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

ATL -

I was wondering if you could do a post on (legal) coping mechanisms for surviving in BigLaw, besides the usual smoking, drinking, and sleeping with married partners.

BigLaw vs. Corporate America — what makes it so much worse? Is every Corporate America work environment this bleak and depressing?

Audioslave

Dear Audioslave,

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why the commenters on Above the Law are, on average, thirty times more bitter than commenters on Dealbreaker. I think I’ve got it.

Law firms make a hellish trifecta: literal-minded nitpickers, a 24/7 service industry that creates nothing, and non-merit-based compensation. Unlike finance types or doctors, associates don’t advise companies on how to run their businesses or decide whether to operate; they are paid to paper the trail and implement others’ genius at their beck and call. Once emasculated, associates are measured according to Opposite Day, where precedent is good and new ideas are bad. And even when associates cobble together amazing No Third Parties clauses or blackline the shit out of opposing counsel’s first draft, they doesn’t see another dime. In fact, they’ll be lucky just to keep their jobs and be fleeced once again at year’s end for staff holiday gift contributions. This is all just to say that when seated in an office perfumed with farts and soy sauce, law firm life can seem as pointless as intra-office mail. Pls Hndle,Thx.

Even if you can never be happy at work, the key to coping is finding something on the outside that keeps you going. Not something corny like friends or family — more like Hapkido, presidential trivia, or being into the Titanic. These hobbies are cool in and of themselves, and when you get involved in their online communities, you get a whole new group of internet friends who also hate their jobs and are available to chat during the day. I’m telling you, my life changed when I discovered the Bedlington Terrier Club of America and The Bachelor discussion groups. I was no longer alone.

In any event, it seems you’ve already discovered the ATL online community, so you’re off to a great start. And if all else fails, you can always just quit the firm. Haha jk.

Your friend,

Marin

Elie answers the red courtesy phone, after the jump.

Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.

Welcome back from the long weekend, dear readers. I hope that, after what has been a hard year for many of us, everybody had a good time, everybody let their hair down, and everybody saw the sunshine. And anything else you can think of.

As a preliminary matter, I thank you wholeheartedly for your diligent attention to last week’s Homework Assignment from the Breadline. You answered the call with incredibly thoughtful, honest, and poignant responses to our questions about your experiences, for which I am extremely grateful. It’s good to see your faces a bit more clearly.

Well, my friends: without further ado, let’s put this thing together.

First, we wanted to hear about the experience of life in the breadline as an “older” member of the workforce, whether from readers who had been there themselves or from those who had seen a parent struggle with unemployment. Your responses reflected the particular indignities of being laid off and looking for work at a certain age, and described the sting of discovering that years of acquired wisdom and competence are, suddenly, of little consequence to the skeptical gatekeeper reviewing your résumé.

One reader, whom we’ll call “Mike,” got the phone call from human resources last July, just after his 58th birthday. “We were friendly,” he wrote, “so the ritual kiss from Al Pacino was brief and honest.” Mike was asked to sign a non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreement and given five weeks of severance in a lump sum. Of that, he said, “the USA and NY took 40%.”

So what has Mike been up to since hitting the breadline?

Ed. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.

After months of ceaseless rain, August descends languidly. As it wraps the city in its sweaty fist, the prevailing complaint of New Yorkers shifts seamlessly from “When will the sun come out?” to “I’m hot!” Tourists wrinkle their noses at the smell of ripening garbage on Broome Street, and my super takes up a shirtless vigil on the stoop outside our building. At night, the tables outside of neighborhood cafes fill with wilted hipsters, their carefully disheveled hair drooping damply.

“It’s 300 degrees outside,” my friend Bo announces one day on the phone. I am lying on the floor, watching the ceiling fan turn and thinking about the movie Casablanca, in which people managed to maintain their dignity despite heat and oppressive sartorial conventions. “It’s not so bad,” I say absently, watching the cat, who is attempting to drink out of his water dish without standing up. After a moment, he gives up and flops listlessly onto his side.

“Easy for you to say!” Bo snorts. “You don’t know what it’s like to have to dress up in a suit in 300-degree weather.”

I sit up, covered in cat hair, which has adhered itself to my sweaty clothes. I am like a human ice cream cone, I think, topped with particularly unappetizing sprinkles. It occurs to me that I have heard the sentiment that Bo is expressing - the assumption that I am unable to relate to the lives of working folk - several times since this heat wave started.

