The Happy Feminist

GLORIOUSLY ALONE!

I am so freaking stressed right now that I literally don't know how I am going to accomplish everything I need to accomplish in the next eight days. So last night I had a mini-meltdown.  It involved me saying, "I don't know how I'm going to get it all done, I don't how I'm going to get it all done, I don't know how I'm going to get it all done," over and over again while rocking back and forth.

Then I started kvetching about how there aren't enough hours in the day, especially with two hours of commuting, plus taking care of the dog, plus making sure the house isn't a total sty, plus interacting with various in-laws who drop by unexpectedly on evenings and weekends.  And yeah, I could just let my husband take care of everything, but it's hard not to feel some obligation to play with the dog or pick up the vacuum cleaner or acknowledge the drop-in guests when they come by. 

So my husband came up with a brilliant plan: "Why don't you just stay in a hotel until your period of stress is over?"  He was probably just sick of the kvetching and wanted to get rid of me -- but by jove, it's the perfect solution to all my angst, even if it is a bit extravagant.

So here I am ensconced in a hotel room around the corner from my office. My husband even stopped by the room before I checked in (he checked in too even though he's not staying here) and stocked the room with soda and granola bars and other snacks.

I feel so much better and  calmer already.  I suppose for people who do a lot of business traveling (which I don't), it gets tiresome to always be in airports and hotel rooms -- but I just love the privacy and anonymity.  It's really made me realize what a privacy fanatic I am, probably as a result of growing up as an only child. It's great -- no one I know will drop by, and I have a room all to myself just like when I was a kid!  I can set the alarm for four in the morning if I want, without feeling bad that I might be waking up my husband!  I can set the heat as high as I want!  I can pretty much do whatever I want without worrying about being considerate to anyone! 

Yes, being married and having a fur-kid are wonderful things but I'd forgotten how absolutely effing fabulous it is to be alone!  Gloriously, gloriously alone! I'll be thrilled to go home next week, but for now this is exactly what I need.  And husband's going to bring the fur-kid by this weekend for a quick visit, so I can have my cake and eat it too.

Of course, I feel bad about the money I'm spending.  But I feel mentally so much better already, and I suppose I can skip my bi-annual clothes shopping trip to make up for it.  Or I can just say to myself, "Hey, it's about time I  blow some money after all the moolah my husband has spent on kitchen gadgets!"  We'll see.  But right now, I am just glad to be focusing on the task at hand.  I don't know how consistent I'll be about blogging, but I suspect I will still post every day since it calms me down.

I suppose this post will provide L. with Reason # 47,174 that she's glad she's not a lawyer!

REFLECTIONS ON BIGLAW

I work at the largest law firm in my state and I tend to think of it as "Biglaw."  But, because I live in a provincial area, my firm is not really what people mean when they say "Biglaw."  What people mean are the big law firms in places like New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and other major cities.  These are the places that hire the top students, the students who graduated "summa cum laude" or "magna cum laude" from the most prestigious colleges and law schools.  These firms pay new graduates in the range of $150,000 a year as a starting salary. In return, these young attorneys (according to the stereotype at least) devote all their brain power to spending long hours on tedious tasks such as document review (i.e. looking through boxes upon boxes of documents and identifying those that should not be produced to the other side due to attorney-client privilege, or summarizing the documents, etc.).  The conventional wisdom has it that these young attorneys are miserable automatons who are wasting their passions and abilities in exchange for prestige and a high salary. 

The whole set-up is very confusing to me, mainly because it doesn't seem to make very good business sense for a large firm to burn-out and waste precious human capital in that manner.  On the other hand, some of the things I hear from people who have been-there-done-that seem to bear out the stereotype.  I was harassing opposing counsel at another firm the other day to ask where the heck are his client's answers to the interrogatories I sent out (interrogatories being written questions that the other side in a law suit is required to answer).  Opposing counsel said that his associate had just spent three years as a litigation associate at Biglaw, so she was struggling because she had never been asked to work on interrogatory answers before -- a fairly basic task for a litigator in my line of work.  A close friend of mine said that in her two-and-a-half years in the litigation department at Biglaw, she never once had the opportunity to even write a complete legal research memorandum for internal use by other lawyers at the firm!  At most, she would be asked to research and write a portion of such a memorandum, and she would certainly never prepare interrogatory answers or actual pleadings, communicate with opposing counsel, or get anywhere near a deposition or a court room.   

