The Shark

internal marketing: tricking lawyers out of their pursuit of work/life balance?

[brian lauter]

Sunday was Father’s Day, and as I reflected (and by reflected I mean waited for my dad to pick up the phone) on what a great guy my dad is, I thought about how ridiculous it is that I might someday also be a father (first step: “mutual assent”).

But today I read an article about finding balance in work and family, and I realized that massive debt, immaturity, and an inability to master even the most basic life-skills, are not the only barriers to my future fatherhood.

According to a study conducted at NYU Law School by abetterbalance.com, achieving a good work/life balance has become a more pressing concern for future lawyers than income, prestige and higher profile work. This was somewhat surprising to me after two years of watching law students sacrifice their social lives, and in some extreme instances, even flash based internet gaming, for reading, outlining and law reviewing.

Apparently, although many other professions have taken steps help their members find work/life balance, the legal profession has lagged behind.  As some interviewees note in the report, many law firms give lip service to work/life balance by providing free dry-cleaning service and free meals at the firm. But these services, sometimes known as internal marketing, managerial innovations designed to keep Generation Y content, really only create more ties to work.

It seems to me that work/life balance is a pretty straight forward concept. If law students and young lawyers are really willing to take a pay and prestige cut to achieve better balance, then I don’t think they’re going to be tricked by internal marketing strategies. I guess we’ll find out in the next few years.

xanax for all 1Ls?

[abony holmes]

I know a lot of people are miserable as law students, and the first year of law schools is supposed to be the worst, but I always thought I was an exception to that rule.  I never thought I was a miserable law student.

Yesterday I discovered that I may have overestimated my compatibility with the first year of law school. I haven’t been to the law school since my last final exam, but yesterday I had to pick up some boxes from the law library.

While walking into the law school my body temperature immediately rose, my heart rate picked up, and my teeth reflexively clenched. I wouldn’t have noticed the subtle change if not for the fact that I hadn’t experienced anything like it for weeks.

As I descended the stairs to the library’s computer labs, I felt a irrepressible sense of nausea, and by the time I reached the boxes I needed to move I was gasping for air and feeling a little dizzy. At the end of my box move, I noticed the nervous, stressed, and uncertain feelings that were the hallmark of my first year of law school resurfacing all over again.

As a student I suppose I was too engrossed in school to notice it, but as I’ve started to enjoy my real weekends and afternoons as a law clerk, it's become immediately apparent that the law school misery* I’d heard so much about has affected me on some level.

*And I quote: "One study found that psychological distress symptoms such as depression, anxiety,   hostility, and obsessive-compulsion increase dramatically during the first   year of law school and do not decrease significantly during the second or third   years, or in the two years following law school."

sexy associates make richer partners

[brian lauter]

Good-looking people catch all the breaks.  Fewer speeding tickets.  Myriad dating options.  Undeserved fame. ..... Better legal jobs?

That’s right, you heard me, ugly. A study conducted by Dr. Daniel S. Hamermesh, a pretty pulchritudinous guy himself, found that better looking attorneys earned more after 5 years of practice than their homely counterparts. That gap is wider by the 15^th year and, for men, the probability of attaining partnership also rose with attractiveness. 

Combine this study with the research I mentioned last week showing spiritual people don’t do as well in law school and we come to a startling, but scientifically sound, conclusion:  Intelligent, attractive, empty people make the best lawyers.

But there is hope for the wretched: Partner up with somebody who’s hot and rich. Everybody else is doing it.

recovery from technological failure is possible during write on. here's how.

[justin gosling]

So it's the night before the journal writing competition entry is due, and I'm chugging along nicely when... all of a sudden it sounded like someone took a handful of thumbtacks and shoved them into my hard drive.

That's right, my computer (and my entry) just went to the big computer in the sky. It was like one of those nightmare stories that you hear from other students, but dismiss as lore. Well, it happens. And it isn't very fun.

So what did I do?

First, I popped in the recovery disk that came with my laptop, but running the disk checking utility didn't fix the hard drive.  When that didn't work, I burned a Linux Live CD (think a full OS that you boot into stright from CD without touching your hard drive). From there it was just a matter of accessing the hard drive momentarily while I transferred the last saved version of my memo to a flash drive. At this point my hard drive was sounding more and more like a bicycle skidding through gravel. In the end I lost a few hours of actual work time plus a few paragraphs, not to mention 120GB of data. Unfortunate, but not a total disaster.

