Roxana St. Thomas

Posts by Roxana St. Thomas

Notes from the Breadline: Happy

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.

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Notes from the Breadline: To Be On Your Own (Part II)

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
As the summer drifts by with no sign of viable employment prospects, I realize I am suffering from a pernicious affliction which, while common amongst lawyers, has reached epidemic proportions here in the breadline. In a word, the problem is this: slavery.
No, friends: I’m not referring to the kind of involuntary servitude expressly prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment (of which I am not, of course, making light). I’m talking about the unique bondage of the BlackBerry, which ensnares us with invisible, but often impermeable, shackles. Or, if you are infinitely cooler and have an iPhone, there’s probably an app for that.
Following this realization, I resolve to develop a more normal relationship with my BlackBerry. No one is calling or emailing to offer me a fantastic job, I remind myself. Being hyper-attuned to the blinking red light that would, in theory, alert me to new messages or missed calls has not, thus far, caused any new messages or missed calls to materialize. So, I decide, I will take the bold step of leaving my BlackBerry at home when I go out to do errands.
“Don’t worry,” I say to the device anxiously, as I prepare for a Berry-free outing. “I won’t be gone long.” In some cultures, offering reassurance to a phone might be considered … well, strange. But those cultures, I tell myself, are judgmental and parochial.
Alas, my leap of faith is rewarded with an email from a recruiter looking to fill a temporary position “ASAP!!,” and although I send him my resume as soon as I can, he writes back to tell me that the job has already been filled. Irritated, I notice that I have also missed a call. When I check my voicemail, there is a message from a former colleague. “You didn’t respond to the Evite, Roxana,” she says. “I hope you didn’t forget about our reunion dinner tomorrow night.”
The dinner she is referring to is a yearly gathering for alumni of a Big Law Firm where I once worked — which, in fact, I forgot about. But, while I usually look forward to the event, I find myself regarding it with dread. How many times will I have to announce that I was laid off? How many questions will I have to answer about my job search? What if I’m the only person there who is unemployed?

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Notes from the Breadline: Alone, Alone, Alone

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
On a drizzly Thursday morning, my friend Giovanna calls to invite me to lunch. “I have a window between a meeting and a conference call,” she says, referring to concepts that are increasingly foreign to me. “Come and meet me.”
“I don’t know,” I say guiltily, tallying the lunches, dinners, and coffees to which she has treated me in the past few months, “you just bought me dinner.’
“Don’t be silly,” she says cheerfully. “Consider it a public service, since you’ll have to shower.”
“Whoa!” I tell her, “let’s not be rash.”
“Take a shower,” she says sternly. “I’ll meet you downstairs at one.”
A few hours later, we are sitting at a restaurant. Giovanna is dressed beautifully for work, her hair and makeup perfect. Although I have showered, I realize that I could easily be mistaken for her maid. We talk about her new colleagues, her most recent deposition, and my job search, before the conversation turns to what women invariably talk about when they talk to other women: men.
Sitting at the table — hands wrapped around our coffee cups, voices lowered conspiratorially — I am reminded of television commercials in which women confide sheepishly about unseemly problems, like occasional irregularity or embarrassing ring-around-the-collar. But, before a chipper paid spokesperson can appear, offering us laxative yogurt or assistance with our laundry woes, we identify the issue at hand: DWUI.
No, puzzled readers — not that DWUI. Without diminishing, in any way, the seriousness of operating a motor vehicle after tossing back too many suds or hitting the pipe, let’s be clear: we are talking about something entirely different. We’re talking about the insidious problem of Dating While on Unemployment Insurance.
Read about the perils of DWUI, after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: In This Age of Fiberglass I’m Searching for a Gem

