Feature Article: Remembering the Bar Exam and Considering Your Own Life at the Bar by Julie A. Fleming
For most of the people in the United States, July means summer heat, trips to the beach and red, white and blue barbeques. But for thousands of would-be practitioners, this month carries something far weightier: the bar exam.
Assuming you're a member of the group sitting on the other side of the bar, the Promised Land of Practice, the bar is just a distant bad memory. And what of the Promised Land of Practice? How's that treating you? This is a good time of year to get back in touch with what brought you to a legal practice. Remember being that kid, with a head crammed full of black letter law, not to mention plenty of bar review lore? Why did you put yourself through two (or, in some states, three) days of agony? Did you want to be a big-time litigator? Did you want to help victims of domestic violence? Did you plan to set the world on fire with your legal scholarship, after serving a few years in a law firm?
And where are you now? Are those dreams still alive? Granted that you've learned a huge amount since you took the bar and perhaps changed your goals; are you expressing the values that made you willing to endure that grueling experience?
If not, you aren't alone. What one change can you make today that will bring you additional satisfaction? Some ideas: improving your client development skills so you can move closer to your dream of making partner; commiting to attending NITA training so your next trial may run more smoothly; working on time management; perhaps making a job or career change to build a work life that works for you. Sometimes it takes only small changes to reap big results, something as simple as deciding to go to the gym before work so you build more stamina. Sometimes it's making a short-term sacrifice, like deciding to volunteer for the big case that no one else wants to work on so you can get two years of experience crammed into nine harried months.
July is a good time to pause, question, and adjust. I'd love to know what kinds of changes you plan to make or what changes you dream about. Comments and emails (jaf AT lifeatthebar.com) are welcome.
While you're at it . . . can you still quote the Rule in Shelley's case?
Julie A. Fleming, J.D., A.C.C. provides attorney development coaching and consulting to law firm associates and partners, focusing on topics such as leadership, client, and professional development; career strategy; and work/life integration. A certified leadership coach (Georgetown University), Julie publishes the weekly email newsletter Leadership Matters for Lawyers and posts often on the Life at the Bar Blog. Learn more at www.LifeAtTheBar.com or by contacting Julie by telephone at 800.758.6214 or by email to jfb@lifeatthebar.com.
If constantly feeling overwhelmed is keeping you from being happy as a lawyer, join Julie Fleming and The Billable Hour Company partner Lisa Solomon for a May 21 teleseminar about the Five Foundations of Time Mastery for Lawyers.
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Cartoon: Courtoons
by David Mills
Courtoons are the creation of David Mills, an Ohio appellate lawyer who works with litigants and law firms involved in civil and criminal cases in federal courts across the country. Visit David's law firm website at www.MillsFederalAppeals.com
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Video of the Month: Summer Clerkin'
From "Schiess All That," the 2009 musical produced by Assault & Flattery at the University of Texas School of Law.
Summer clerkin', had me a blast
Summer clerkin', went by so fast
Met a judge who ruled for me
Met a partner who does IP
Summer days, no work all play
Then uh-oh, those summer nights
Well-a well-a well-a oomph!
Tell me more, tell me more
Man they filled me with booze
Tell me more, tell me more
Took us all on a cruise
Uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh
Had a Starbucks on the first floor
Venti lattes made us work more
Billing hours; watching the clock
My first paycheck was such a shock
Summer fools, we worked like mules,
but uh-oh those summer nights
Well-a well-a well-a oomph!
Tell me more, tell me more
Suzan Charlton is a professional cartoonist who is rumored to practice insurance coverage law as a hobby for a major Washington D.C. law firm. Her cartoons cover a wide range of law-related topics, from law school grades to law firm romance.
Song of the Month: What if You Make More Money Than Me?
by Mikey Mel & the JDs
I work so hard
every day
I skip most meals, and stay up late
The partners love me
the clients too
But when I sleep I only dream of you
Chorus:
I can't sleep
I stay up late
What if you make more than me someday
I can't sleep
I stay up late
What if you make more, you make more, you make more, than me, someday
You bill 2,000
I gotta bill more
my fear drives me to run up the score
And when you win a case
I get so mad
cuz you get in the way of my partner track
Chorus
My wife she says
don't worry babe
I'm happy with just what you make
But it would make me sick
and eat my brains
if I knew you had more loot in the bank
Chorus
Just one of the hilarious songs on
Cartoon: Law and Disorder
by Paul Brennan
Juris Comic
Litination: Local Lawyer Oblivious to Unduly Burdensome and Overly Broad
by Court Jester
It is well known around Wheeling, West Virginia that defense attorney Martin Glasscart will fight each and every one of his cases to the bitter end. Consistent with this practice, Mr. Glasscart's favorite defense tactic is to slow down an inevitable loss through discovery and the more confusing he makes his interrogatories or his discovery responses the better.
In one particularly confounding request, Glasscart asked for all documents, things, objects, clothing, thoughts, notes, words, furniture, or televisions shows that would either prove or disprove or could have the propensity to prove something that could or could not potentially, if all the right factors were in place, depending on the angle or perspective of the documents, things, objects, clothing, thoughts, notes, words, furniture or television shows referenced, as defined in the definitions section of defendant's first set of interrogatories, caused or could have caused plaintiff to have understood, or thought to have understood without reference to knowledge or intuition but strictly relating to common sense, or the sub-senses contained therein, to contribute to the injuries alleged or implied in the words, deeds, actions, or other elements associated with the present complaint.
Glasscart also typically drafts interrogatories by suspending Word's automatic paragraph numbering function in order to intersperse misplaced paragraphs and utilize an indecipherable method for labeling sub-, subsub-, and subsubsubparagraphs. This allows him to intersperse a second Interrogatory 7 after Interrogatory 12(A)(b)(i)(2).
Glasscart's answers to discovery are no better. His most often-used phrases in response to interrogatories are "finders keepers, losers weepers," "let's not make a mountain out of a molehill" and "wouldn't you like to know." An informal survey of Mr. Glasscart's adversaries did uncover that he normally buckles once a motion to compel is threatened, but that will often only come after weeks and months of letter writing and meet and confers have taken place.
"The way I see it," responded a triumphant Glasscart in response to an inquiry from Litination, "the extra cost that my opponent pumps into dealing with discovery puts my clients one step closer to a reasonable settlement . . . or in other words, don't hate the player, hate the game."
Court Jester is a member of the Litination who believes that the practice of law requires a sense of humor. His goal is to provide an entertaining diversion from the regularly scheduled billable hour or law school seminar. He provides fake legal news and links to real headlines at www.Litination.com. His hope is that one or the other will provide you with a laugh in an often unnecessarily stressful day.
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Take a close look!The dials of our watches and clocks are marked in tenths of an hour—the same way many lawyers, paralegals and law clerks bill for their time.
