Pls Hndle Thx: The FAQs

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com.

Here at the Pls Hndle Thx factory located in my parents’ basement, we receive hundreds of emails a week begging us for advice.  And by “hundreds of emails,” I mean two, one of which I’m pretty confident Elie writes and sends from secret email accounts because he knows that my health insurance doesn’t cover mental health benefits and doesn’t want me to feel like a complete failure.

Anyway, each week, the two emails that we receive inevitably ask the same old questions: Should I apply to law school? Should I drop out of law school? Will I be fired?  Help, I’ve been fired, now what?

The best advice I can give you people is simply this: learn to read. We’ve answered all your FAQs before. But if you don’t remember what we said and/or don’t feel like scrolling back through the archive, here are the Pls Hndle Thx FAQs along with our sage advice….

1. My grades suck / I have undergrad debt / I’m nervous about this market. Should I drop out of law school?

Marin: If you have any following — math abilities, marketable talents, outside interests, a hidden trust fund, a rich spouse, an entrepreneurial spirit, car sickness from black cars that smell like aftershave, or an aversion to sushi — do not go to law school. If you’re generically smart with no other skills, stay put.

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Elie: Yes. Drop out. Unless you love the law, which you don’t. Cut your losses, it only gets worse from here on out.

Verdict: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Mama!

2. Should I transfer from my sh***y law school to a more expensive, less sh***y school?

Marin: Transferring law schools is like applying to Georgetown Nursing and then sneakily back door matriculating sophomore year to the regular undergrad school. It’s a dirty move, and frankly it’s unfair to everybody else who got higher than a 150 on the LSAT and didn’t take fake classes at Touro for a year to earn all A’s. You can’t just run around transgressing the law school caste system. Society demands that you stay put.

Elie: If you are transferring to a T-14 law school it’s worth it. You should put yourself in the best position to get a job. If you are going from the third tier to the second tier, you’re screwed anyway. See answer to question 1 and stop waiting for a Care Bear to ride in on a unicorn and save your aborted career.

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Verdict: Transfer if you can deal with being shunned and reviled by classmates and if the upgrade is worth it.

3. Should I contact my punk ass firm that deferred me and hasn’t told me the start date yet?

Marin: Look, I agree that it’s extremely rude of these secretive firms to be sitting on this information and toying with your career, and I know you have to sign leases or look for other jobs or move back in with your parents or whatever. But calling them is not going to help. This is not some dating situation where the firm sent you an ambiguous emoticon text that didn’t require a response and now you don’t know whose turn it is to text or call back. They’ll call you or write you when they’re ready.

Elie: Tell me, what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?

Nobody can be told what the Matrix is, but it has you and I’m fresh out of red pills. Why don’t you sit tight and bake some cookies?

Verdict: Stay quiet on the western front.

4. An associate and partner that I’m working with are having an affair, what should I do?

Marin: Unless that associate stole the partner out from underneath you, get yourself to a gym, join David Wygant’s dating tips e-newsletter, wear Spanx, do whatever you have to do to get someone to start having an affair with you. In the meantime, gossip viciously.

Elie: Pictures or it didn’t happen. If you haven’t noticed, holding onto a legal job isn’t as easy as it used to be. It’s always good to have some blackmail fodder. Not to be used, of course, unless at the utmost end of need.

Or are you just jealous? If so, find somebody junior to you, somebody less powerful than you, and sexually harass cajole them into bed. If you’ve got any game at all, it shouldn’t be hard.

Verdict: Sounds like you’re jealous.

5. I’m miserable at my job but I’m afraid of being unemployed / I haven’t found a job yet. Are there jobs anywhere?

Marin: In May 2009, I said jobs were located in the same place as Curly’s Gold and pieces of the True Cross. But I’m happy to report that I don’t think that’s still true. I was unemployed for a year and a month (hollah!), and I don’t know anybody who was unemployed during that time and on my gchat list who is still unemployed today. So, hope floats.

Elie: Turds also float, but that doesn’t mean you should go swimming with them. Right now, there are other legal jobs out there. The question is: are there other legal jobs at there that are materially better than the one you have? Most likely, the answer is no. I get it, you hate your job, but the grass isn’t necessarily greener.

Unless you are looking to get out of the profession entirely. But, trust me, the grass outside of the profession doesn’t even know what “green” looks like — which will take a toll on your bank account.

Verdict: If you want a legal job, you can get one. It may take longer than you’d hope, but them’s the breaks. There are also non-legal jobs out there. You just have to figure out what it is that you want to do and make it happen. No excuses. Just do it.

Earlier: Prior installments of pls hndle thx