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
Ah, the library. When was the last time you thought about it? When I started law school, I had a somewhat mystical notion of what the library would be like. Rays of afternoon sunlight would filter through tall windows, illuminating dust motes and spilling onto the pages of my neatly IRAC-ed briefs. I would sit at a long table, chewing thoughtfully on my pen before delving into an incisive analysis of Carolene Products, fn 4. A delicate lamp with a green glass shade would cast warm light on the law review article I was writing in longhand, with a fountain pen. I would meet a handsome stranger in the stacks and we would fall in love, like the Clintons.
In reality, the law library was devoid of such scholarly romanticism. It was either oppressively hot, resulting in all-girl study groups whose attire was more suggestive of a “Law Students Gone Wild” video than a chat session about conveyances, or cold enough to require indoor scarf-wearing. I spent more time asleep, with my face planted awkwardly on an open book, than I did actually reading. One of the bitchier members of our section patrolled the library with fierce determination, shushing us when we giggled about bizarre tort cases and classroom gunners. When it came time to study for the bar exam, I spent so much time in the library that, toward the end, I would wake up — in my own bed — feeling disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings, groping anxiously for my highlighters. For years, I couldn’t pass by the building without experiencing the panicky sense that I had forgotten something important about commercial paper.
These memories, which conjure a queasy blend of academic stress, physical discomfort, and the feeling of being incarcerated in a cell made of CFR parts, resulted in a certain degree of library amnesia. Indeed, it hadn’t occurred to me to set foot in a law library for … well, years. Then, a few weeks ago, I received an email that read….

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Notes from the Breadline: All I Can Do Is Write About It

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.The beauty of being unemployed in the summer is that, well, it’s summer. Rather than sitting in an office that is refrigerated to temperatures at which your summer crop of green beans could be flash frozen, you are free to roam about in flip-flops and attire that would make the most casual Friday blush modestly. But when it rains (as it has done consistently for approximately two months, here in New York), you have time to reflect on the fact that the seasons have changed, and you remain jobless.
During one recent rainy stretch, I was scowling at a half-written cover letter on my computer when the phone rang. It was Lat, who was off on an editorial boondoggle. He was someplace that sounded lovely; unlike home, he told me, the weather there was beautiful. I waited for him to tell me that people in this mythical place also had jobs, and that scones grew on trees.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Eating Mentos,” I told him, cramming candy into my mouth, “wondering whether today is the day I’ll finally shower. You know; the usual.” As an afterthought, I added, “and I’m applying for jobs. As always.”
“Your job search is like an epic poem!” he said, laughing. There was a pause, and I sensed his next words forming in the empty space. Wait for it, I thought. Wait for it. I waited. A moment later, I was vindicated. “Hey,” he said thoughtfully, “have you ever thought of writing poetry?”
“No,” I told him. “The only thing worse than being unemployed would be a poem about being unemployed.” In the silence that followed, I felt his rebuttal forming.
“Okay,” he finally said. “Maybe an epic poem would be too … collegiate. But why don’t you just try it?” No, I told him. It’s out of the question.
He persisted. We argued. He made concessions (“it doesn’t have to rhyme!”); I objected. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, he pulled rank. “Just try it, Roxana,” he pleaded. “Do this for me.” I groaned. “Fine,” I said. “Can I do something more like haiku, less like Ovid?”
“Great!” he answered triumphantly. And, with that caveat, I direct all complaints to David Lat.
After the jump, Poems from the Breadline.

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Notes from the Breadline: Workingman’s Blues

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
Searching for a job is often described as a marathon. “It’s not a sprint,” people will tell you knowingly, often adding that it “might take a few months.” When my own job search began, I heard this pearl of wisdom from countless recruiters, all of whom encouraged me to “be patient.” “Don’t worry,” they told me. “Something will come up.”
Several months on, I have determined that the marathon analogy may be a bit of an understatement. Sure: Giovanna found a job in short order, but for many of us, looking for work is more like an Iron Man, the Iditarod, a long ocean voyage, or a marathon followed by an extended push to the summit of a high peak. Carrying a heavy pack. I can imagine the captain’s log for such a journey. “Day 180,” it would read. “Morale is low. Rations are scarce. The cats are restless; I fear that a mutiny is not far off.”
Not long ago, I stopped by Lat’s office for a chat about this dismal state of affairs. “This isn’t getting any easier,” I said. “Does anyone find a job these days?”
“Think of it as a marathon, Roxana,” Lat said, stroking his chin wisely. He offered me a cup of coffee, which flows from a garden-sized fountain topped with a naked, burbling Cupid standing on one foot, in his office. Then he paused to consider my question. A moment later, it became clear to me that he could not think of anyone who had, in fact, found a job. “I get the picture,” I said glumly.
But a few days later, Lat delivered some encouraging news: he knew someone who had found a job. “It took a while,” he said of his acquaintance, “but he did it.” In fact, Lat explained, it had taken the acquaintance a remarkably long time to find work. Even more remarkable, however, was how long the man’s job search had taken, despite his impeccable credentials and extensive network of well-connected lawyers.
I decided to talk to the lucky fellow about his experience in – and getting out of – the breadline. Perhaps, I thought, he could inspire us, provide some insight, or (at the very least) make us feel better about our collective inability to find gainful employment. A few days later, I reached out to our new friend, who I’ll call “Max.” (He asked that his real name not be used.)
Read about Max’s job search, after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: Fear of Falling

