Dinsmore

Law Students Continue to Be Flummoxed By Their Lockers

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It’s that time of year again. First-year students of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed variety are frolicking into law schools across the country for their first week of classes, blissfully unaware of the jaded upperclassmen who inhabit the same building. At this point, the biggest worry of 1Ls is whether they’ll be highlighting their books in rainbow colors — that, and if they’ll be able to get into their lockers.

In this edition of Locker Wars, we meet a member of the class of 2015 who fears that the administration at his law school already considers his classmates “dullards” because they’ve locked themselves out of their lockers so many times that an instructional video had to be sent out….

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Non-Sequiturs: 02.24.12

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Let's hope nobody you make fun of ever decides to kill themselves. Otherwise you might end up like Ravi.

* So, your colleague or family member dies, suddenly, after allegedly being worked into the ground. But it’s my blog post about it that “turned the sad situation into a nightmare”? I think instead of lamenting for a fluff piece in a local paper, the media geniuses at Dinsmore should respond to a legitimate press inquiry. [West Virginia Record]

* The Dharun Ravi trial is under way. I’ll be calling it the Ravi trial, not the Tyler Clementi trial. Because Tyler Clementi is the kid that tragically killed himself, while Dharun Ravi is the very much alive person who has already had his life ruined even thought he didn’t kill anybody. [Metropolis]

* Are law firms finally starting to make money off of their investments in social media? [Legal Blog Watch]

* HoLove is getting a Brazilian. [Legal Week]

* Mmm… Section 230. [Paid Content.org]

* Does pot make you less productive, or does lack of productivity make you smoke pot? Or, man, have you ever thought that, like, maybe the pot was smoking you, or something? [What About Clients?]

* If you go to the second hour of this show, at about the 33-minute mark, you’ll hear me start to absolutely lose my mind over the Supreme Court’s decision to grant cert in Fisher. [WBEZ]

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Associate’s Death Raises Questions About Work/Life Balance at Law Firms

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We tend to think of the biggest Biglaw firms as “sweatshops,” while we view small firms, midsize or regional firms, or even Am Law 200 firms as “lifestyle” shops. The thought is that the big bad firms that service Wall Street clients will grind you up and spit you out, while somewhat smaller firms will allow you to have a normal life as you pursue your career.

It’s a great story, but it’s not necessarily a true one. Sometimes working at a smaller firm or a regional firm just means the same work with more pressure and less pay. Attorneys at such firms, whether partners or associates, don’t always have the kind of resources that Biglaw attorneys enjoy. There aren’t multiple layers of staffing available to double- or triple-check every document. It’s a lot of stress.

And stress can be just as deleterious to your health when working at a regional firm as it is when you work for a truly huge firm. This week, we’ve been fielding a bunch of reports about an associate who passed away at home after working what some tipsters report as maniac hours at his regional law firm the week before.

It’s a sad story, one that some accuse the law firm of trying to cover up, but it’s another opportunity for us to remind readers to take care of themselves even when work seems overwhelming…

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