Romance and Dating

Why Unemployed Lawyers Shouldn’t Go On Reality TV Shows — Exhibit A: Victoria, of MTV’s Downtown Girls

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Victoria of MTV's Downtown Girls

With job prospects bleak and the allure of fleeting fame high, some lawyers have considered sending their résumés to reality TV show casting companies instead of legal recruiters. But competition is tough in the realm of trashy television, too.

One unemployed New York lawyer is living the reality TV star dream. Meet Victoria. She is one of the stars of Downtown Girls, a new MTV series about hot girls living in TriBeCa. Sounds like a winner!

Let’s take a look at her bio:

An aspiring attorney, Victoria is Shallon’s other roommate, whose eccentric ways provide a source of rattlebrained comic relief. Victoria recently graduated from law school and is currently awaiting the results of her second attempt at the bar exam. Like her roommates, Victoria is also single, and is infamously known as the “queen of the first date.”

Really? You’re going to include the fact that you failed the bar exam in your MTV website bio?

Can it get worse?

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  • 26 May 2010 at 1:25 PM

Meet This Season’s Lawyers from The Bachelorette

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This past Monday, middle-aged housewives, quadriplegics who were not able to turn the channel, and yours truly tuned into the 763rd 20th season of The Bachelor franchise.

This season stars Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky, an unemployed 25-year-old who quit her job at Facebook and moved back in with her parents to be on the show. Fans of the series will recall that Ali was a castoff from last season’s Bachelor, where she endeared herself to fans by wearing low-cut dresses, crying frequently, and vaguely resembling a poor man’s Reese Witherspoon as seen in dim light through cataracts. Anyhow, she’s back this season and more determined than ever to find love with one of 25 white bachelors, not including the one Hispanic dude, Roberto.

Figuring that regular guys might be intimidated by Ali’s professional ambition and success, the Bachelorette producers assembled a squad of gentleman callers that simply cannot fail to impress. There is the “outdoorsman,” the “dental sales associate,” the “medical sales associate,” the landscaper, the “internet account executive,” and even the weatherman. Also vying for Ali’s heart are two of our very own kind: LAWYERS.

So, who are these guys?

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Soliciting a Date from the Solicitor General: Man Woos Kagan — Over Craigslist?

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There’s a long tradition of seeking Supreme Court love via Craigslist (see here and here). And the tradition continues.

From a Craigslist posting entitled 40-something SJM ISO Elena Kagan (we’ve added some links to clarify various references):

I’ve had a crush on you for almost twenty years (and you deservedly made fun of me when I got tongue-tied in front of you), but it never seemed appropriate to move on it. Either I was dating someone, or you were in another city…

But now! Our careers seem to have settled in DC. I’m single. Politico and Eliot Spitzer tell me you’re single. We have so much in common: I love the law (even civil procedure!) and can’t get enough of it. I like books and baseball and poker and New York City and Medici pizza. I admire Thurgood Marshall. Like you, I love the Federalist Society. My mother was the first bas mitzvah in her Orthodox synagogue, but I’m relatively non-observant. We disagree on some First Amendment issues, to be sure, but I’ll never ask you to watch a dogfighting video. Ok, you’re smarter than me, but I’m no slouch (like you, I turned down Yale Law), and I’m cool being Mr. Ginsburg to your Ruth Bader if you are.

This is not a joke. I am gaga for Lady KaGa. I understand you have other priorities in the next few weeks, and Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald would be scandalized if we started dating, but I’ve waited for you this long, I can wait until after the inevitable investiture. Just send me a signal: mention your love of the Mets in your opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I’ll know to send you a dinner date invitation for the first Friday in October. We’ll go for Chinese food at a restaurant better than City Lights.

Finally, some suspense for the Kagan hearings: Will she mention the Mets? Tune in and find out.

We interviewed the Craigslist poster about his wacky plan….

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In-House Counseling: Where You Eat

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Ed. note: This post is written by Will Meyerhofer, a Biglaw attorney turned psychotherapist, whom we profiled. A former Sullivan & Cromwell associate, he holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work. He blogs at The People’s Therapist.

Office romances are endemic in the legal profession. I see them constantly with my patients.

Why is there so much fooling around at law firms?

Triangulation.

A partner in a couple “triangulates” – looking to a third party to replace what’s missing in his relationship.

For lawyers, that boils down to time spent together.

One married lawyer told me she flirts with a junior associate at her office. She loves her husband, but never sees him. Flirting with the junior satisfies her craving for sexual attention. Lately, though, they’ve been going out for drinks, and she’s afraid something will happen she’ll regret.

Single lawyers experience the same romantic isolation. One said she hadn’t been to a bar or club – let alone a party – for over a year. She keeps canceling dates because of work, and her friends no longer ask her out because she always says no. This month she’s been working late nights with another associate at her firm and they’ve started hooking up.

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ATL Courtship Connection: Blind Date FAIL

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It was bound to happen. New York is big, but it’s not that big.

I sent two law school students (from different institutions) out on a Courtship Connection date on Monday night, armed only with a descriptor of their date. She said she’d be in a black dress, and he said he’d be in a “light blue sweatshirt and blazer” (which struck me as an odd ensemble).

They both named copyright as their favorite law school class. They both want to practice entertainment law. If they weren’t on the track to become lawyers, she’d want to be a music producer, and he would want to be a musician. It seemed like the perfect match.