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
At the Big Law Firm where we used to work, my friend Giovanna was the kind of associate that every partner dreams of. She spent nights and weekends at the office. She took on the most tedious tasks without complaining. She did the work of three people. She was conscientious. Sometimes, the partner for whom she worked would call her late at night, at home, with a frantic last-minute request for something that probably could have been done earlier in the day; Giovanna would turn around and go back to work to get it done.
Giovanna survived working for this partner for four years, but she did not survive the round of layoffs that eventually trimmed the herd at the Big Law Firm. In the months before she was “let go,” she had been certain that the figurative guillotine was poised above her waiting head. So, when she was summoned to the managing partner’s office to hear her fate, she said later, she was shocked, but not particularly surprised. She cried when she got the news, but then she gave them a piece of her mind and cleaned out her desk. A few days later, she left without looking back.
For the first few weeks, Giovanna and commiserated about life in the breadline. “I’ll never find a job!” she wailed, and threatened to cash in her 401(k). “Don’t do it,” I told her repeatedly, picturing her out on a ledge, cell phone in hand, ready to take a financially unwise leap.
“This is infuriating,” she said at one point. “No matter how many times I explain that more than 6000 people were laid off from firms, I swear people still look at me and think, ‘You suck, and that’s why you were let go.’ But AT&T lays off 50 people and it makes the CNN scroll and everyone empathizes.” I complained that Cliff didn’t understand that lawyers had emerged as the lepers of the new job market. She complained that her boyfriend, Tony, kept telling her to get a job at the local diner.
But Giovanna is one of the lucky ones. After a few weeks of unemployment, which we spend planning our eventual relocation to the shantytown which, she insists, is bound to spring up in Central Park, a former colleague passes her resume along to a friend of a friend and … before we know it, she has a new job.
Read about Giovanna’s new gig, after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: Our Endless Numbered Days

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
We’ve all heard the statistics about attorney layoffs, unemployment, and the sad state of the economy. But do the hard numbers tell the full story of life in the breadline? Inspired by the Harper’s Index, today I offer you the Notes from the Breadline Index.

Months in the breadline: 6
Estimated number of jobs applied for: 266
Estimated number of responses received to job inquiries: 23
Follow-up phone calls returned: 2
Soup recipes developed: 4
Meals consisting primarily of soup: 87
Approximate hours spent online trolling for potential jobs: 745
Average number of times, per day, email inbox checked for responses to job inquiries: 28
Percentage of times inbox check followed by fleeting thought that email has stopped working: 8
Number of evil cats currently freeloading off meager household income: 2
Number of times I have seriously considered the employability of cats: 3
Half-knitted scarves finished now that I have “time on my hands”: 0
Maximum number of days without washing hair: 5

More of Roxana by the numbers, after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: Tangled Up in Blue

