First Day on the Job at a Firm

I am starting this week on a temorary placement at a respected law firm. I take with me the wisdom from previous experiences.

And in taking my sucesses and my failures in stride, I came up with a list of what to do and what not to do when entering the legal workforce.

1. Do not underestimate the value of your appearance! Looks matter. Although many attorneys will say that they don't care what you wear to work, so long as you do the job right, there definitely is a certain stigma that is attached to you by way of your appearance. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have seen judges look with disdain at attorneys who wore bright colors and flashy shoes to court. I have seen the disparity in the way I get treated when I wear a suit, a dress or jeans.

My advice- wear muted colors and limit your accessories. Brown, biege, gray or navy-blue work very well. The image you want to get across is that you care more about your work than your clothes. Of course, you could easily accomplish this by wearing jeans and a t-shirt to work. too, but jeans and a T-shirt scream the word "slacker!".

2. Do not socialize unecessarily! You are there to work. It's understandable that you might want to build relationships and strengthen your bridges at your new firm, but there will always be time for that. Your priority should really be competence. You need to get the job done. For the first while, skip lunch and eat at your desk if you must. Don't stop at the offices of others and strike up conversation on the first day. You will have plenty of time to do that once you have proven yourself. For the first while, it will be the quality of your work and not your personality that will get you more points.

3. Go in early and work late. Get there before most of the other people in the office do and leave later than the rest. You don't necessarily need to be the first person in the office nor the last one to leave, but look at your timings relative to everyone else and be a notch more conservative than the rest.

4. Pay attention to the quality of your work! Your work will be the most important factor in making your first impression. Take down your assignments with a note-pad and work hard. Stay focused and ask questions if you don't know what you are doing. Also, try to gage your employer's expectations of the assignment and if you can, try to get hold of a sample of what he/she wants from you.

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Lawyers Suffer the Highest Rate of Depression

The California Bar Journal recently published an article, written by Diane Curtis, on the correlation between the practice of law and depression. A study conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that lawyers suffer the highest rate of depression- 19% of lawyers suffer from depression, where only 3-9% of the general population suffers from depression.

The article mentions the "telltale signs" of depression among attorneys, as noted by a member of the Lawyer Assistance Program of the California State Bar. These signs are generally fatigue, low energy and a sense of being overwhelmed. He interestingly enough calls this depression a "creeping paralysis".

So why is it, then, that so many lawyers suffer depression? One would assume that lawyers would feel pride and a sense of accomplishment. I believe that this sense of pride is exactly what may trigger depression for some attorneys. We struggle so hard to achieve heights in our career with minimal rewards. The article calls the profession of law a "lonely profession" due to the adversarial nature of the work.

Perhaps we need to change the nature of our practice. Perhaps we need to look into the way we practice and figure out what makes us happy. I've met plenty of people who are dissatisfied with the profession of law and I've also met plenty of people who are very satisfied with their career choice. I've noticed that the ones who are more satisfied are ones who have work-life balance and mostly, ones who run their own practices.

So, how do we acheive career satisfaction?

Preliminary Considerations: Why I chose to go solo.

People really don't understand the profession of Law. We spend years in school learning concepts that are ambiguous at best, write a three-day exam at the end of our studies and then are thrust into the legal world to practice as attorneys. Many of us end up in large firms with equally large salaries, only to work 70 hour work weeks performing riguourous research tasks. Others find themselves in public practice, working for government agencies or for Legal Aid Societies.

At the beginning, I always second guessed my decision to go solo. I had some experience behind me as a law clerk and I had firms who were willing to take me upon passing the bar exam. I suppose it really came down to the kind of practitioner I wanted to be. I've been an independant person from Day One. I was always able to take care of myself and often enjoyed being alone. I craved independence as a child and constantly questioned authority.

I was nine months pregnant when I wrote the California bar exam and I was a new mom when I was sworn in to bar. When my daughter was 5 months old, I decided that I wanted to go back to work. I just wanted flexibility. At the time, I had a few clients approach me to draft their wills. So, I decided to go into estate planning, thinking that it would be a simple area where I would draft wills from a template.

Was I ever wrong!

I accepted my first client and took her to the owner of a firm where I had clerked. Although I had worked at that firm previously, I had never worked in estate planning and I sat through the client meeting, trying to absorb everything that took place at that meeting. At that time, I knew nothing about revocable living trusts.

Two months later, I had drafted and funded my first revocable living trust entirely on my own and had already held a seminar on revocable trusts for financial planners.

Two months after starting, I not only broke even but I had profit.