living the dream.

Credit goes out to Andres on this one.  This website is great:  Bitter Lawyer .  I think it gives Above The Law a run for their money (and speaking of money, Bitter Lawyer is posting ads... That means they're making money off ranting about how much it sucks to be a lawyer.  Amazing.).

Before you do anything else, watch the "Typo" video, and for those of you who wonder what it is exactly that I do (Mom...), this video pretty much sums it up.  I don't know if it's because the lead character looks like Ron Livingston or because their due diligence review reminded me of TPS reports, but this short video clip is quite reminiscent of Office Space, minus the "flare," plus "BMWs."  Awesome... just awesome.

Make sure you hit up their "About Us" section.  When I read it, I immediately inhaled sharply and heard a voice in my head say, "It's like they know you..."

Well done Bitter Lawyers, well done.

This pretty much sums it up.

Having received some criticism from those who have heard the Jewish nose story about a million and one times (we go to a lot of cocktail parties), I am reverting back to my old rant.  Credit goes to Amanda for finding this article.

I can say this certainly got my blood pressure up this morning...  A Case of Supply v. Demand

The comments to this article are what especially got me all fired up.  The general public hates us.  I guess I always knew that, but the outright disdain and "they deserve it" attitude of the comments really make me angry.

Plenty of professions require its clients to pay by the hour...  accountants, psychologists, babysitters, architects, and massage therapists (to name a few and exclude some obvious, less-appropriate professions).  What is it about the legal profession that makes people think the services offered are any less valuable than those of a psychologist? 

What baffles me is that those comment-leavers fail to recognize that the billable hour price reflects the perpetuating problem.  People take out a TON of debt to go to law school.  They graduate from law school and pass the bar and must pay back that debt... and they charge in six minute increments!  Certainly, there are those multi-million dollar lawyers who charge exorbitant rates and rake it in... but in most cases those lawyers have years and years of experience, extensive knowledge in a lucrative niche, and a little bit of luck.  That is not the majority of the profession.  This article (and the public outcry) is about brand new lawyers with a mountain of debt and no jobs.  We're not talking about the lawyers who have been practicing for 25 years and have 6 cars and a house on each coast.  Every profession has those people: doctors, veterinarians, computer programmers... you name it.  There will always be those who hit it big.  Who get are in the right place and right time and work their butts off.  The majority of the legal profession makes a salary commensurate not only with experience, but also with the amount of debt they had to incur to even become lawyers.

At a base level, if my billable rate were any lower, I wouldn't be of any value to my firm and I would be moving into the guest room at my parents' house.  The gall of these people to tell me that I deserved to graduate law school with over $200,000 in debt, in a market saturated with lawyers, just because of the bad rap lawyers have gotten over the years makes me very, very angry.

step one: admitting the problem.

Since graduation from law school and my abrupt realization that, not only was the party over, but the time had come to pay the piper, I began to resent my career.

This resentment manifested itself in a number of ways, all of which made me feel like a nasty, terrible human being.  The recurring manifestation, and the one that ultimately led me to this step one, was how much I found myself hating those more fortunate than me.  It wasn't that I resented my rich friends, or even the friends with zero law school debt.  It went deeper than that.  I am not proud of what I'm about to share, but I believe it was (is?) a necessary part of what brought me to where I am.

The people I resented the most were those people - my friends, my clients, my yoga instructor, and even complete strangers - who were doing what they loved, and making a career out of it, because money wasn't an issue.  When a good friend broke his hip in two places and was relinquished to 8 weeks of bed rest, I found myself jealous (JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!!!) and wishing I had two months worth of excuses not to go to work or the gym or happy hour... or anything at all.  Everybody else talked about "how boring" it would be and how they would go stir crazy.  I, on the other hand, knew immediately what I would do with such an unplanned vacation:  I would write a book.

It took the rest of the summer for me to realize that despite my debt and general disenchantment with being a lawyer, I was really lucky.  What I wanted to do with my life didn't actually require having a lot of money.  It didn't require renting studio space, making a downpayment or investing loads of money upfront.

So, with a rough plot outline and initial thoughts on character development, this is me taking the first step to recovery:  I don't want to be a lawyer for the rest of my life. I don't want to wait until retirement to sit down and write my first book.  I don't want to hate what I do.  I don't want to resent people who love what they do.

I am going to write a book.