kate gets pwned.

I can't believe it's been over two months since I updated. The last two months at work have been just insane for me, and it means that on weekends and in the evenings, I either want to hang out with the hubs or just veg and not have to put together any coherent thoughts. I guess the good news about all that is that I am not worried about job security, at least not anytime soon. And given the economy at large, that's a good spot to be in.

I'm feeling a little low on creative juices, but maybe I'll return with something good soon.

Too Close to Home

I read an article in the last couple weeks (I don't remember what or where, or I'd link) that mentioned, sort of off-handedly, that lawyers are people who were good at everything all their lives, but never really great at anything. (I think the thrust of the article was that, then, in order to really excel in their careers, lawyers need to break out of that, specialize and market themselves as experts in a particular niche, but none of us want to do that....that's not really the point here anyway.)

So it just stuck. in. my. brain. Because it's so absurdly true of me, and of most of the lawyers I know. But one of the things I always thought was, well, if I can be good at all this shit, maybe I can be a great lawyer.

What's been in part frustrating for me about my job is that, definitionally, a BIG part of what it means to be "great" at it is being available. All the time. Working nights. Working weekends. Answering emails late. Going in to the office even if you hadn't planned to. It's not even going above and beyond because it's expected. In fact, it's required. I don't know how to get away from that, especially because I work at a firm that's now (allegedly) one of the least demanding in that way in the city. As I think I said before, I work in an area of the law that doesn't lend itself super-easily to non-firm practice, at least not before you're well above my pay grade (like 15 years senior to me), so there don't seem to be a ton of options for hopping off the treadmill. And that freaks me the fuck out.

Laying Down the Law

Being a lawyer is kind of awesome, at times. The last week has been sort of insanely busy and hectic and stressful and I have to admit, I am very glad it's over. But I also learned a lot this week and got to work on a pretty interesting case and be a valuable member of a team. So it's not all bad.

When I was in law school, I always thought it would be hard to have really good opposing counsel. It turns out, that's the EASIEST possible scenario. When opposing counsel is good--which is to say, prepared, knowledgeable, and, you know, at least a little smart--it makes my life a LOT easier. It's when opposing counsel are, as my mentor says, "jokers," that things get complicated.

I work in a relatively specialized area of the law, but one that general practice lawyers are always convinced they can give a shot. When I'm having to go back to square negative-one to explain to the court WHAT THE LAW ACTUALLY SAYS because these jokers are just talking around in circles, or asking for things the COURT CANNOT ACTUALLY DO, or even saying things that are JUST STRAIGHT UP LIES, it wastes a lot of time I could actually be arguing the issues. Which is something I hadn't thought about until I actually had to do it.

It's also interesting reading press coverage of cases I'm actually working on, which has now happened a couple of times. Like the opposing counsel jokers, it turns out journalists often just don't get what the law actually says, but at least they seem to care about the fact that they don't know rather than just going with whatever they think makes the most sense. It is kind of cool to see people care about the stuff that I do, regardless.

Also on my mind: how is seriously everyone getting preggers? I am not ready to be of an age where my friends all have kids. Unsolicited uterus update: still blissfully empty.

turn smile shift repeat

So I'm now a full month into my job. And it's...I mean, it's job. There's a reason they have to pay you to go to jobs (and in my case, arguably overpay) and the reason is they all suck a little. But I spent three years--three miserable years--of my life telling myself that if I could just get through those three years, then I would get to be a lawyer. And being a lawyer was going to be awesome.

And some things about it are kind of awesome. There's a lot of problem-solving. I get to be a part of a team way more than I anticipated, which I unexpectedly sort of love. Plus, I get to give legal advice. There's something about that which is totally weirdly satisfying. I also think the issues I'm dealing with are pretty interesting in a majorly nerdy way. And those sweet, sweet lawyer paychecks certainly don't hurt.

But then. But then. I'm working kind of a lot, and there's a lot of pressure for me to be working even more. My employer laid a ton of people off in the last year, and there's a lot of anxiety about when or if they might be laying off more. There's a lot of tension about who's working what kind of hours and whether we ought to be doing this or doing that. Incidentally, in a total fluke, I happen to be in one of the busiest groups at my firm, but even I had a super slow day this week which caused me to have a "well shit, if I can't even get work in this group, I might as well pack it in now."

On top of that, I have no idea if I'm doing even a passable job. I get feedback in the "here, make these edits and then send it to the client" kind of way, but not in the "yeah, you're a pretty good beginning lawyer" kind of way. I guess they hired me on the basis of the work I did last summer, which must not have sucked, but then sometimes I get some pretty negative feedback (one partner, for whom I do the majority of my work, had to remind me to "mind the small things"....I shut the door to my office and cried.) and it's like....this? This is what I'm doing with my life? Why??

Oh, not to mention there's no exit strategy. I'm in a sort of niche area, and there's not really a lot to do from here, even if there were available legal jobs out there.