On the other hand, I just spent a long, but lovely day, at a Metropolis out of state, hanging out with some folks who are senior associates and junior partners at Biglaw.  These were people maybe 7 -  10 years out of law school, and they seemed extremely engaged in their careers.   They seemed to have developed areas of expertise and to have acquired some actual litigation experience (although not actually taking cases to trial).  Even though I have been to court a lot more than they have and have questioned many more witnesses, I would view any of them as formidable opponents if we had cases against each other.  So something is not adding up.

I am definitely on the outside looking in. But my theory is that Biglaw prepares you for a very specific type of litigation -- the type of litigation that is vast and complicated and involves lots of moving parts (multiple parties perhaps and events spanning years).  All those tedious hours of document review at the beginning of your career do teach you something.  You learn through immersion in the team effort (I imagine) to understand how to organize and manage the representation of a client involved in such litigation.  You learn how to organize and manage vast quantities of documents.  You observe how lawyers go about distilling all the information contained in hundreds of thousands of documents to the key points that would be presented at a hypothetical trial.  (I say "hypothetical" because most of these cases settle, yet settlement is very much informed by what one believes will occur at trial.)   I wouldn't say that this is a waste of brainpower, however much it may seem that way when you've just spent twelve hours straight weeding through some boring contract documents.

And clearly, these firms have some way of providing additional experience to these young lawyers so that they are able to move up the food chain and handle more complex tasks.  And once you rise to the point where you are lead counsel on one of these cases, I imagine that it is both challenging and interesting. 

So I am not sure that it is right to create this view of miserable, unfulfilled drones at Biglaw versus the happy non-Biglaw attorneys all engaged in meaningful and challenging work.  I think it comes down to what kind of law you enjoy practicing.  The problem for someone like me is that I adore the drama and challenge of a courtroom practice, so it would be tough for me to be in a Biglaw situation where I am likely to become partner before ever trying a case. (Heck, I am going a little stir-crazy now because it's been a year-and-a-half since I have had a trial.) For someone else, the big but slow-grinding cases might be ideal;  I can see people loving that challenge of distilling something extremely complicated down to its essence so that a judge and jury can understand it. 

But then let's add to our analysis the wild cards of prestige and money.  There is no doubt that Biglaw is at the top of the heap when it comes to those two motivating factors.  That's where a lot of people go wrong.  A lot of young lawyers perhaps don't love the type of work done at Biglaw but they force themselves to stay there because of the salary and because they might feel like a failure if they move down the hierarchy of the legal profession. 

One of the real reasons of lawyer unhappiness is in my humble opinion is the extremely hierarchical nature of the legal profession.  That innate human desire to be at the top of the hierarchy -- that belief that perhaps one is even more morally worthy if one is at the top of the hierarchy -- drives the decision-making of far too many attorneys.  From that very first year in law school, you start moving either up or down that set hierarchy.  The ideal is to go to the most prestigious school, and get the highest grades, and be picked for Law Review (the most exclusive student-produced journal at one's law school).  Those early markers of prestige stay with you for the rest of your career and can determine whether you wind up with the $150,000-a-year starting salary or whether you have to scrap it out with the rest of us hoi polloi.  Often it is assumed among law students and young lawyers that everyone wants that starting associate position at Biglaw, and that not wanting it is a sign of lack of drive and lack of ambition. People often feel compelled to seek that brass ring regardless of their personal interests and predilections.   Heck, I am not immune to it.  I tend to be insulated from it in my provincial bubble, but in the Big City I find myself immediately computing where people are in the hierarchy.  And that kind of sucks. 

What it really comes down to, though it can be hard to remember, is that BigLaw is neither better or worse necessarily than other types of practices.  It is just a different kind of practice and one that happens to be considered desirable because it yields more income.  If that's the kind of practice that turns you on, that's great!  If it's not, get out of a racket that makes you miserable.   There are other ways to make sufficient money to covery your student loans and live a comfortable life. 