“Hmphf,” I say indignantly. “I remember exactly what it’s like to wear a suit to work when it’s 300 degrees out. Just because I’m not working right now, it doesn’t mean I can’t relate.”

Despite my protestations, however, I am secretly delighted. I have, I realize, discovered the silver lining in this storm cloud: I may be jobless and increasingly broke, but let’s face it — here in the breadline, every day is casual Friday.

I decide to pay a visit to Lat (who has been busily posting pictures of his sweaty visage on Facebook). I also suspect that his office is cooler than my apartment. At the very least, I can count on a chilly reception from the Fashionista staff, who regard my inelegance with mortified pity.

I arrive to find Lat stalking crabbily around the office with a watering can, looking harried. “What’s the matter?” I ask, flopping into a chair.

“Ugh,” Lat says irritably. “Elie went on vacation and left me to take care of his donut plant.” He pulls out a pair of pruning shears and begins to trim donut holes from its drooping branches. “I have a lot to do, and I’m really not in the mood to garden.”

“What can I do to help?” I ask, filling a cup from the burbling coffee fountain.

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

ATL -

I will soon leave my biglaw job for greener pastures. My time at the firm has been awful — soul-crushing work, very low morale among associates, distrust of management, and stealth layoffs (luckily I’m not one of those). Recently a lot of those given “forced attrition” have been leaving, and they all say goodbye with falsely upbeat, suck-up emails, full of “I have been grateful for world-class colleagues,” and “I have grown into a well-trained attorney,” and even “I’ll miss my time here.”

I would like nothing better than to send a real, honest email — calling management out for their greed and mismanagement of the firm, stealth layoffs that decimate careers and reputations, and the low morale fostered by bad leadership. Is that career suicide?

Blazing Saddles

Dear Blazing Saddles,

Messages of rage, despair and other unseemly emotions clog the draft sent box of nearly every person’s email account. Most people have the self-restraint to “save as draft” the please die/FYI you were horrible in bed anyway emails. Others have learned from their accidental send mistakes and now draft all break-up and rot in hell emails in MS Word. And still others — the Jerry Maguires among us — press send, and set into motion a parade of horribles.

Let’s say you send a firm-wide email, informing the firm that they’ve robbed you of 5 years of your life and that you’ll see them all in hell. For about 3 seconds, you’ll feel liberated. You sure showed them! Unfortunately, the flipside of liberation is exile. You won’t be seen as a folk hero, carried out on the shoulders of paralegals because even your co-workers who share your FU sentiments will perceive the mere act of sending the email as 100% insane. They’ll immediately forward it on to everyone they know with captions like “HAHA - OMG,” and “Bellevue.” ATL will procure a copy, we’ll do an entire post on it, and then your law career will really be over. The minute you send the email, you’ll be liberated, alright — from your next prospective job, and the one after that, and the one after that, and so on and so forth until a thousand years have passed.

You don’t have to be a complete nerd and send one of those ludicrous “I feel privileged to have worked here/I hope our paths will cross again/please keep in touch” eulogy emails. Don’t send anything at all and proceed immediately to a pub where you turn your rage inwards and abuse your body with alcohol and onion rings.

If you do send the email, pls bcc tips@abovethelaw.com.

Your friend,

Marin

I reprise the role of Elie, who’s on vacation, after the jump.

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

ATL,

I’m a first year at a BigLaw firm. From the looks of things, I’m not going to make my minimum billable hours this year by a significant margin (>200 hours). It’s not for lack of trying; there’s just not enough work, and any work available is being hoarded.

My last performance review happened before the work drought, and it was excellent. My next performance review won’t happen for a few months. Assuming it is hopeless to bill more hours, (1) what will happen to me, (2) when will it happen, and (3) what should I do? Should I start looking for another job immediately? Should I bum around and wait until my performance review? Will I be fired or laid off with severance?

Celestine Prophecy

Dear Celestine Prophecy,

I don’t know what will happen to you, and your firm may not either, at this point. If your firm is a jerk hat, they’ll fire you for “performance,” following which you’ll tip off ATL, the firm will not respond to media inquiries, and we’ll write a story about stealth layoffs. If your firm is nice, they’ll either pardon your low hours or lay you off with some severance and send a duly mournful “personnel adjustment” announcement to ATL that reads like an obituary. Is your firm a good witch or a bad witch? You would know best.

