Realities of the Legal Profession
Recently, I have been working on a motion for a new trial. I put blood, sweat and tears into it. On Friday, I overheard The Boss say that he is not certain he will file the motion.
Also on Friday, The Boss put me to work researching an issue on another case. After The Boss left, I learned that the research will most likely never be applicable to the case. Still, I have spent all weekend on the matter, so I can memo The Boss by tomorrow a.m.
I was initially frustrated. It makes you want to pull out your hair trichotillomania style when you discover that hours and hours of work will never come into play. But I realize this is common to the legal field - there is a lot of pre-emptive attack planning for assaults that will never be fought. It's strategery. I really need to stop getting aggitated when my efforts become unneccesary, because it happens all the time. This would bother me less if I worked at BigLaw, since the hours would be billable. That's about the only pro I can think of besides the pay. But the pay should level itself off when I become the Queen of Plaintiff's Attorneys in ten years and make 3 million annually.
The worst part about spending my whole weekend working is that I am now 2 days behind on my BarBri self-study schedule. I need to figure out how to tell The Boss that I can't be doing these sorts of projects when I am supposed to be working 18 hour weeks.
Welp, back to work.
Also on Friday, The Boss put me to work researching an issue on another case. After The Boss left, I learned that the research will most likely never be applicable to the case. Still, I have spent all weekend on the matter, so I can memo The Boss by tomorrow a.m.
I was initially frustrated. It makes you want to pull out your hair trichotillomania style when you discover that hours and hours of work will never come into play. But I realize this is common to the legal field - there is a lot of pre-emptive attack planning for assaults that will never be fought. It's strategery. I really need to stop getting aggitated when my efforts become unneccesary, because it happens all the time. This would bother me less if I worked at BigLaw, since the hours would be billable. That's about the only pro I can think of besides the pay. But the pay should level itself off when I become the Queen of Plaintiff's Attorneys in ten years and make 3 million annually.
The worst part about spending my whole weekend working is that I am now 2 days behind on my BarBri self-study schedule. I need to figure out how to tell The Boss that I can't be doing these sorts of projects when I am supposed to be working 18 hour weeks.
Welp, back to work.
posted by Lex Fori at
6:32 PM
1 Comments:
I feel your pain, but I am glad to hear that there is some purpose behind the research and the work, even if it seems like it's all for naught.
Technical writing, on the other hand, is all about hours spent for nothing. People don't read the documentation - they just call tech support. In my various jobs, I have spent literally weeks of my life working on documentation that was never even read by the people who requested it. That is the text book definition of futility. And everyone wonders why I have such low job satisfaction.
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-Ann, at 3:53 AM
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