MAIN RULE OF NEGOTIATION: LET THE OTHER SIDE SAVE FACE

I do a lot of negotiating in my job -- mainly settlements and other kinds of legal agreements.  Often, I negotiate with lawyers who are all about telling me and/or my client what total morons we are for taking whatever position we are taking.

It may be that my cients and I are total morons, but as a negotiating strategy, I don't think that telling us so is such a hot idea. 

The best way to get someone to come around to your point of view is to leave that person a face-saving way to do so.  Condescension, ridicule, and attack do not leave the other side a face-saving way of agreeing with you.  Those tactics make the other side want to fight with you.  Now, I like to think that my clients and I are rational decision makers who will reach intelligent decisions regardless of whether we are irritated that someone is telling us we're morons. And, in fact, the decisions are always my clients' decisions to make, not mine.

But back when I was the primary decision maker, (as a prosecutor), it took a lot of willpower to give a defendant a break if it was the right thing to do in those instances when his lawyer was telling me that I am a moron for not giving him a break in the first place.  That's called human nature.  The other person is going to be far more likely to dig his or her heels in if you back him or her into a corner so that it's humiliating to come to your point of view.

I don't know why so many people in the legal profession don't understand this. 

THE RAMSEYS: ON LAWYERING UP

During the last ten years whenever the Jonbenet Ramsey case has come up on television or in conversation, I have been wont to say, "I sure as hell hope the parents are guilty because otherwise I wouldn't wish what they're going through on my worst enemy." I can't think of much worse than having your child brutally murdered in your home and then find yourself accused of her murder in the eyes of the entire world.

Recently, with the arrest of John Mark Karr, we have seen the strongest indications yet that John and Patsy Ramsey may have been innocent all along.  Of course, the verdict is still very much out on Karr.  As this news report highlights, we don't know whether there is any evidence whatsoever to corroborate Karr's admissions to having killed Jonbenet (supposedly by accident).  And an admission by itself is not necessarily trustworthy, since kooky people often confess to all sorts of things they haven't done.

But I would like to take this opportunity to comment on the Ramseys' behavior in "lawyering up" early on in the investigation of their daughter's murder.  There may have been good reasons for the police and the public to focus on Ramseys as likely suspects -- but the Ramseys' decision to lawyer up early on isn't one of them.  YOU CANNOT JUDGE SOMEONE'S GUILT OR INNOCENCE BASED ON WHETHER THEY CHOOSE TO HIRE A LAWYER OR REMAIN SILENT WHEN QUESTIONED BY THE POLICE.*  Lots of innocent people have good reasons to do both of those things -- like feeling targeted by a particular police department, or not having faith in a particular police department or the police in general.  I cannot recall all that I have read about the police investigation in the Ramsey case, but if I remember correctly it must have been obvious to John and Patsy pretty early on that they were the targets of the investigation.  They may even have felt that the police had already made up their minds.  And with no signs of an intruder in the house, the Ramseys, even if innocent, may have felt that things looked pretty grim for them. 

To me, lawyering up has never been a sign of a guilt, even by the parents of a murdered child. It's just a sign of a lack of faith that the police will come to the right conclusion. And often that lack of faith is warranted.

Bitch Ph.D has a nice post up called An Open Letter to John Ramsey.

*I should point out that the Ramseys did undergo police interrogation but their representatives heavily negotiated the terms under which they spoke, much to the frustration of many in law enforcement. 

DON'T FORGET YOUR LATIN GRAMMAR AND CLASSICAL ALLUSIONS WHEN YOU GO TO COURT

Here is a little tidbit from a judicial opinion I was reading today by the famous Judge Posner: 

". . . [T]he theft of the cans of soda pop was rendered nonactionable by the venerable legal maxim de minimis non curat lex.  (The lawyers on both sides of this case, no Latin grammarians they, call it the "de minimus" doctrine.)"

Hessel v. O'Hearn, 977 F.2d 299, 301 (7th Cir. 1992).