Starting to look for jobs now definitely seems like a terrific and worthwhile endeavor. While you’re at it, keep your eyes peeled for Curly’s Gold and pieces of the True Cross.

To address your most fundamental “what should I do?” question, there’s not much you can do at this point to affect whatever fate has in store for you. Everyone deals with feelings of despair and helplessness differently, but I recommend Full Catastrophe Living, Peter Cetera, Nordic Naturals Fish Oil with Lemon and loitering at Bath & Body Works to smell the new soap flavors.

Keep a stiff upper lip, as my dad would say. Layoffs have been slowing down for a while now. I think you’ll be ok.

Your friend,

Marin

After the jump, something really strange happens. And not in a good way.

Well, at least one lawyer thinks he has this whole Biglaw thing figured out. And he’s happy to share his wisdom with new associates. Writing at the Texas Lawyer, Jason Braun has some harsh advice for young lawyers:

When I became a lawyer, a partner gave me what I now realize was great advice: “Don’t think like an associate,” she told me. “Think like a partner.” I wisely nodded my head. “Of course,” I solemnly replied, hoping she would not notice my confusion….

New associates love being lawyers — or at least should — and hopefully their first and foremost goal is to become a great lawyer. Over the past few years, several tenets have helped me on the way to that goal. Some I learned quickly; others I learned through trial and error.

Oh boy. When you start out declaring what new associates should love in life, you can see where Braun is going.

Check after the jump for more reasons why giving yourself completely to the Biglaw experience is the only way to go.

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

ATL,

I am a first year associate in a small/mid-sized firm. I graduated during during the height of the recession, so it took me many months to find this job. I have been working there for about three months (and I hate it).

Recently, I have noticed oppressive and harassing behavior in the workplace by the senior/managing partners. In addition, I have a strong suspicion of unethical practices occurring in the firm, but I do have not have clear evidence to confirm my suspicions. I have a strong inclination to leave the firm for these reasons.

However, if I leave, I am stuck as to how I will answer if asked why I left after just three months. Moreover, trying to find another job in the current economy in California is difficult. I’m afraid if I disclose the real reason I left, I may be saying untrue things about the firm, and/or be viewed as a whistleblower or someone who cannot be trusted. Any other answers will surely raise eyebrows as to my commitment considering the short time period spent at the current firm.

Advice?

Give a Little Whistle

Give a Little Whistle,

I was sitting at home watching Cake Boss when my phone rang. It was Lat. He asked me what I was doing and I said, “Watching Cake Boss, this show is actually not that bad.” He then reminded me that I had a Pls Hndle Thx due the next day and when I said that I didn’t have any witty responses to the question posed above, he ordered me to - you guessed it - write a poem.

“It doesn’t have to rhyme,” he said, to which I responded, “Actually, last time I checked, ALL poems had to rhyme,” and he immediately conceded this point. So without further ado, I present to you, “Ratting on Your Firm on a Snowy Evening.”

Marin’s Poem and Elie’s Susan Boyle impersonation after the jump.

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

ATL,

I was wondering whether I should get/admit to getting plastic surgery.

My issue is that if I was in L.A., I would have done it already, but Chi-town is different, and I want my co-workers to take me seriously notwithstanding the potential surgery.

Sincerely,
Too Sexy for My Face

Dear Too Sexy for My Face,

At approximately 8:43 a.m. on November 1, 2001, in an office on Central Park South, Dr. Michael Evan Sachs punched me in the nose with his scalpel. Five days after his precision beating, I removed the bandages to reveal a magnificent elf shoe perched in the middle of my face. Going into the surgery, I hoped that a new nose would solve all my problems. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

There’s nothing inherently shameful about plastic surgery; some of us were simply born monsters and require surgery to address the situation. The only shameful thing about the whole ordeal is hatching some ludicrous story to explain away your new feature(s) or banking on the fact that your colleagues aren’t observant people and don’t live for this sort of shit. If you show up at work with two Christmas hams stuffed in your shirt or half of your nose hacked off and still pale despite your “Costa Rica trip,” your colleagues will notice, mainly because they aren’t morons. And because they’re tactful professionals, they won’t confront you about it, they’ll just tear you to shreds behind your back. Keeping quiet about it doesn’t make you look discreet, it makes you seem ashamed. If you remove the shame from the equation, the vicious gossip loses its sting. There’s not really anything further for people to discuss about your surgery if you’ve already told them everything yourself.

