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: Anonymous Attorney

By Anonymous Lawyer (Jeremy Blachman)

We lost another associate today. Apparently he's annoyed that I ran him over with my car last month. I was late to a deposition. He was in my way. I had to get out of the parking garage as quickly as I could. It's not that I didn't see him. I just didn't think the firm needed him as much as it needed me to be at that deposition, and even if he'd be on medical leave for a few weeks, he wasn't getting much done anyway and me being there a few minutes earlier was going to end up being much more beneficial to the firm. I did what they taught me to do in my law and economics class too many years ago. I did a cost-benefit analysis, a quick calculation, spur of the moment, in my head, and decided it made sense to hit the gas instead of the brake and deal with the consequences later.

And it turned out the consequences were even better because he's leaving. He wasn't even good enough to hear from headhunters, apparently he did it all himself, found some website that tries to place lawyers in new jobs. I hate the Internet. It's made it all too easy. If this guy is unhappy, he should have had to do what we had to do years ago: walk the streets, knock on doors, and hustle. You wanted a new job before the Internet, you had to do some real work. It wasn't as easy as looking at some job listings and clicking a few buttons and sending your resume. You had to sneak around, put in some real effort.

Now, for the subset of people good enough to be who everyone wants, graduates from top schools, employees at top firms, escaping is just too easy. We coddle them. Sites like this one coddle these people. They have a database of jobs that aren't even just sweatshop jobs like the ones here. They have in-house jobs, hedge fund jobs, all sorts of things most lawyers here would kill for, but just don't know how to find. We benefit when they don't know how to find these jobs. We benefit when it's too hard for them to leave. They're stuck here, as our indentured servants, forever. Or at least until they don't make partner and have to leave out of embarrassment. But if they're shown a light at the end of the tunnel, if they're shown that there are other things out there, if they're shown that they don't really have to be here, and that changing jobs doesn't have to be some huge upheaval involving months of financial insecurity, then we're screwed. And I worry about our future.

On the other hand, it gives unhappy lawyers no right to complain. You don't like your job? Go away. Go click on Lateral Link or wherever and look at the job listings. Get tempted. Sign up, shoot a resume out, leave us. You can't hack it here, we don't want you. You're not man (or woman) enough to stick it out until you have a heart attack at your desk, we don't want you. Take the easy way out. I'll find you. I'll run you over. I have liability insurance, that's what it's for.

Full post as published by Anonymous Attorney on May 31, 2007 (boomark / email).