Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Don't Lie to Your Attorney

Twice in the ten months that I have been a practicing attorney I've been working on a case that has been in litigation for a year or more when the client called the office to say something along the lines of, "by the way, that information/document/evidence I gave you last year was untrue/stolen/only half the story." Getting a bombshell like that only a month or two months or even six months before trial is just the worst. For an attorney, working with unfavorable facts is a challenge; finding out you've been working with incomplete facts is a disaster. No matter how bad the information looks, there is no good reason to hold out on your lawyer.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Trials Move Fast

George F. Will wrote,
Of all the silly and sentimental things said about baseball, none is sillier than the description of the game as 'unhurried' or 'leisurely.' . . . There is barely enough time between pitches for all the thinking that is required, and that the best players do, in processing the changing information about the crucial variables.
The same thing might be said of trials. From the point of view of a spectator (or a juror), a trial moves glacially. The lawyers go through esoteric procedures to get documents into evidence, ask witnesses repetitive questions, and take frequent breaks to argue points of law.
From the point of view of the lawyers (and the judge), a trial is a relentless procession of snap decisions--several per minute. It's exciting and exhausting. I'm glad I have a job that gets me into the courtroom from time to time, but I'd hate to do it every day.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

There's More than One Way to Leave a Courtroom

The last time I was in one of Little Rock's new federal courtrooms, a Bailiff slipped in through a door on one side of the room. The door was so gracefully set into the wood paneling that I had not noticed it before. What caught my attention was the view beyond: a bare cinder block hallway. I guess if you're in court to be sentenced, the velvet-and-mahogany treatment ends at the exit door.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Making Law

When I was in law school, a professor told me that one of the best things about practicing law in Arkansas was the frequent opportunity to make new law. You see, Arkansas is not a particularly litigious place, so a lot of legal questions are still undecided here.

I have found my professor's assessment to be accurate. Twice in five months I have had to ask a court to apply a statute or principle that has never been used in Arkansas before. It's fun to think that a case I'm working on now might be cited as precedent in a few years.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Trial

Have you had the experience of going out of town for a few days, then coming home and feeling a little disoriented by your everyday life? It's as if you've been to an alternate universe, and have to re-learn your old routines. I find that going to court has a similar effect. I've participated in two full-on, multi-day trials now, and on both occasions I have come back to the office feeling as if I had been to some far-away place for a very long time. The courtroom really is a kind of alternate universe where different rules apply.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Rejection Letter

I got an email from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission yesterday informing me that I have not been selected for hire. I don't know what I applied for or when, but it has to have been before January 15. Their vetting process for job applications must be incredibly thorough.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Emotional Roller Coaster

I ran away to law school because I thought accounting was too boring. I'm not bored anymore, but I am stressed.
It's a major thrill to file a big, beautiful brief that busts the opposition's chops with a perfectly crafted legal argument. On the other hand, it's a real punch in the gut to get a brief from the other side and have to read a twenty-page takedown of that argument. Either way, the adrenaline rush is continuous. My hair is much grayer now than it was when I applied to law school. I hope it makes me look experienced.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Straight Talk

If you want to hear some really frank talk about race, spend time around trial lawyers. Hardly a week goes by in the office without a conversation about the challenges associated with having a Black or Latino client, juror, judge, or opposing counsel. With big bucks on the line, lawyers can't afford to be delicate about such issues. I'm sure race comes up even more among criminal attorneys.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Citation, Schmitation

I have already forgotten most of what I knew about proper legal citation. My firm has a house style that has nothing to do with the Harvard Blue Book or the ALWD manual. If I were a law clerk, I'd probably look askance at the briefs I file. Hopefully the clerks who read my stuff are more open-minded than that.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Mo' Money, Mo' Lawyers

Unfortunately, you get as much justice as you can afford. One of my firm's clients is suing two defendants: one with money and one without. The big money defendant has a big money law firm that fights every point of law tooth and nail--we've had to work like crazy just to keep them in the case. The small money defendant has a small law firm that barely understands what's going on--I assume the firm just has a general practice and has never had to deal with the statutes we're suing under.
The situation is as frustrating for us as it must be for the outmatched defendant. If we get a big judgment, it will probably be against the guy who can't afford to pay it. The rich defendant could write us a check right now, but it would rather spend the money on its attorneys.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Loser