Stop being corny and worried about whether your colleagues will think you’re vain. Of course you’re vain if you’re getting cosmetic surgery, and there is no sense in wasting time or energy disabusing yourself or coworkers of the truth. Be true to yourself, even the plastic parts.

Your friend,

Marin

Elie objectifies us all, after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is authored by ATL guest columnist Hope Winters. Hope is an early retired lawyer, turned Senate staffer, turned corporate lobbyist. She lives in Washington, DC. Read her previous work here. Read part I and II.]

There are no structured activities left (other than Karmic Yoga which I will not even respond to here) so we decide to take a hike on the pristine lake the Dining Captain told me about before he attempted to rape me. Olivia whips out the sketchy map we can’t follow, and we end up not on a trail but stuck on path of poison ivy and prickly things and mud. We muddle through streams and rocks; my Chanel sunglasses slip and crash on a rock and break. I remind myself that I hate the Ashram and all its surrounding premises.

But suddenly, as we exit the rocks and the African bush, we really do emerge on flat land facing this huge vast beautiful lake. We just stare at it. It’s sparkling and navy blue and placid. Not a ripple. Not a crescent.

We’re suddenly silent. Peaceful. Grateful. We are Whitman and Thoreau.

We’re getting into it.

But will it last? The adventure ends after the jump.

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

ATL -

For the NY bar, exam takers were given the option of either hand writing the test or typing it on a laptop using ExamSoft. I chose to type it because I can obviously type faster than I can write, but I have been having nightmares about my computer freezing on me or some kind of tech glitch happening during the test. I am really freaking out over here. Should I change over to handwriting?

Katharine Gibbs School for Typing

Dear Katharine Gibbs School for Typing,

When I was your age, there was no such thing as being given “the option” to type the bar exam, unless you were among a select group of Benedict Arnolds who volunteered to participate in the 2005 bar exam laptop test run. Everybody else hand wrote the exam, just like our fathers before us, and their fathers and our father’s father’s fathers and so on and so forth as far back as President Abraham Lincoln, who somehow got away with just “reading” law, most likely because he was a giant and people weren’t about to pick a fight with him over minor things.

The law guild is no different than any other gang: you have to get jumped to get in. Us hand writers wrote until our fingers seized up and our hands gnarled into claws, and by God we liked it that way. My year, some poor soul’s hand fell off altogether so he switched hands and kept right on writing, because that’s just what you do. You typers seem to forget that the first part of the Character and Fitness test is purification by pain.

But you and your Turing machines know nothing of “”honor” or “loyalty” or “code.” Maybe your so-called “laptop” will ease your sissy hand cramps, but it will do nothing to address the fundamental issue here. You, sir, have no respect for your elders or for the handwriting brotherhood. You sicken me.

Will there be problems with your laptop on the day of the exam? Only God knows. And He is watching you and your computer, my friend. And He is judging.

Your friend,

Marin

[Ed. note: This post is authored by ATL guest columnist Hope Winters. Hope is an early retired lawyer, turned Senate staffer, turned corporate lobbyist. She lives in Washington, DC. Read her previous work here. Read part I of this piece here.]

After this dinner I’m still starving from, we hop into the car to drive to the purported “private” room we paid extra for. Now I’m really starting to believe murder or rape is a foregone conclusion. I attract criminals like Jewish men attract Asian girls. And here’s the thing, there’s nothing to stop anyone from doing anything. We’re not allowed to lock either our door nor the front door to the Brady Brunchesque house we will be staying in tonight. Our “private” room is in this house. I said a private room. Like hotel room. Not a room in some random family’s house. Not some room I’m not allowed to lock.

As I enter the spacious open living room containing a lot blue mats and a lot small purple chairs for meditation, I find a DVD player. Excellent. Civility. I’ll just do my Denise Austin Yoga for Abs video and skip class tomorrow. It’s almost pitch black in the room because not only do these people not eat, they don’t do electricity.

I walk over to the big glass window peering out over the water — trying to find the lake, and then, I hear this boy’s voice.

“Hey.” I turn around quickly.

Plaid flannel shirt. Black wire rimmed glasses. Scruffy beard. Red North Face jacket. So Ted Bundy.

