That’s really all I have for you, so now you can get back to the internet.

I am Superman

In my estimation, confidence reigns supreme. My friends are snickering as they read this because most will agree that my confidence level does not need improvement. I thinks it is actually an attribute in my profession. Come to think of it, I cannot think of any profession where this would not hold true.

But, alas, confidence is not everything. As much as I like to think that confidence is the ultimate trump card, confidence has sometimes failed me, or, at least not been enough.

My best example is interviewing. Let me start out by saying that I am a terrific interviewee. It’s true (see? confidence). So I begin each interview preparation session with a candidate by emphasizing what I know. The primary issue I target in each of these sessions is exuding confidence during the interview. “Confidence” is perhaps a nebulous term, but I get specific. Confident people look, act, talk and dress the part.

When I have finished stressing the importance of confidence, I address a second issue that really bears no relation to the above: the curve ball. And, my friends, there’s the rub. I tell candidates to prepare for the out-in-left-field questions, but, isn’t this really a contradiction in terms? How do you really prepare for the unexpected?

Well, in large part, you don’t. Sometimes I really want to ask a candidate if he/she has a background in improv. That, I think, would be an immense plus. Strangely enough, a history of arguing motions before courts doesn’t get you there. Judges can indeed ask tangential questions, but, personally, the issues judges raise are at least related to the case at hand. Interviews, though, are a different ball game. To say that certain questions come out of left field in no way encapsulates some interview behavior.

As mentioned, I am an interview master. However, I have been in interviews where the interviewer’s line of questioning has left my mouth gaping. I’m thrown entirely off base. Yes, I know to expect the unexpected, but really. I mean, REALLY.

There are too many of said instances to discuss today; however, here are a few of my dear interviewing memories:

Interviewee as deponent. I always approached an interview as everybody putting their best face forward. Sadly, this is not always the case. Sure, you make sure you brushed your teeth, ate a protein-rich breakfast (not in that order), put on your power suit, and spent that extra 5 minutes on your hair. You are set. Well, the interviewer may also be set, but he has clearly been reading a different interviewing guide than you. It’s certainly not a BCG guide.

You get to the interview prepared to have a pleasant chat about your experience, and BAM! You begin to ask: Is this an interview or a deposition? This guy is not trying to make nicey-nicey chat with you, he is treating you as though you’ve done something terribly wrong. He’s flat out belligerent. What is it, you ask? Should I have spent yet another 5 minutes on my hair? Should I have declined that extra cup of coffee from the kind recruiting coordinator?

Nope. It happens. I’ve been there. It was a painful thirty minutes (that felt like thirty days). How did the self-proclaimed interview master handle it? Well, surprisingly well. I was asked to return for more interviews, which I guess is good since I was convinced the first guy hated me. I’d like to say I rose above it, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. “No,” I heard myself saying, “I wouldn’t take this job if it were the last job on the market.” So, naturally, I agreed to another interview.

The last laugh was unfortunately on me. Two hours before my call-back interview, my recruiter called me to say that the firm had hired someone else. I wanted to call this firm personally and tell them that I hated them and that, if the litigation market hadn’t been so poor, I would not have even considered them. Of course I didn’t. That was, in retrospect, a wise decision. What was a poor decision was setting myself up for more. Even at the time I felt like the abused spouse who returns to the abuser. Don’t do it. If this happens to you, tell your recruiter what happened and expect him/her to address the issue with the firm. I wish that I had made it clear to my recruiter that I expected the firm to get such feedback. Oh well.

Interviewee as anonymous everyman off the street. I was interviewing with a large international firm in my chosen market. I was dressed in my power suit. I was prepped. I was focused. I was incredibly unprepared for what was to follow.

As I approached the large office building in my large market in my power suit and 5-minutes-extra hair, I instantly felt a little off. I looked up, and who should I see walking towards me but Superman. You know him: red cape, blue body suit, large “S” across the chest. Superman. I almost spilled my Dunkin Donuts coffee all over my power suit. Thankfully my 5-minutes extra hair was undisturbed. It turns out that it was Halloween, and I did not know that. I had gone to a Halloween party the previous weekend and had totally forgotten that interview day was the actual Halloween.

A little distracted, I proceeded up the elevator to my destination. Everything went surprisingly smoothly until I met the partner with whom I would be working. I walked into his office, and the level of disorganization was surprising even for a busy person. He spent about three minutes shuffling though his mess to locate my resume. When he found it, it was clear that he had never glanced at it before. His area of practice was primarily soft IP and mine wasn’t (I had done a little but not much). He asked me whether I had a technical background, and I said “no.” I think that my B.A. in the “Plan II Honors Liberal Arts Program” would have clued him in on that fact.