Last week the court ruled on one of the first motions I ever filed. Denied! My colleagues' attitude was essentially, "don't sweat it, judges almost never grant those." If anything, that made me feel worse. I probably racked up $1000 in billable hours fighting for that motion. An awful lot of legal fees get wasted on high-risk, low-yield legal maneuvers.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Infinite Loop of Legal Argument

Last week I wrote a document called the Plaintiff's Reply to Defendant's Response to Plaintiff's Motion to Quash Defendant's Request. This is why I love practicing law.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

A New Uniform

I had to spend about $200 of my first paycheck on clothes. I bought two suits back when I was a 1L; other than that, I hadn't made a substantial clothing purchase in about four years. How could I? Until I had a steady job, I didn't know what kind of clothes I needed.

At my current job, I am expected to wear dress clothes, but not suits. That is a challenge. I spent about a month scouring Goodwill for sport coats and the internet for tailored trousers (no one--but no one--sells my pants size off the rack). In the end, I think I did pretty well. As long as my lawyer lifestyle doesn't make me fat, I should be set for work clothes for a year or more.

Once I've built up my savings a bit, maybe I'll indulge in a few high-end garments. Until then, I'm the attorney in the used jacket and discount pants.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Working (not so) Hard

Based on my experiences so far, the stories you hear about young lawyers working sixty, eighty, or a hundred hours a week are exaggerated. I've had a few late nights at work because of after-hours client meetings, but most of my days are eight to five. I am told that we'll be a lot busier when we have a trial coming up, but that only happens a few times a year.

Maybe that 'midnight oil' lifestyle only happens at the big firms. Or maybe lawyers just perpetuate the myth of the overworked associate so they can justify billing sixteen hours a day.  Nah, they wouldn't do that.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Blog Reborn

I decided I'm not ready to quit blogging, so I rechristened the blog 'LR Law' (get it? get it? I'm old) and will keep posting about my experiences as an attorney.

I want to use this, my first "lawyer post," to lower expectations in two ways. First, I doubt that I will have time to post twice a week as I did through most of law school. Second, I don't intend to get fired over my blog, so my posts will tend to be extremely vague. My identity is no secret to regular readers, but maybe I can stay off my boss' radar. For now, suffice it to say that I work at a small firm in downtown Little Rock.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

One Last Post About School

This blog has been more or less dormant since I passed the bar, and I haven't quite decided whether I should shutter it altogether. This I know for sure: I can't call it a law school blog anymore. But before I pack it in or change the blog's name or whatever I'm going to do, I want to ask myself the one question that sums it all up: If I knew then what I know now, would I have applied to law school at all?

I suppose so, but it's hardly a slam dunk.

Financially, law school was not a good bet.
To make law school pay (at least in the third-tier, small-market law school world I experienced), you have to be either an academic savant, a networking savant, or a lawyer's kid. I would categorize myself as an academic savant and a networking dullard, and that combination almost sank me. Those eight months of unemployment after graduation were a terrible, terrible time for me, and it's going to take a long time to forget them. Now I earn maybe twenty percent more than I did before I went to school. My long-term earning potential is good, sure, but it's going to take me a long time to make up for that lost three years.

In terms of job satisfaction, so far, so good.
I went to law school in the first place because I was burned out on the clerical and accounting jobs I've done my whole life. Practicing law is a lot more fun, but I've only been at it for a month. In five years, will I be more burned out than ever? Statistics say yes--law is just about the drinkingest, drug-abusingest, most depressed profession there is. Maybe I'll be the exception.

So law school turned out to be an okay option for the bored accountant I was four years ago, but if I really had a do-over, I'd go back and warn my eighteen-year-old self to lay off that cushy history major and take some physics or chemistry or computer science classes. I suspect I'd be more employable with most any science undergraduate degree than I am with a law degree. What's more, I'd be more employable as a lawyer if I had some kind of science background; the field is saturated with history and poli-sci majors. Stay in school, kids!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Employed, For Now

Today was my first day as a practicing attorney. A small firm hired me to fill in while one of the associates takes maternity leave. That will last a few months, and then they'll decide if the workload (and my performance) justifies taking me on permanently.

I've been chasing every job in sight for eight months, but I got this one because one of my law school classmates heard about it through the grapevine and gave my name to the hiring attorney. Do not underestimate the value of having a good reputation among your peers.

Monday, January 2, 2012

I'm Still Here

I haven't abandoned the blog. There is simply nothing to report. There have been eight job applications, two interviews, and no offers since my last post.