Note the slightly different spellings of "minimis" and "minimus" indicating a different grammatical form of the word -- "minimus" with a "u" being incorrect Latin in this context.  Typical judicial snottiness.  So unnecessary. 

I was once in court when a State Police Trooper was attempting to prosecute one of his first cases. (Police officers often prosecute misdemeanor bench trials in my jurisdiction.)  The judge was trying to muscle him into plea bargaining the case by persuading him that it had significant weaknesses.  The green State Police Trooper was hesitating, unsure what to do.  Finally, the judge said, "Don't stand there trying to be like Horatio at the Bridge!"  Of course, the poor State Police Trooper was even more befuddled after that.  Even I, who took a number of courses towards a Classics major in college, could barely remember the story of the Roman hero Horatio who stood his ground so his comrades could escape across the bridge as the Etruscan hordes swooped down.  There was no need for the judge to torment this poor cop with an obscure classics reference when the cop was already in over his head -- but I suppose the judge's need to intimidate with his superior erudition was the most important thing.   

RANDOM SUNDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS: LAW FIRMS AND MASSAGES

My superbusy period doesn't seem to be ending, but I'll try to work in a substantive post later this afternoon.  I was chained to my desk at home all day yesterday writing a Trial Memorandum for a bench trial I have next week. I took breaks for a long walk in the rain and a nice meal of spaghetti and meatballs prepared by my lovely husband.  Today I am back in the office to try to write yet another Motion for Summary Judgment.  For those of you who are fortunate enough not to know, these can be time consuming affairs.  One has to select the facts to include in the Motion, and show that each of these facts is established by deposition testimony or some other type of sworn statement.  One then has to research the law regarding each pending claim and then come up with an argument as to why your side should prevail without having to go through trial (on the ground that you deserve to win just based on the facts everyone agrees on). 

As I trotted up the steps of my enormous and grandiose law firm building at seven o'clock this Sunday morning, I was shocked to see a homeless person sacked out on a sleeping bag on the front steps of the building.  I know I shouldn't be shocked, as we have a moderate homeless problem in our city and our firm borders a park where a lot of the homeless spend their time.  Still, it was most disconcerting partly because the area is utterly deserted that early on a Sunday morning and also because it felt weird to walk past this destitute person into the luxury of my firm with its french vanilla cappucino maker and air of hushed opulence. 

That got me thinking about different offices I have had.  BIGLaw, where I now work, is by far the nicest office space I have ever inhabited.  It is quite a contrast to the lowly District Attorney's Office in the dinky rural county where I was a prosecutor for five years.  When I was a prosecutor, I was far more powerful than I am now (big-fish-teeny-pond syndrome), but there was no luxury whatsoever attached to that.  My office walls were mismatched fake wood paneling.  My walls were so flimsy that a witness once created an enormous hole in my wall when she accidentally bumped into it in her electric wheelchair.  The hole in my wall was never fixed.  Our carpeting was threadbare, our fluorescent lights were constantly flickering and in need of replacement.  We were exposed to lead paint (or maybe it was asbestos, I've put it all out of my mind) and the building where I worked has since been condemned and razed to the ground. 

Worst of all, when I first arrived at the D.A.'s office, there were virtually no resources for doing legal research.  We had nothing on-line.  No access Westlaw.  No access to Lexis-Nexis.  No CD-ROMs containing case law.  All we had was a bookshelf containing all the volumes of published cases for our state -- but the index portion that helps you locate cases pertaining to your legal issue was missing.  So I had all the published cases in hundreds of volumes, but no way to locate the ones that I would need to address the specific legal issues that might arise in my cases. We also had five or six random volumes of the U.S. Supreme Court Reporters. 

When I first got there, I asked my boss how they did legal research.  Apparently, they hadn't done any actual legal research in years.  They might support their pleadings with some very generalized citations from the state criminal law treatise and that was about it.  They had once asked for a budget for research costs, but the county governing body didn't understand why we would need anything beyond the books we already had! Fortunately, when I told my boss I couldn't function without at least the state law cases on CD-Rom, she took it out of another line item in the budget.  I also cribbed federal law cases from the free on-line service my husband had through his then-firm -- but sheesh.

