Ed. note: Welcome to the second installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a new column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. To those of you who have been wondering, it is not fiction; we’ve just altered a handful of details to preserve the author’s anonymity (since she’s still looking for work).

If you missed the inaugural post, check it out here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email, at roxanastthomas@gmail.com, or find her on Facebook.

It is December. The office feels empty, abandoned. I have finished every shred of billable work I could dredge up, and, as of a few days ago, exhausted the non-billable possibilities as well. My few pro bono matters have been reviewed and researched thoroughly, and I have no CLE requirements left to fulfill. I wonder idly if I can spend 70 or 80 hours on CLE, and then roll it over for the next few years, like cell phone minutes. Or maybe I can spend some time “organizing client files,” which, incidentally, my cabinets are choked with.

One of our biggest clients, a huge lending institution, collapsed suddenly a few months ago, and the raft of cases that had been keeping me afloat burbled and sank virtually overnight. Most of them, which involve holding companies or subsidiaries that have not yet declared bankruptcy, are not officially dead: they are simply moribund, the paper equivalent of carrion. My office is an abattoir! I think. Though unfortunate, I wonder, does this present billable possibilities? How about “Administered last rites to dying cases; prepared dead matters for cremation and burial; performed obsequies for same”?

I try to tell myself that we are experiencing an early, holiday-related slump, but the truth is that things have been this way — painfully slow — for several months. We are all on edge, and growing progressively more nervous as work gets harder to come by. Associates spend the time not devoted to billable work complaining, worrying, regarding each other jealously, or trying to read tea leaves: why did he (or she) get that assignment? Does everyone know I’m looking for work? Why hasn’t that case, mentioned in passing by a partner, materialized? Where did it go?

Making matters worse, the firm insists that business is booming, although we all know by now that several associates were axed during the last round of reviews (for unspecified “performance-related” reasons) and that, more recently, there has been a spate of staff layoffs, also unacknowledged. At our last litigation meeting, the department head announced cheerfully that things were “great,” and that our group was “going like gangbusters!” In the stunned silence that followed, the associates looked at each other incredulously. Although, with few exceptions, no one was busy, a palpable sense of doubt settled over the room. Maybe, everyone seemed to wonder, it’s just me.

Read more, after the jump.

Continue reading “Notes from the Breadline: And You May Ask Yourself – Well… How Did I Get Here?”