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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 my 30 Rock-induced crying jag, sleep settles over me for a few precious hours. But in the middle of the night, I wake up suddenly, feeling deeply disoriented. It takes me a moment to realize that I am at T.J.’s, in his roommate’s bed, and when I do I am convinced that it is early December. I sit up, tangled in a cobweb of confusion and fighting the vaguely panicky sense that I have to do my Christmas shopping. After looking out the window, I spend a few baffled seconds wondering what happened to the blanket of snow I expected to see covering the ground.
As the fog of sleep clears, I piece together the evening and realize why I am so confused. The last time I stayed at T.J.’s was before Christmas, the weekend of a huge snowstorm. I remember waking up to find everything buried under cottony snow, the streets silent and empty. T.J. and I bundled up and, charmed by the novelty of playing mountaineer, trekked to the deli on our skis. When I close my eyes, it is December again, and I am immersed in the feeling of suspended reality, the simple pleasure of finding a familiar landscape transformed, and the childish delight of a snowy day. That was probably the last time I felt so carefree, I think sadly. That was before I lost my job.
I lie in bed, trying to hold on to the memory. Eventually, I doze off, dreaming that it is December, and that I will wake up to another snow day and the momentary relief from responsibility granted by awesome meteorological events. I will have no choice but to make snowballs and throw them at T.J., stopping only to eat dessert. Then I will go to work and bill lots of hours, and the managing partner will call me into his office to tell me to stop working so hard. “Roxana,” he says in my half-dream, “when do you have time to sleep? Listen: things are a little lean right now, but we think a ginormous bonus is in order.”
Unfortunately, reality intrudes on my dream. Perhaps even more unfortunately, reality seems to be adapted from of an episode of the old TV show “Land of the Lost,” in which the daughter, Holly, encounters her future self while trying to save her family from fearsome lizard people. But, while Holly’s future self comforts her, giving her enough courage to face the task ahead, future Roxana is decidedly cranky and unsupportive. She calls December Roxana (who is frolicking in the snow) inside, and then serves her a steaming bowl of acrid soup, which (I determine later) is an uninspired dream metaphor for disappointment. “Get used to it, Rox,” she says. “There’s more where that came from. And, by the way: you might want to scrap the snowman-building and focus on learning to make your own clothes.” The dream dissipates. I wanted to sleep until things got better, I think irritably. Why does future Roxie have to be such a downer?
More after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: Going Where There’s No Depression

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
It is spring, but the weather has turned cold again. My short-lived job is over; my short-lived relationship is over. One flat, grey day follows another. I am beginning to wonder whether my career is over, too.
A few days after Elisa cuts us loose, Olivia finally returns the phone call I made to ask her whether she had another assignment for me. “Roxanna, hiiii,” she coos breathily. She sounds surprised to find me at home.
“I guess the project ended early,” she says, her voice dripping with faux sympathy. “Soooorrry.” I wonder if she has practiced using this tone to comfort children who have failed to make the spelling bee finals. Or puppies, I think, half-expecting her next words to be, “who’s a good girl? You are! Yes, you are!” But she switches gears seamlessly, her voice brightening. “Well,” she chirps, “it’s probably nice to put your feet up after all that hard work, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I hear myself say flatly. “I worked like … a dog.”
“Then you definitely need a little break!” she effuses, sounding relieved. “Did you have a good experience, though? The people over at the Big Law firm are just great, aren’t they?”
I hold the phone out from my ear, wondering whether the caller I.D. will identify Olivia’s location as Bizarro World. In Bizarro World, “great” and “insufferable bitch” must be interchangeable terms. “It was really interesting,” I tell her, trying to sound upbeat. “In fact, I don’t even need a break. I’m ready to get right back on the horse!”
“Ohhh,” she says, as though I have asked her to lend me money. She tells me that she may have another “potential” project coming up, and has some “really interesting and exciting possible opportunities” for contract work. There is silence while, I assume, she pretends to look for exciting possible opportunities on her computer. For all I know she is scrolling through Craigslist or Law.com. I have an urge to ask her whether my friend, the troll, has found an exciting possible opportunity. Finally, I tell her to take her time looking and call me if anything comes up.
I need to do some errands, but the task of showering and getting dressed suddenly seems insurmountable. But why bother with proper attire when you have a long down coat? I think, and put it on over the ratty t-shirt and sweatpants I’m wearing. I glance at my disheveled hair in the mirror and decide that God made hats for many reasons (only one of which is cold weather), and that he probably also made Crocs for the members of his flock who are too unmotivated to look for their shoes. My outfit complete, I strike out.
Follow my adventures, after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: Comes a Time (Part IV)

