In-house counseling

House Rules: Finding Mary Poppins

By

Damn, Tony Scott! L.A. does weird things to a person. Each time I am there I am struck by a palpable sense of “difference.” It may well be the fact that I’ve been on the East Coast for so long, but I can’t shake the feel of Los Angeles. It is akin to being at Disneyland. The facades are constructed so realistically, but then you see Winnie the Pooh having a cigarette. Anyway, props to Mr. Scott for giving us some of the best films of my lifetime.

On to the task at hand. I was watching Mary Poppins the other day with my daughter. I swear that I only watch these things because my kids love them; really. As you know Jane and Michael Banks draft a list of qualities that they desire in a new nanny. Soon thereafter, Mary Poppins appears and straightens the entire household, kids and all, spit spot, er, I mean ship shape. And the Banks’ children’s list of got me to thinking about qualities to look for in a recruiter. So, I have compiled my own list of things to seek when considering a recruiter for your job search, if you have chosen to go that route. Some of you who are do it yourselfers can stop reading here. Those of you in the market for a recruiter, read on….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “House Rules: Finding Mary Poppins”

15 Comments

Moonlighting: Office Gossip — Good for You??

By

Last week, I wrote about how gossiping at the office can indicate that you’re in dire need of soft skills training or may be a pathetic, passive-aggressive coward. Or, more likely, both. After I submitted the post to ATL, David Lat (aka The Legal Gossipmonger Grandmaster) reminded me that hey, gossip can be positive too! The Grandmaster was absolutely right, of course, as my article had really only focused on the type of gossip where people whine and complain about their coworkers.

I thought, hmm, true — gossiping at work can definitely have a positive impact on you if you’re gaining information that will be useful to you on the job. Like finding out about which IT dude won’t treat you like the complete tech idiot that you are. Thanks to one of the commenters, I decided to dig a little further into what some of the other positive effects of gossip could be. And I was surprised by what I learned….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Moonlighting: Office Gossip — Good for You??”

4 Comments

House Rules: True Confessions (Part II)

By

Ed. note: This is a continuation of last week’s post by in-house columnist David Mowry, True Confessions (Part I).

I decided that it was somehow a good idea to live apart from my (pregnant) wife and 3-year-old son for about a year. I needed a job. I was scared and desperate, my clerkship was ending, and I had no prospects in D.C. or New York. So, I headed to Rochester.

At first, it was great to have law firm money coming in, and my salary and relative short distance from Rochester to Maryland allowed me to either drive or fly down to BWI on the weekends. But soon, the rigors and expectations of moving from junior to senior litigation associate began to make such trips difficult, and always stressful. This was when Citrix connections and Wi-Fi were in their infancy, and of course our house was just in a valley deep enough to cause problems with me connecting.

Stress soon turned potent as the pending birth of our second son was timed to occur with the due dates of several motions and depositions, etc. The Rochester partner for whom I was doing a majority of my work was not pleased that I took time to be in D.C. waiting for the baby to be born. The situation took a toll on me, my wife, and our son.

On the day of my wife’s labor, D.C. experienced the backlash of an East Coast hurricane, and a storm was brewing with my lawyer gig as well. Things were coming due, communication with the home office was difficult at best, and my work was suffering; I was suffering. I still have the emails that came to me in the delivery room and during recovery. I was torn between being present with my wife during this most important time, and trying to please the boss(es) in Rochester.

A mere two weeks after my son was born, we were caravanning to our new house upstate. Oh yes, I failed to mention that I was house hunting up until the date I traveled to D.C. to be with my wife while we awaited the due date. It was more than enough to break me….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “House Rules: True Confessions (Part II)”

9 Comments

Moonlighting: Office Gossip — It’s Not High School; It’s Much, Much Worse

By

So, OMG you seriously haven’t heard that Brittany likes Mark, but Mark likes Claire even though he’s flirting with Brittany? Yeah, Mark — the guy who’s so dumb that the last time he cheated on a test he still failed… I know right, he’s so hot!

High school gossip can cover many aspects of life. Sometimes the chatter is about school and tests. Sometimes it’s about who got invited to the cool parties and got sick on the street later. But most often, it’s about juicy dish. (Kind of like ATL, pimply puberty-style, except… hmm, never mind, it’s just like ATL.)

In-house gossip is thoroughly less satisfying. It’s more about who ticked off whom a couple of years ago, who’s slacking off and getting away with it when the rest of us can’t, and who could vie for the gold if kissing up to senior executives were an Olympic event. The juicy stuff that I used to get wind of once in a while from law firm peers seems rare in an in-house setting. Little did I realize that I was giving up such a quality of life factor when taking this job. People really need to give you a heads up about these things.

Seriously though, kids who gossip in high school are immature. But, well, that’s just about everybody in high school, so it’s all good. (The mature ones are the weirdos — avoid them like the plague, high school kiddies.) Gossiping at work, however, is viewed as less acceptable and is instead indicative of needed soft skills improvement…

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Moonlighting: Office Gossip — It’s Not High School; It’s Much, Much Worse”

6 Comments

House Rules: True Confessions (Part I)

By

“I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and things seemed to be getting so sh*tty. And he’d say, ‘That’s the way it goes, but don’t forget, it goes the other way too.’ That’s the way [life] is… Usually, that’s the way it goes, but every once in awhile, it goes the other way too.” Alabama Worley, True Romance.

