The end of February marked nine months since graduation. That’s nine months of résumés. Nine months of cover letters. Nine months of retail hell. Nine months living in my parents’ basement. And it is finally over. That’s right, my loyal readers, I will no longer be bitching about the lack of legal jobs in 2013, as I am now gainfully employed.
Before you start asking questions and speculating in the comments, let me just field a few of the likely questions. First, no, I will not be filling a position as office bitch. Unfortunately, I was vastly overqualified for the job. Second, no, I did not open my own firm, so I will have to wait until later to grow a pair as you’ve suggested time and time again.
And third, yes, it’s possible for a graduate of an “unaccredited” (read: accredited) law school to get a real job….
It’s felt like it’s been a long time coming, and here is basically what I’ve been thinking for the past nine months:
But it really did all work out. While my loved ones were all proud upon hearing the news, not everyone shared the sentiment. Here’s what my law school must be thinking since I missed the very important “employed nine months after graduation” deadline by two weeks and I’m now dragging down their presumably low average:
Now that I am employed, I’m not sure what makes me the most excited. There are many possible contenders. There’s the fact that I’ll actually have job-related benefits for the first time in my life. It’ll be nice to finally be able to visit a doctor. But I can’t forget about the fact that I’ll be able to buy things I want rather than what I can merely afford. It’ll also be amazing to actually have to think about more than the proper way to stock shelves.
It’s hard to remember the last time that I was this happy. Graduation was a proud moment, but I had crushing debt, no job prospects, and of course the dreaded bar exam was looming over my head. Before that I was in law school, which is where happiness goes to die. I bet that the last time that I was happy would have to have been a moment from college. There’s no single moment that stands out, but that’s not really surprising since there’s a lot of those four years that I don’t really remember.
This is a big change in my life and occupation. The customers will still be paying me, but now it’ll only be through checks, and I’ll have to chase them down just like I did their ambulance. I’ll no longer be giving people directions around the store, but will now give directions on how to navigate a legal claim. And no longer will I secretly not really give two sh*ts what my clients think. Oh okay, well, maybe some things will stay the same.
Let this triumph be an inspiration to all those who have shared my pain over these last few months. I mean seriously, if I can convince someone to hire ME, anyone find someone that is gullible and currently hiring. And since I’m now employed in the legal field, I think I should share the wealth as best I can. So, the best advice I have is to drop your standards and be willing to sell out to anyone that’s buying.
When not writing about life after law school for Above the Law, Tristan Taylor Thomas (not his real name) used to work at a retail job stocking shelves — which he admits is slightly better than being a shoeshiner. You can reach him by email at TristanTaylorThomas@gmail.com.
We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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Gradenfreude: My Law School Is Going To Be SO Pissed At Me
By Tristan Taylor ThomasBefore you start asking questions and speculating in the comments, let me just field a few of the likely questions. First, no, I will not be filling a position as office bitch. Unfortunately, I was vastly overqualified for the job. Second, no, I did not open my own firm, so I will have to wait until later to grow a pair as you’ve suggested time and time again.
And third, yes, it’s possible for a graduate of an “unaccredited” (read: accredited) law school to get a real job….
It’s felt like it’s been a long time coming, and here is basically what I’ve been thinking for the past nine months:
But it really did all work out. While my loved ones were all proud upon hearing the news, not everyone shared the sentiment. Here’s what my law school must be thinking since I missed the very important “employed nine months after graduation” deadline by two weeks and I’m now dragging down their presumably low average:
Now that I am employed, I’m not sure what makes me the most excited. There are many possible contenders. There’s the fact that I’ll actually have job-related benefits for the first time in my life. It’ll be nice to finally be able to visit a doctor. But I can’t forget about the fact that I’ll be able to buy things I want rather than what I can merely afford. It’ll also be amazing to actually have to think about more than the proper way to stock shelves.
It’s hard to remember the last time that I was this happy. Graduation was a proud moment, but I had crushing debt, no job prospects, and of course the dreaded bar exam was looming over my head. Before that I was in law school, which is where happiness goes to die. I bet that the last time that I was happy would have to have been a moment from college. There’s no single moment that stands out, but that’s not really surprising since there’s a lot of those four years that I don’t really remember.
This is a big change in my life and occupation. The customers will still be paying me, but now it’ll only be through checks, and I’ll have to chase them down just like I did their ambulance. I’ll no longer be giving people directions around the store, but will now give directions on how to navigate a legal claim. And no longer will I secretly not really give two sh*ts what my clients think. Oh okay, well, maybe some things will stay the same.
Let this triumph be an inspiration to all those who have shared my pain over these last few months. I mean seriously, if I can convince someone to hire ME, anyone find someone that is gullible and currently hiring. And since I’m now employed in the legal field, I think I should share the wealth as best I can. So, the best advice I have is to drop your standards and be willing to sell out to anyone that’s buying.
When not writing about life after law school for Above the Law, Tristan Taylor Thomas (not his real name) used to work at a retail job stocking shelves — which he admits is slightly better than being a shoeshiner. You can reach him by email at TristanTaylorThomas@gmail.com.
Tags: Gradenfreude, Job Searches, Law Schools, Tristan Taylor Thomas, We hate to to use the term TTT but we know the commenters will