I have met my maker.

Can Hope survive her first encounter with Ashram men? Non-homicidal details after the jump.

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

Dear Above The Law,

I am a summer associate at a BigLaw firm in New York. I have no work and I spend my day surfing the net. My assignment coordinator forbade me from getting work from anyone else, but won’t give me any either. The partners and associates ignore me. I feel like they’re creating an impossible situation where they’re setting me up to be no-offered. What should I do?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Dear Who Framed Roger Rabbit,

If you’ve seen Intervention, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew seasons 1-3 or Sober House, you’re no doubt familiar with the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity:
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Here’s some wisdom: your quandary is of the “things I cannot change” type. If you’re not getting any work and everyone’s avoiding you it’s either because you smell or they didn’t want the ATL press associated with rescinding your summer offer and now they’re just humoring you for 10 weeks. Assuming that they are humoring you, your no-offer destiny is written in the stars and it doesn’t make sense for you to fret about it and beg for work. Puritanism died out because people eventually realized that there was no point in being righteous if their fate was predestined. God The firm has predestined you to find a job elsewhere, so grab a scarlet letter and party like it’s 1647. You also might want to look into the smell thing just in case because it’s good to be able to cross things like that off the list.

Your situation is pretty ideal, because now that you know that you’ll be no-offered you can kick back and enjoy the rest of summer without the nagging uncertainty. Take your $2,500 a week and buy a Margaritaville DM1000 Frozen Concoction Maker and sip daquiris from a Nalgene bottle at your desk. Go on a Sex and the City tour and crap your pants when you get to Magnolia Bakery. Walk into a Starbucks at 2 pm and demand to know, “Don’t you people have jobs?” Whatever you do, don’t waste your time worrying about an offer that is never going to happen.

Serenity Now.

Your friend,

Marin

Biglaw is suffering — big time. Meanwhile, many smaller and midsize law firms are doing just fine, even thriving. (A number of them — e.g., Silver Golub & Teitell, McKool Smith, and Stone & Magnanini — are expanding, with the help of job postings on Above the Law.)

These days, Am Law 200 firms are generally doing better than their Am Law 100 counterparts. This generally hasn’t been the case, at least in recent years. Industry observers are wondering: Is small beautiful?

That was one theme of Casting a Wider Net: The Rise of the Small to Mid-Sized Law Firm, another panel at yesterday’s conference, co-sponsored by the New York City Bar and Vault, entitled Getting Back in the Game: How to Restart Your Career in a Down Economy. (We wrote about an earlier panel here.)

The panel on small to midsize law firms consisted of:

ALLA ROYTBERG (moderator), Solo Practitioner, and Director, City Bar Small Law Firm Center;

PAUL LIPPE, CEO, Legal On-Ramp;

CORIN LINDSLEY, Managing Director, Major Lindsey & Africa; and

RON GEFFNER, partner, Sadis & Goldberg.

The discussion covered such topics as how to learn about high-quality small firms, how to apply to them, and how to grow one, once you’re there.

A short discussion, after the jump.

Yesterday we participated in an extremely interesting panel discussion, Breaking Back into a Large Law Firm: How to Make Your Way Back into a Top Law Firm. It was part of a day-long conference, co-sponsored by the New York City Bar and Vault, entitled Getting Back in the Game: How to Restart Your Career in a Down Economy.

The panel consisted of:

BRIAN DALTON (moderator), Managing Editor, Vault.com, and Editor, Vault Guide to the Top 100 Law Firms;

JOHN J. CANNON III, Hiring Partner, Shearman & Sterling LLP;

T.J. DUANE, Principal, Lateral Link;

HELEN LONG, Director Legal Recruiting at Ropes & Gray LLP; and

DAVID LAT, Founding Editor, AboveTheLaw.com.

Write-ups of the discussion have appeared on the websites of the New York Times, Vault, and the ABA Journal. We recommend them to you.

We’ve also prepared our own summary of the discussion, which goes into greater detail than the other write-ups. It tackles such topics as general recommendations for the job search, when to use a recruiter (and when not to), how contract work is viewed by prospective employers, and what happens to your résumé after you send it into the cyber-ether and it arrives at a firm.

Read more, after the jump.

[Ed. note: This post is authored by ATL guest columnist Hope Winters. Hope is an early retired lawyer, turned Senate staffer, turned corporate lobbyist. She lives in Washington, DC. Read her previous work here.]