Alas, when they found one another outside of an (apparently closed) bar in Alphabet City, they recognized one another. Not only had they already met, they had already hooked up…

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Valentine’s Day Advice from Above the Law

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lawyerly candy heart.jpgThe legal blogosphere has been shot in the heart with Cupid’s arrow.
Here at Above the Law, we’re turning into matchmakers. The Texas Lawyer is telling us about lawyers in love. Am Law Daily is profiling Biglaw power couples. And Avvo has a guide to dating lawyers, claiming that you lawyerly types are a hot commodity on the meat market:

Surveys show lawyers are among the most datable professions.

Here’s one of Avvo’s 10 tips for pleasing a lawyerly lover:

Make love notes long and confusing
Brevity and clarity make lawyers feel uncomfortable and agitated, much like normal people feel at the DMV. For example, don’t say, “Let’s head back home early for some fun.” Instead say, “Let’s return early to the domicile for some malfeasance.”

Your Above the Law editors have dated plenty of lawyers, and one of us even married one. We’ll share our lawyer-dating backgrounds and offer upsides, downsides, and advice, after the jump.

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Pls Hndle Thx: A Life Settlement

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

pls hndle copy 2.jpgATL,
With Valentine’s Day coming up, do you think there is any merit to the argument that people should settle when they are trying to find a mate? Is there particular merit to this claim as to (busy) attorneys?

Litigate or Settle

Dear Litigate or Settle,
[Background: Lori Gottlieb, a 40-something hag, has been recently making the rounds promoting her book, "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" (based on her controversial article in The Atlantic). Her argument: "Educated ladies in your 20s and 30s, your ovaries are rotting. Stop being picky. Settle for some mediocre dude NOW before you get old and no one wants you." Gottlieb was later revealed by her ex-boyfriend to be a megalomaniac, borderline-personality-disordered shrew.]
People settle for a variety of reasons: they’re too lazy / busy to go out and find someone better, they’re scared that there IS no one better, or they feel like everybody else is changing their relationship statuses on Facebook and they’ve got to marry whomever they’re dating so as not to be left out.
That being said, lawyers settle for mates more readily than do other professionals. They’re risk averse and want to lock shit down early regardless of whether it’s “right.” They’re tired after billing 14 hours and just want to jackhammer someone, anyone, for 30 seconds, then pass out. On a subconscious level, many of them want sad-sack mates to match the resignation their feel in their own careers. If they’re gonna do this whole intercreditor agreement and soy sauce stained-life thing, they need the zitty husbands and lumpy wives to match.
However, if you’re a lawyer who’s unwilling to settle in your career (i.e., you genuinely enjoy your job or you’re taking steps to GTFO), you shouldn’t be willing to settle for a life partner, either. I know that’s easier said than done, especially when friends send “& Guest” wedding invitations on purpose to destroy you. Believe me, I am just as scared as you that I’ll spend the winter of my life training my dog to change my bedpan. But the rest of your life is a long time to spend resigned to a mediocre mate or career. Before you accept that date with a guy in mandals or a girl with a weak chin, I urge you to go to the gym have a little faith in your ability to attract a mate without settling. As my ex-shrink Dr. Laikin once said to me: If God made someone as awesome as you, surely there are others.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Marin

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Getting Back Together with ATL Courtship Connections
(Calling all single New York lawyers….)

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Courtship connection.jpgWay back when, in 2008, we talked about starting a little something called ATL Courtship Connections. We know there are a lot of lonely lawyers out there, and we wanted to do our part to throw you together and see what happens.
Unfortunately, over the last year, we’ve been more focused on lawyers getting laid off than lawyers getting laid. Although we had many responses (over 200), it was a logistical nightmare trying to pair people up, as we had lawyers from across the country looking to be matched. When we did reach out, some people responded and some didn’t.
In other words, it was a bigger disaster than Biglaw’s attempts to figure out what to do with the Class of 2009.
With Valentine’s Day looming, we decided to revisit Courtship Connections. This time we’re going to roll out the project more slowly. We had the biggest response from lawyers in New York — said to be the best city for singles — so we’re targeting the Big Apple bunch (at least for this first round).
If you’re New York-based, single, and interested in being set up with a fellow legal eagle, read on….

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(Calling all single New York lawyers….)“

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False Advertising Meets Sharia Law

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burka burqa burkha burqha Dubai Doha UAE Qatar Above the Law blog.jpgThink back to first-year contracts class, specifically, discussion of the U.C.C. and non-conforming goods. Then check out this article, from BBC News:

An Arab country’s ambassador to Dubai has had his marriage contract annulled after discovering the bride was cross-eyed and had facial hair.
The woman had worn an Islamic veil, known as the niqab, on the few occasions the couple had met.

Who says Islam is anti-woman? For certain women, niqabs and hijabs and burqas may be beneficial.
So, when was the alleged perfidy revealed?

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Quote of the Day: I Would Do Anything for Love

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One afternoon, she calls me at work and tells me I have to come over immediately to kill a spider. I’m like “You realize Diane Keaton already did this in Annie Hall, right?” No, it was evidence of whether I really cared about her, would I stay at work and finish the assignment the senior partner wanted on his desk in two hours, or would I drive to Brentwood and kill the spider for her.


So, yeah, that spider made me have to switch law firms and lose several years before I could become partner. Most expensive spider in the world.


– “Tim,” ex-boyfriend of Lori Gottlieb, of “Marry Him” fame (or infamy).

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