Someone wrote in recently that “it was about time that I was giving honest appraisals of real life,” or something to that effect. Obviously, I can’t sit here and name names from my past or current positions. But after thinking it through, I decided to give an assessment of how I landed here in-house, inclusive of as much truth as is prudent. Keep in mind that this post is in two parts, and due to space constraints, I simply can’t give all the details and dirty little secrets….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “House Rules: True Confessions (Part I)”

22 Comments

Inside Straight: Revealing Our (Legal) Prejudices

By

Quick! I’m an in-house lawyer! How are my legal skills?

Admit it: You just thought to yourself, “So-so. The guy couldn’t hack it at a law firm and wanted a 9 to 5 lifestyle, so he took his mediocre skills and moved in-house. I’ll try not to be transparently condescending when I talk to him on the phone.”

I believed that, too, until I went in-house. (That was a joke. How do you put a smiley face on a blog post?)

A moment’s thought reveals that I’m a bundle of legal prejudices, and I suspected that others were, too. So I did a Rorschach test of some lawyer-friends. I named categories of lawyers, and I asked my friends to give their immediate reactions to those categories.

So what are our legal prejudices?

Quick! I’m a partner at a big firm! What do you think of me?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Inside Straight: Revealing Our (Legal) Prejudices”

21 Comments

Inside Straight: Operationalize This!

By

You gotta love the reviewer who wrote of my new Inside Straight book: “What John Updike was to the suburbs, Herrmann is to the legal sector.”

Maybe you have to question her sanity, too, but you gotta love her.

Enough of that. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program:

Many lawyers at firms believe that in-house life is like the Elysian Fields — where “life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain.” And, in some ways, those perceptions are right.

In one sense, however, the outside lawyer has it easy. He tells inside counsel: “The rule is X. Have everyone do X, and you will have complied with the law.” And then he goes back to reading cases.

The in-house lawyer is left with the hard part: How the heck do I get 100,000 employees, in 150 countries around the world, to do X?

In-house lawyers are often asked to operationalize rules, and it’s not always easy . . .

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Inside Straight: Operationalize This!”

16 Comments

Inside Straight: The Unfairness Of ‘Are You Sure?’

By

In Proof of an External World, G. E. Moore famously defended the concept of certainty: Moore could put his hand in front of his face and say (with certainty): “Here is a hand.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein disagreed. Wittgenstein was uncertain whether he knew — with certainty — that the hand in front of his face actually existed. The first sentence of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty reads: “If you do know that here is one hand, we’ll grant you all the rest.”

(Hah! You thought you came to Above the Law to read about bonuses and pictures of naked judges. It turns out that we’re epistemology through and through. But I digress.)

On three recent occasions, I’ve heard (or heard of) people asking, “Are you sure?”

I’m with Wittgenstein on this one: I can’t even tell you that “this is my hand,” for heaven’s sake; how dare you ask if I’m sure about a legal judgment?

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Inside Straight: The Unfairness Of ‘Are You Sure?’”

43 Comments

Moonlighting: The Mischievous In-House Lawyer

By

Last month, a group named Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) announced a study in which they identified eight qualities of successful legal executives. The study found that these accomplished folks exhibited greater levels of certain traits compared to your average Executive Joe Schmoe, Esq. The results, while informative, weren’t all that surprising. (It’s cool how hindsight works that way.) There were two traits, however, that RRA zeroed in on in their write-up of the study.

One was “excitability.” Successful legal executives got frazzled about 20% less than the average legal executive and even than the average non-legal executive. The gap in excitability was even wider between Successful GC and Not-Successful GC. So all of you lawyers who have a tendency to hyperventilate over every little fire drill can do yourselves a favor and think calm thoughts when you find that your prized pen has been moved from the right side of your desk to the left.

The other trait that RRA considered noteworthy is one they referred to as “mischievousness.” Their evaluation of mischievousness, however, is really just a brilliant scam….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Moonlighting: The Mischievous In-House Lawyer”

6 Comments

House Rules: Is Marissa Mayer’s Pregnancy ‘Material Knowledge’?

By

Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo!, is pregnant. And she took the job knowing she was pregnant. And the board hired her with full knowledge that she is pregnant. Holy hell, what is the world coming to? Read the following:

“She joins a small-but-growing group of women leading major public companies in the U.S., pushing the number to 20 female CEOs out of 500, or 4%. However, she sets a precedent as the first woman to ever take the top position while pregnant. Will having her first baby impact her performance or perception as the strong leader that Yahoo desperately needs?” -Forbes.com, July 17, 2012.

Are you kidding me right now? Let’s play Mad-Libs and change some of the words in that paragraph to “first black woman” and “[w]ill being black impact her performance or perception.” Is the new paragraph more or less offensive? I would argue that both are disgusting….

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “House Rules: Is Marissa Mayer’s Pregnancy ‘Material Knowledge’?”

46 Comments
Page 7 of 231...34567891011...23