Dear Diary:
A colleague recently said to me that when the BigLaw Man has his foot on your ass pushing you out the BigLaw nest, you’d better learn to fly and you better learn fast.
Even if this means building your own wings from scratch.
This should be nothing new to you BigLaw-lings. This entire time, BigLaw associates, especially corporate associates, have been under prepared for the work they are expected to do and do well. (Litigators at least had the benefit of law school preparing them to write memos, briefs, and reading a godless amount of case law.)
Don’t say “but-but, my law firm has a good training program.” Bullshit. You don’t know what you’re doing and moreover, you don’t even know that you don’t know most of the stuff out there because you aren’t even aware of most stuff out there.
Don’t say, “but-but, my law firm has a good mentor program.” Again, bullshit. You might be one of the coddled because you have some non-merit based leg up or you might be one of the few that have been lucky enough to have a true partner or senior associate mentor, but for the rest of you, the canned mentor-mentee program the firm sets up for you is bullshit. It might make you feel better the first 3 weeks of your BigLaw career, but that’s about it. When I got laid off, my mentor didn’t even know about it (not like he was ever around to have warned me about it). Another colleague told me it was her mentor who was one of the key partners in deciding that she should be laid off (he clearly had another favorite associate). Go Firm Mentors!
For most of the associates, they are thrown into the fire in the midst of a closing when they don’t even know exactly what’s going on, especially junior monkeys. The damn org chart keeps changing, NewCo’s name keeps changing, even the damn dollar amount keeps changing and most often than not, even the closing date keeps changing and nobody tells the junior monkey that a bunch of side letters and ancillary documents are now required for closing.
You’ve been in a sink or swim environment since day one with people ready to throw you under the bus.
Being laid off is no different.
However, this time, instead of the client you’re doing work for, it’s yourself. So I’m not exactly sure why some of our fallen comrades are sulking in their bedroom half watching soap operas with drool and self-pity coming out of their mouths instead of out there fighting to close their own deal by finding their next conquest (or even just a little step ladder to their next conquest).
You’ve busted your ass in law school for your career. Just because there’s a little twist in the road doesn’t mean you should stop busting your ass for yourself or your career.
Face it, nobody’s going to come by and give you a big fat paycheck or regurgitated worms like BigLaw did.
So–
Get off your ass!
(and go get me a beer–then go do something productive.)
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easier said than done!