Drinking

Mind Your Ps and Qs This Holiday Season, Young Attorneys!

Around this time, we notice an uptick in reprimands and firings among young attorneys for (alcohol-fueled) losses in their inhibitions.

By  
on

“My youngsters, teenagers, my mommas, my poppas / My sisters, my brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers / My uncles, my aunties, my nephews, my nieces / I hope you, I hope you’re ready for the season.” — Destiny’s Child

Yesterday, my Pandora music app notified me: “Tis the season for Destiny’s Child (Holiday) Radio!” While this may be true, this season also brings several other annual reintroductions into our lives.

It starts getting darker at an earlier time, but we somehow want to stay up later. We tend to go to the gym less. But we eat, drink, and celebrate more — holidays, reunions, traditions, friends, and family. The bathroom scale starts tipping unfavorably while our drinking tolerance regresses to our younger states. And finally we accept it, it’s time to bring our stretch pants and longer belts back into the fold.

With all this being said, as long as your managing partner doesn’t warn you, the day before Thanksgiving, that you may be terminated, there’s usually plenty to be thankful for.

Unfortunately, around this time, we notice an uptick in reprimands and firings among young attorneys for (alcohol-fueled) losses in their inhibitions. Maybe Lewis Brisbois LLP has got it right by not inviting associates to its NYC holiday party.

Just this week, a fellow millennial attorney, Jody Warner (32), a sixth-year prosecutor in the Dallas DA’s office was fired for her behavior in an Uber last Friday (the exact opposite of a #Friyay). I’d argue the actions of Britt McHenry, a former ESPN analyst and another millennial who was recorded berating an employee, were far worse, yet she was only given a one-week suspension.

Perhaps this should come as no surprise, as society tends to expect more from lawyers… or as my colleague Joe Patrice writes:

Sponsored

It’s not that [Warner] drunkenly mouthed off to someone. If that were the standard, most of the legal profession would be unemployable. And obviously there could be more to this story. Perhaps the driver did something to provoke Warner that we didn’t hear. But none of that really matters. That’s why DA Faith Johnson issued this statement.

‘Although criminal charges have not been filed, her behavior is contrary to this office’s core principle of integrity, and it will not be tolerated,’ Johnson said in a written statement. ‘As public servants, we represent the people of Dallas County and are examples of justice, professionalism, and ethical behavior both inside and outside of the courtroom.’

So there you have it. And it’s a lesson young attorneys should take away from this most recent incident. As lawyers, we should be “examples of justice, professionalism, and ethical behavior both inside and outside of the courtroom.”

If you’re obligated to navigate the law firm holiday party circuit this year, and you don’t plan to do it sober, then it will be helpful to keep the ATL Associate Guide to Holiday Parties in mind. For you high achievers (which is the majority of our audience, of course), maybe the firm party is less about avoiding traps and more about getting ahead. As our own Gaston Kroub wrote last holiday season:

Sure, you can just go to the holiday party, eat something and maybe have a drink or two. You can even decide to make a full night of it, and stagger into one of the black cars for the ride home. If you want to get fired, the firm holiday party presents a grand stage for some memorable hijinks that will separate you from your job. And maybe get you immortalized on ATL for good measure.

What if you are an associate hoping to make partner? Holiday parties have a way of overlapping with partnership votes. It may be too late for this year’s vote, but you can never get started too early on garnering support for next year. Make a list of the partners you need on your side. Especially those who you don’t necessarily work for on a daily basis. Try and spend some time with those partners at the holiday party. Don’t be annoying, and don’t try and accomplish anything other than getting to know them better.

Then again, maybe your goal isn’t to advance your career in the next two months, but rather just to survive the fourth quarter. In this case, my fellow columnist Shannon Achimalbe has shared her filtering process for choosing which holiday events to attend: 1) I won’t go to parties where everybody knows my name; and 2) I will go to parties where they’re always glad I came.

Sponsored

At the end of the day, be sure to mind your Ps and Qs. In other words, don’t be a jerk! There is far much too much to be thankful for to whine about your circumstances, berate others, or be a curmudgeon. As the bestselling author Brad Melzer says, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”

Today, let us all take a holiday pledge to help out our fellow brethren and sistren, call our parents often, tip extra to those in the service industry, and be especially considerate to Uber and Lyft drivers — they have to put up with an awful lot.

Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at [email protected], follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn. 

Topics

, , , , , ,