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
I am sitting in the war room, trying to guess what time of day it is and what the weather is like. Have I been here for an hour, or is it closer to lunchtime, and a brief respite from the monotony of document review? Is it a beautiful day outside, or is it dark and rainy? There are no windows in the room, so these details can be elusive. I will myself not to look at the clock, anticipating the pang of disappointment that comes with knowing just how many hours lie ahead. A moment later, I give in: 10:30. I sigh and turn back to my computer.
A week into the document review, my days have taken on a deadening sameness. I go to the office. I plow through documents. Ben Gay applies healing ointments to his joints; Mr. Potato Head samples from each of the major food groups. At some point, Elisa comes in to verbally abuse one or more of us. When she leaves, no one can get back to work until the nature of her bitchiness and the ridiculousness of her review protocol have been thoroughly deconstructed. These sessions seem almost necessary, a way to cleanse the collective palate of something bitter and distasteful.
They are also, sadly, the moments when the occupants of our forgotten room seem most alive, and when I catch flickering glimpses of the lawyers many of them are, or have been. In the process of discrediting Elisa and her somewhat arbitrary choices, the reviewers defend their judgment calls, piece together strategic arguments, and display a practical command of litigation that seems far greater than that of our young overseer. Still, these attempts at legal discourse invariably remind me of law school, when people immerse themselves in the painfully earnest discussion of substantive issues, with no sense for how ultimately unimportant their opinions are.
I try to remind myself that this is work, and — while far from ideal — it is better than the alternative … or at least more lucrative. But it’s hard for me not to think about document reviews I did as an associate. Although they could be tedious or frustrating (or tedious and frustrating), they often felt more like a blitzkrieg than a prolonged occupation. It was different when I was immersed in a case, faced with a deadline, and anxious to see what the documents would reveal; I remember the purposefulness of turning my attention to the task at hand, the measurable sense of progress, and the feeling of dorky satisfaction that came from seeing the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
This assignment has none of those features. Elisa has given us almost no background information; without a feel for the context of the case, I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about whether I’ve missed some crucial nuance. I can recognize names, but I still have no sense of the people they belong to. And while I — like many lawyers — have indulged in the fantastic notion that my hours of scut work will pay off with a Perry Mason moment, I don’t even know enough about the case to picture the eventual cross or deposition during which the important documents will be brandished at a blanching witness.
More after the jump.

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Notes from the Breadline: Comes a Time (Part III)

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Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. 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.
This column is a continuation of last week’s column, which you can read here.
After the departure of Elisa — who, I now have it on information and belief, is a bitch — I have the distinct sense that I have been sent to my room. “Go to your room!” I imagine her screaming at a petulant child, “and don’t come out until you’ve reviewed 68,000 documents!”
I want to ask one of my new colleagues for some guidance — an insider’s view of what to expect, and how things work in this strange ecosystem — but I am reasonably certain that my inquiry will be futile, since none of them can hear me: they are all wearing headphones. Even the carpal tunnel guy has retreated to the auditory solace of his own world, and is bobbing his head gently while he applies something pungent to his visibly swollen joints. I watch him pull a tattered plastic shopping bag out from under his desk and rifle through a collection of tubes, bottles, and jars, one of which he finally selects and opens, filling the room with the smell of menthol. I wonder if he is going to apply it directly to his forehead.
I start to flip through the review protocol, which seems inordinately complicated. The document tags appear to have been created by several different people who were not in the same room at the same time. Like anything produced by multiple lawyers (with multiple egos), it looks like the product of a stubborn refusal to compromise. Perhaps it will make more sense once I start reviewing actual documents, I think, opening the database. I am hoping that the fine points of the “review tool” will come back to me quickly.
Instead, looking at the screen in front of me, I am flooded with the memory of a case I worked on a few months before I was laid off. For a moment I am back at my desk in my old office, talking to the client on the phone about what we need to identify in the documents. I want to laugh at the absurdity of revisiting the nuances of Kroll Ontrack the way some people remember the details of an old relationship. In this scenario, Kroll would be the ex-boyfriend, which, I suppose, is not so far-fetched given how much time I spent with it.
Kroll would be a bad ex, I muse. Remember that restaurant we didn’t go to? The time we didn’t go for a walk together? Remember when I marked that document “privileged,” and then someone else marked it “non-responsive”? Remember how hard we didn’t laugh? I’m sorry we had to break up, Kroll, but you never wanted to do anything but talk shop and stay in on weekends. Yes, I remember when you said I’d be back, and I guess you were right. But I want you to know that I saw other documents — lots of other documents — while we were apart.
More after the jump.

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