It's times like these where I'm really, really glad I shelled out the extra cash for a three year warranty. So take note class of 2011, get that extended warranty!

Tips on backing your docs up, after the jump.

no lucite platforms for biglaw

[brian lauter]

Aside from fashion lawyers, the legal profession is not known for being particularly fierce. Thus, I was surprised to read in WSJ's Law Blog that there is a fashion revolution (and the obligatory backlash) percolating in the legal world.

Apparently, the internet bubble of the 1990s inspired a drastic relaxation of the traditional rules of legal dress and the trend has continued since the bubble burst. As part of the aforementioned backlash, some firms have hired fashionistas to come in and play Heidi Klum to every Britney Spears of the legal world. Earlier this month a London firm even told its female employees to say auf wiedersehen to fishnet stockings at work.

As a fashion Neanderthal, I was looking forward to worrying even less about personal style at work than I do normally. This discussion has me dizzy and worried. Luckily, almost everybody I’ve talked to was told to wear a plain old suit-and-tie (or whatever you call traditional women’s business wear) this summer, so at least I won’t be the only hot mess. There was one exception, a friend whose firm told her, apparently with a straight face, that their only rule was no bare midriffs.  Bare midriff at work? That would be so tranny!

NOTE: This item contains googled Project Runway catch-phrases inserted at random and probably used incorrectly. My apologies to Project Runway fans.

building a better legal profession... for stanford students?

[abony holmes]

The Chicago Tribune spoke to some Stanford Law School students who are trying to change the workaholic culture of the legal profession. The article centered on the efforts of the group Building a Better Legal Profession.

The goal of these students is not unique: increase the numbers of women and minorities in the legal profession, and foster a better work/life balance for attorneys in large firms. Their criticism of the legal profession, however, is not unique: firms pay obscene amounts of money to fresh graduates with no experience so that they do not have to make commitments to diversity or promoting work/life balance.

But will these student groups and others like them make any real progress for the large majority of newly minted lawyers, or will they simply help graduates of top law schools like Stanford have an even cushier existence while the vast majority of law school graduates are forced to do the work associates won’t do for less pay?

We know one of you has the answer.  Let's hear it.

linx: how to make money off your law school misery. 1st step: make movie about taking the bar.

[abony holmes & cynthia foster]

It's been awhile, but we're back.  We bring you, the Internet:

• Law School Woes Could Win You $10K (Legal Blog Watch)
• An Online Law School — What’s Next? (The Redgate Read on Online Learning)
• People You Meet In Law School #3: The Philosopher (Barely Legal)
• Stanford Students #1 Firm Favorites (PR-inside via Vault.com)
• DVD Review: A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar (Atomic Popcorn)
• How Other Top 10 Schools Fund Summer Public Interest Work (Virgina Law Weekly)
• Back From Addiction, and Sharing the Lessons (NYTimes)
• Security Lapse Exposes Facebook Photos (AP via Yahoo)

linx: balance your way out of depression, california still channeling mccarthy

[cynthia foster]

• Is Lawyer Malaise Moving from the Firm to the Campus? (WSJ's Law Blog)
• “Transforming the Practice of Law”: Innovative Ideas for Work/Life Balance (Lewis & Clark University podcast)
• Boalt Combines Social Awareness, CLE Credit (Legal Pad)
• Loyalty Oaths and Un-Americanism (The Faculty Blog - The University of Chicago, The Law School)

all work and no play means johnny never has anything interesting to say

[abony holmes]

Those of you who have braved the interview process in law school have inevitably heard some variation of the “what do you like to do for fun?” question.

Answers vary from the good ("I tutor blind orphans of war heroes every weekend") to the mundane ("I enjoy reading") and the embarrassing ("I study the bluebook and take courses on Westlaw and Lexus research techniques"*). The best answer is the honest answer, though for some law students fun is honestly the last thing on their minds.

Striking the appropriate school/life balance (something we’ve blogged about many times before) doesn’t just help with answering the inevitable “fun” interview question, but it also keeps you from going insane and shooting your casebooks or kidnapping your ex-boyfriend.

linx

[cynthia foster]

These two may prove to be helpful to you:

• Family Life Work Balance Panel (Lewis and Clark Law School Podcast)
• NALP Online Apartment Exchange (NALP)