Maybe part of the problem is that I have always been relentlessly, disgustingly goal-oriented. I worked hard in high school to get a scholarship to college. Check. I worked hard in college to get into a great law school. Check. I worked hard in law school to get a firm job. Check. Now that I have that job I have sort of a feeling of a ship at sea. Now what? I had thought I'd be on a sort of partnership track, and maybe in a few months I'll decide that is what I want, but right now, the idea of working at this same place doing this same work until I retire makes me want to put knives in my eyeballs. The idea of billing 2000+ hours a year and taking a blackberry on vacation and always being on call makes me want to quit today. But that great law school didn't come cheap, so I guess for at least the next 10 or so years, I'm just going to have to suck it up.

So, as you have probably noticed, I've quit blogging the day to day stuff since the hubs is largely taking care of all of that. Bless him. So I'm sure if you're interested in what we're doing all this time, you're following his blog too. If you just come for the hilarious tone of my writing, well bless your little heart you sad, sad person.

I turned 25 in Vancouver last week. Actually, by this time it's been over a week. Anyway, here I am in my 25th year and still feeling a bit like a lost puppy. Not having a home or permanent address or knowing how to answer people when they ask you "where are you visiting from?" will do that to a girl, I guess.

It was a good birthday, but a bit hard for me. I take birthdays very seriously. I love them. As I've told a lot of people, I love birthdays. I love the idea that there's one day of the year where YOU are the special person. People you love and that love you call YOU to share their hope that YOU especially have a great day. They give YOU gifts to ensure your day will be great. I love my own birthday and I love other people's. I love going out to dinner and I love cards and I love cake and I love candles and I love how people try to act like they don't care but really they do. I just love it. And it's not all about presents (though who doesn't love a perfect gift?).

This year was the first time I've ever been away from all my friends and family (except the hubs of course) on my birthday. And because I was in Canada, anyone who wanted to call me was calling internationally and my phone was roaming, so I didn't answer and just let it go to voicemail. While voicemails are great, it isn't quite the same.

Also, the hubs and I agreed, due to our current financial status, that we'd skip presents this year. Since we share finances and basically this whole road trip is one big present to ourselves it made sense at the time. And with our mailing address up in the air, it meant I didn't get presents from my parents or sister, either.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful or whiny. Though maybe I am? I had a great day with perfect weather eating delicious food in a beautiful city with the man I love. And I loved it. All I'm saying is next year, I'm staying home, having all my friends over and answering the phone when my grandma calls, you know?


The other big milestone that's happened recently is that I FOUND OUT I PASSED THE BAR. This means that I am one swearing in ceremony (November 5! Mark your calendar!) away from being what I think I've wanted to be for an abnormally long time: a real live lawyer.

The bar admissions people had told us that results would be out "the first two weeks of October." Sure enough, when I awoke on October 1 in San Francisco, people had already started posting their positive results. Of course, I went to check the bar website. Which had crashed.

The site had also crashed last year and the board's answer to this was to "release results gradually," which is to say they planned to send emails to test-takers throughout the day in alphabetical order.

This was the first moment since getting all the annoying paperwork done that I regretted changing my name. My marriage changed my last name from a very respectable beginning of the alphabet name to a sad, lonely end of the alphabet one. My husband claims it's the middle, but I swear, it's the end. And this meant I would have to wait until the end of the day (more or less) to find out my results, even in the best of cases.

Of course, the best case scenario did not come to pass. As you can imagine, with you know, telephones and that great system of tubes we call the internets, people with names not at the beginning of the alphabet heard that people had started to get results and went to check their own. Roughly 3,000 people checking in the course of a few hours crashed the site. They somehow had not anticipated that people would hear results were out or that, upon hearing it, they'd want their own results?

Hey, maybe next year, you guys could just set up the server to handle the traffic I guarantee you'll get? Just a thought.

So this meant that, when I woke up in San Francisco, I knew results were out, but couldn't access them. The hubs, our friend Liz (who had taken the same bar as I had and is similarly alphabetically disadvantaged), and I had planned to leave for Yosemite that morning, where internet access would be harder to come by, so we dawdled for a bit before deciding just to leave anyway.

This was going to be a long day. How, when you know results are out but don't know your own, are you supposed to think about ANYTHING else? We made half-assed attempts at conversation for a bit, but mostly just waited. We were getting texts from a friend of Liz's telling us that some people had just started to get emails with their results right in the email (novel concept, eh?).

We drove for a few hours before stopping to buy groceries...and check results. They weren't out.

We kept driving. Kept trying to talk or think about ANYTHING other than whether or not Liz and I would be lawyers by the end of the day.

We stoppped again. No email. Liz's friend (god bless her) suggested we try the cached version of the bar website. Success! We were able to log in! Success! We both passed!

Both Liz and I were too excited/relieved to do anything but read the "We are pleased to inform you..." line and basically freaked out in a Starbucks in the middle of nowhere. We had to go back a few days later to check again (on the un-cached site) so we could make sure it was for real and actually read the letter (which included, among other things, the caveat that if we didn't get around to being sworn in in the next 4 years, our passage would be revoked. Who ARE these people for whom they have to make such crazy rules?).

Anyway...this post goes firmly under the label My Life Doesn't Suck. It will be an interesting winter trying to adjust from this absurd vacation lifestyle to having to, you know, work. A lot. BECAUSE I'M A LAWYER.