Well, as I told you in my last piece, I have been desperately searching for inner peace during these incredibly depressing times.

I decided, however, that I needed to amp up my desire for such peace. Meditation class was increasingly becoming too easy, and I was now ready to become a guru of inner peace. So, my friend Olivia and I packed up our car, left the comforts of our urban existence, and headed out to the great unknown. The Ashram.

I had found the Ashram online. It was a place where we could find balance, do yoga, and eat organic vegetarian meals. And it was dirt cheap, to boot. Girls, in case you missed the Times piece, ashrams are the new spas. We all have to cut back now. And isn’t it about time we work on our insides instead of outsides? Don’t worry. Those saddle bags are going to whittle away anyway due to scarce food supplies forecasted for fourth quarter ‘09.

“I didn’t know it was a silent retreat all weekend. I thought that was just on Saturday.” Olivia, already breaking the rules, whispers to me upon arrival.

Oops. I forgot to shepardize this case. I don’t recall reading that part on the website.

More after the jump.

Last night we tuned into a very interesting (albeit somewhat depressing) conference call, Staying Competitive During an Economic Downturn, sponsored by the National LGBT Bar Association. Three experts provided their thoughts on the current legal job market and advice for navigating it:

Robert Depew. A Managing Director in Major, Lindsey & Africa’s San Francisco office, Depew helps lawyers evaluate career alternatives and places attorneys at top tier law firms and select in-house positions in the Bay Area.

Christopher LaFon. As director of recruiting at Kelly Law Registry, one of the nation’s largest job placement firms, LaFon builds careers and aids in career transitions for attorneys, paralegals and other legal professionals.

James Leipold. The Executive Director of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), Leipold helms the legal profession’s leading association dedicated to research, education and career development.

When will the legal economy return to normal? What can laid-off lawyers do while they wait for recovery? Is there any hope, for any of us?

Find out the views of the experts, after the jump.

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

Dear Above The Law,

I am currently clerking and the term ends Sept. ‘09, and I’ve applied to a bunch of firms for an associate job, but none have responded to my resume.

I routinely field calls from whiny associates and partners from firms that have declined to interview me. During these calls, the attorneys are looking for some leniency from me (and ultimately the judge), usually because of some oversight their firm made in the filings, etc.

Am I really expected to bend over backwards to help out attorneys from a firm that wants nothing to do with me? Would respectfully and carefully hinting at the fact that I would enjoy an associate position with the firm have any positive impact, at all, at my current job (lack of) situation?

Circle of Life

Dear Circle of Life,

Listen to me very carefully. Take your law school diploma off the wall. Proceed to the bathroom. Place it in the toilet. Stand on top of the toilet, take a gun and then shoot your degree.

If you are seriously asking whether granting judicial favors, however small, in return for a job, is acceptable behavior, maybe it is time to burn down the country and start over. I had hoped that we had made some progress since the time when Richard the Lionheart slaughtered the nobles of Gascony and then imposed crushing taxes on the survivors to obtain their fealty. I read about that episode while sitting by the pool in a West Palm Beach retirement community and I remember thinking, “Those medieval people had it bad!” But maybe the framers of the Constitution have it worse, because a mere two hundred something years after the ratification of their glorious document, some pipsqueak clerk took a sh*t on it.

If you “respectfully and carefully” hint at the fact that you’d like a job at the firm that’s calling the judge for a favor, the only “positive impact” you will have is that you will never have to worry about getting a legal job again after your disbarment proceedings.

Your friend,

Marin

Elie alerts the bar association authorities, after the jump.

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

ATL-

I’m a summer associate in Texas (3,500 sq. ft., wife, etc) and I drive to work where I park my car in the office’s parking lot. My car is a 2005 BMW. Should I be concerned about looking like a jackass?

Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car

Dear Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car,

You should always be concerned about looking like a jackass, whether it’s rolling up to work in a Beemer or wearing a fedora at Sunday brunch. In any other year, normal associates might look forward to the summer class arriving; but this year, the summers are viewed as intruders, freshly arrived to snatch associates’ jobs out from under them. Despite the ludicrous scavenger hunts and game nights concocted in your honor, make no mistake; you’re persona non grata at terra law firma, and your goal this summer should be to be as unobtrusive as possible. Your car should reflect your humility as well as your groundling status at the firm, and a BMW, no matter how ancient, will never do that. You’ll need to lease, but what should you get?