It doesn’t matter. That was actually the least disconcerting incident that day. I took more offense to the 5-minute phone call he took in the middle of the interview. What can I say? Clearly I am not working for this firm now. In retrospect, I wish I had asked Superman if I could don his costume for the interview. Maybe it would have given me superpower strength. Or, heck, at least a good laugh.

It’s About That Time…

It is once again that time of the year when I bow my head down and take a short moment of silence for the downtrodden, the weary, the desperate, the July Bar examinee. Although I have tried to suppress the memory of the dreadful three days when I too suffered through that little test, every time I step into Starbucks some poor schmo hunched over his BarBri books forces me to remember.

What’s funny is, it really wasn’t that bad. Before you scoff, hear me out. Yes, the test is miserable, but, then again, so is law school. We all suffered through three years of that, so surely we can bear three months. What makes BarBri sightings painful for me is how awfully I reacted to the entire experience. I went absolutely ape. Since I was basically in the bottom 10 percent of my law school class in terms of stress, my sudden madness was quite a shock to all my law school friends. I’m sure they wondered what demon possessed me. Recently I’ve even tried to underplay how badly I handled the experience with my friends. They are all nice people, but none of my friends will let me pass my off behavior off as “just a little stressed.” They even wince a little when forced to recall my monster self.

Why on earth did I react that way? Sure, everyone was more than a little stressed, but I took it to a new level. I don’t know anyone else who engaged in extemporaneous bawlings every day or became a full-fledged insomniac. Truth is, I don’t know why I overreacted. What I do know is this: no test on the planet is worth that amount of grief. At base, it’s a TEST. We’ve all had them before. It is longer and there is more on the line, but no one should forget that they have been doing this test-taking thing for a long time. Don’t make it more than it is. Attaching too much significance to the Bar exam will only serve to trip you up.

What’s the worst thing that can happen? Remember, I said no scoffing. Yeah, yeah, you might have to take the darn thing again. Yeah, that stinks. However, I know several people who had to re-take the Bar exam, and they all have “Esquire” following their names now. Some of them even enjoy being attorneys. Above all, remember this. There are a lot of attorneys out there. They can’t all be brilliant (I assure you they are not. As a practicing attorney, I remember frequently feeling compelled to ask to see someone’s Bar card). If they can do it, so can you.

Are all law firms really “the same”?

Now that I’ve become a recruiter at BCG, all of my lawyer friends who I thought were happy (or at least not miserable) at their current jobs have suddenly confessed to their discontentedness at their present law firms. My question is “why”? If you ask them, they will confess that nothing has really changed at their respective firms over the past 4 or 5 years. Same job, same people (at least mostly), same gawdawful hours. So why am I just now hearing about all of this misery?

Law firms, it seems, breed a culture of negativity. You’re unhappy, but then so are the poor guys in the offices on either side of you. You perhaps rage against it during your first few months at your firm, but then you assume that you have to accept your lot in life. Heck, you worked hard to get where you’re at, and the money is nothing to sneer at, so might as well just plod along. Besides, no one really wants to hear about it (unless the unhappiness stems from something fairly salacious). Looking back at the happy hours with my friends during my years at various law firms, no one really discussed how they felt about their jobs, what they were doing at work, or how their jobs fell short of their expectations. It was too depressing to relive over drinks, and that’s why we were drinking anyway, right?

On the other hand, ALL the associates at your current firm no doubt complains ALL the time to each other about how miserable they are. Here, though, no one is really listening. No point, really, everyone is working for the same people and have to attend all the same annoying dinners/events, so it’s really just a waste of breath.

Why the culture of negativity exists is perhaps a bigger issue than I want to address right now. I’ll save that for my first novel. But I guess I am more interested in knowing why attorneys accept misery as a fact and don’t really try to change the situation. So many of my now-I-realize unhappy friends have been at the same firm their entire career. I have asked many of them why they stay if it makes them that unhappy, and the constant reply is this: all big firms are the same. Why go to the trouble of starting over again, trying to establish good will with a new group of partners, if the effort is just going to get you exactly where you currently are?

The thing is, having been at three firms over the past five years (that’s right–3 in 5), they really are not the same. Yes, you do have the same lack of control over your schedule, and you will no doubt encounter annoying or even evil people in any law firm environment. At least that was my experience. But, the culture, the work, and the amount of mentorship you receive can vary greatly among firms. Each firm I worked at was distinct. Hated the people at one, loved the people at another. Received great mentoring at one, realized the concept of mentoring was a new one at another. Sure, I never found a perfect fit, but my problem was that I never really wanted to be a lawyer. Perhaps that is your problem. But, if it is not, why on earth accept misery? Maybe it’s too much to ask that work be fun (although my job luckily is), but there are many emotional states that exist between misery and happiness. Do some soul searching and try to find out exactly what is making you unhappy, do some research into other firms, and then put your misery behind you (after some exit therapy). Strike out and find something new.