I think of that now whenever I sit in my firm's very well-stocked two story law library which has its own law librarian and a hard copy of pretty much every resource you could need in addition to various on-line services we subscribe too.  And lots of space, and work stations for the attorneys!  I know it's weird but I always feel a little flutter of wonderment and gratitude whenever I use the firm library-- even if it's early in the morning on a freakin' Sunday.

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I know I'm late to the pile-on but I must confess to being oddly fascinated by the video footage of President Bush giving Chancellor Merkel an unsolicited shoulder massage after sneaking up on her from behind in the midst of her conversation with the Italian Prime Minister. Her grimace and defensive movement said it all -- and boy, do I know how she felt.  I have been in that precise situation when some dude I don't really know that well comes up and starts rubbing my neck shoulders when I am in the middle of a conversation with someone else.  I remember thinking, "What does this guy expect me to do? Go limp? Close my eyes and emit a deep 'Aaaaaah'? Ignore him and continue my conversation with the person I was talking to?" Of course, what I actually did was kind of break away, turn around, and include creepo in the conversation.  I probably grimaced just like Merkel too.  Bleaaaah. 

Even worse then the unsolicited shoulder massage though is the unsolicited lift up into the air. Yep.  That's what I said.  The unsolicited lift up into the air.  As in, one minute you're minding your own business being mildly sociable with both feet planted on the ground, and the next minute some asshat has grabbed you bodily and lifted you above his head in a very misguided attempt at charm.  This has only happened to me twice, -- but believe you me, it rankled.   One perpetrator was a random dude at a college party, the other was my husband's best friend from childhood who is so socially awkward that he is wont to punch you in the arm, pull your hair, shove you in a friendly way, or  pick you up, because he doesn't know what else to do.  I think in both instances I yelled, "PUT ME THE !**)#! DOWN!"  I may not be the largest person in the world but I can yell.   

LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS FOR JUDGES

Hugo had a good post up last week or so about the value of tenure.  While tenure may be a shield for lazy or irresponsible professors, it also provides freedom for the motivated ones to take intellectual risks, develop innovative courses, and take bold stands on institutional issues affecting their university.  Presumably, this is why universities do not grant tenure lightly but vet professors fairly closely before granting it.

I agree wholeheartedly.  I think this principle also applies to judges.  I am a strong supporter of lifetime appointments for judges at every level of the court system.  People grouse a lot about the judges’ “lack of accountability,” as though it’s a bad thing.  But I don’t want the judges who decide my fate (when I am sued or accused of a crime) to be controlled by the mob outside the courthouse door. I want a truly disinterested decision by a neutral judge who has no stake in the matter.  If my case has a potential bearing on his election results, then the judge is no longer neutral.  He is quite likely to decide my case based on his best interests rather than his honest conclusion about what justice and the law require.

Also, a lifetime appointment is not a license for a judge to do whatever he pleases.  The judge is still governed by the Canon of Judicial Ethics and can be sanctioned or even impeached for violations.  A judge cannot, for example, nap through her trials, decide cases in which she has a financial interest, or disobey orders from higher courts (as in the case of Judge Roy Moore of Ten Commandments fame).  A judge, however, cannot be disciplined or removed from office merely because we dislike her interpretation of the law.

I have been before judges whose rulings have been, in my opinion, absolutely wrongheaded.  But at least, the judges are able to act with integrity without being tempted by their own self-interest.  Lifetime appointments are the best way to protect criminal defendants, crime victims, and litigants from the passions and prejudices of the public at large.

A SNAPSHOT OF PRACTICING LAW: THINGS THAT GET MY GOAT - UPDATED

OK, this post is pure self-indulgent venting, but it is not often that I find myself absolutely beside myself at my job.  But today I am absolutely beside myself. To the point that I can actually feel my blood vessels constricting, I am so angry.

If you are a junior associate charged with updating a 30-page out-of-date article in time for a publication deadline, and you kept asking the senior associate for extensions of the deadline until the very last minute, and the senior associate graciously assents, wouldn't you -- um -- actually revise the #@*!*#)! article?