Driving up in a car of the Ferrari/Lamborghini/Lotus ilk is obviously out, since you’re not Richard Gere from Pretty Woman and this is not a “dream date” with Jillian on the The Bachelorette. Jaguars are for eccentric billionaires, Ford Probes are for high school sleazebags and Mercury Sables are for drug dealers. Since you’re in Texas, you may be tempted to trade in your BMW for a pickup truck, but I strenuously advise against this since pickups indicate that spend your free time listening to Toby Keith while patrolling the Mexico border with a rifle and Coonhound named Rusty. Toyota Priuses are for wimps, and minivans are for people who drive carpool or own florist shops. DeLoreans, Pintos, GMs and other cars that are dangerous and/or no longer made are always cool.

When I worked as an intern in Newark, I drove a 1997 teal Toyota Camry with Cobra rims (not kidding). The smooth handling and tape deck made many people very jealous, and when someone stole my front left rim, I learned firsthand the dangers of driving flashy cars. Go with something junky, like a Kia or an Isuzu, but if you don’t feel like shelling out the extra cash, your best bet is a Huffy. Get the one with the basket so you can take your laptop home.

Your friend,

Marin

Elie loses his sh*t while parallel parking, after the jump.

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

Dear ATL —

I’ve been unemployed for almost a year. I have good academic credentials, but lost my job as a junior-associate in Biglaw before I could develop a highly valuable set of skills. At first, finding interviews for available positions was easy; I just wasn’t able to close. But about five months ago, interviews stopped altogether. I haven’t even been able to find contract work.

The economic recession is obviously a big part of my problem. But I also feel that part of the problem now is my extended term of unemployment. So my question is: How long is too long? When do I have to accept that I simply will not be a lawyer?

He Who Longs to Measure Time in 6 Minute Increments

Dear He Who Longs to Measure Time in 6 Minute Increments,

The fairy tale that you’ve concocted for yourself — that you will never again be a lawyer after T-minus one year of unemployment — is an homage to the Beast, who despairs of turning back into a prince. From the Beauty and the Beast prologue:

Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast concealed himself inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his 21st year. If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return, by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a Beast for all time.

As the years passed, he fell into despair, and lost all hope. For who could ever learn to love a Beast?

You have one year to receive True Love’s Kiss and clinch that “awesome” associate job before the enchanted rose’s last petal fell and seals your fate. After one year, you are to remain a Beast forever, hideous to law firms and vile to any employers other than traveling circuses and minstrel side shows. The End.

If really believe that you’ve been out of the law firm game for “too long,” what are your other options? Living as a hermit by the sea? If you have another dream career, by all means pursue it, but if you really want to be a lawyer, you can be one again, even if you’ve been out for a year. This economy is like the Mayer Brown swine flu outbreak — if you make it out alive, you’re expected back at the office. Law firms will have a hard time rejecting applicants based on gaps in their resume alone, when talented and bright laid-off attorneys will comprise a huge chunk of the applicant pool. Patience, Iago. The last petal has not fallen and Elizabeth Halverson has not sung.

Your friend,

Marin

Some advice from Le Fou, after the jump.

The ABA Journal addressed a question that is near and dear to the hearts of many associates: How do you deal with a partner that is a big, bad meanie? The story comes from a weekend Wall Street Journal article on handling interoffice bullies. Apparently, a Jones Day associate had the perfect tonic for her blustery boss:

Chelsea Grayson, 37 years old, was an associate at the law firm Jones Day in Los Angeles when she was placed on a series of deals with an ornery senior partner. “He was very intimidating,” she says. “He’d give me these unrealistic deadlines, saying sarcastically that there were 24 hours in a day. He never smiled, and I just thought he didn’t like me.”

Ms. Grayson resolved the situation by making an effort to look at it from the senior partner’s perspective. Nearing retirement, he was under pressure to train the next generation of lawyers while making sure key clients were always happy. “Once I understood his motivation, I decided to take responsibility for changing the dynamic,” she says. “I demonstrated interest and enthusiasm whenever we’d interact, and eventually he became my mentor.”

Something tells me that Ms. Grayson managed this magic trick before the economy went into the tank. Are there strategies that are more relevant to the Great Recession for dealing with mean bosses?

Let’s explore, after the jump.