OR would you, on the date of the absolute final deadline, leave on the senior associates desk a copy of the old article with some handwritten notes in the margin as to which aspects of the law have changed, and attach copies of the updated law, but not actually rewrite the article at all, and then disappear for the day thus forcing the senior associate to rewrite the entire article herself at the last minute????

And, if you chose the latter option, what exactly was going through your little pea-sized brain? Who did you think was actually going to put in the hours to revise the article and when did you think that was going to occur?  What did you think was the point of assigning you this task?!?!?!>

Gaaaah.  No time to actually blow gasket because must do work of junior associate for him. 

UPDATE:  I spent 5.0 hours yesterday frantically updating the article (including some time I would have spent proofreading it anyway).  Barbara P asks how I will deal with the junior associate.  I hate these situations and I am sure my handling of it will be imperfect.  What I expect will happen based on past experience is this:

When junior associate returns tomorrow, I will sit down with him, calmly relay the sequence of events, the consequences for me  and the mission (of completing a quality product within deadline) of his failure to complete the assigned task, and the fact that his failure is unacceptable.  He will then become defensive and tell me that my instructions were unclear.  I will then point out that, regardless of the clarity of my instructions (which were in fact pretty darned clear), he must have realized that the article had to be rewritten by yesterday's publication deadline and that it is his job to think about the mission as a whole rather than robotically following only my specific instructions without regard to whether his understanding of them makes sense.  He will then get more defensive.  After the meeting, he will gripe about me to his friends. 

Then when a partner asks me about his work (which some partner invariably will), I will report mostly nice things and then say, "But there was this one troubling incident . . .  He said my instructions weren't clear but I don't see how he thought we could make the publication deadline . . . and he wasn't very receptive when I called him on it . . ."  The partner will get the picture and the associate's star will sink accordingly. 

Oh, and I will try to avoid working with this associate in the future.  One way in which associates sometimes fail out of law firms is by people not wanting to work with them.  If no one wants to work with you because you are unreliable, then you can't make your  billable hours. 

If I do have to work with him in future, I will confirm all instructions to him via email so he can't claim lack of clarity. 

OUCH -- WHEN TOLERANCE HURTS

Red State Feminist brings us the disturbing tale of the custody battle over these two little girls, 13-year old twins, Lamb and Lynx Gaede.  These two children are popularly known as the Olsen Twins of White Supremacy. Their mother has homeschooled them in neo-Nazism and has nurtured their careers as a pop duo called "Prussian Blue," which sings odes to Adolf Hitler, Rudolph Hess and the Third Reich.  They are very popular in white nationalist circles and are considered a valuable asset in recruiting new members.

Their dad has been fighting for custody on the ground that their mother is damaging them by teaching them a poisonous ideology of hate.  Unfortunately, dad has a history of drug abuse and domestic violence.  The judge ruled that mother should retain custody, but that father may have limited visitation with the twins.

As everyone agreed in the comments thread at Red State Feminist's site (last I checked), this decision was a no-brainer, albeit a painful one.  We can't start depriving parents of child custody based on the values they are teaching their children-- even if these are socially unacceptable values.  If that were the standard, then atheist parents would be in big trouble in many places.  But ouch, the thought of these young kids being immersed in Nazi ideology sure does hurt. (And certainly, the Gaede twins aren't the only ones.)

The good news is that Nazism is socially unacceptable and is nearly universally understood to be a destructive ideology based on lies.  When the Gaede twins grow up, there is a chance that they will come to the error in their mother's ways.  If not, I suppose, they will live out their lives on the fringes of society, continuing to preach white superiority.  Unfortunately, none of us can choose our parents or the culture in which we will be raised.   

NOTE:   It might, however, be appropriate to revoke custody of the parents just based on the extreme cruelty of naming them "Lynx" and "Lamb."

PUBLIC DEFENDER HILARITY

This post cracked me up.  Actually Blonde Justice cracks me up in general.

I shoulda been a public defender.  Where did I go wrong? (Oh yeah, I forgot.  The PD wouldn't hire me.  Now I'm representing cops.  But it would have been fun.)