Tuesday, August 24, 2010

saving/selling souls...

Hubby's doing on-campus interviews this week... all at law firms (cuz, that's where lawyers work, mostly...).

Wise Woman made a comment about working the corporate law job -- and the climb to partner... The implication was that hubby had to sell his soul to make it happen...

I wonder if it has to be that way? I can see that it does happen, but I'm also holding out hope that Hubby's age and my status as an ethicist might make his career different...

One way or the other, Hubby's doing the interviews and hopefully will have a nice job as a result.. think good employment thoughts for him....

4 comments:

Seeking Solace said...

I worked at two firms before hanging up my own shingle. At one firm, one did have to sell their soul to make partner. Giving up a Saturday morning to work in the office so that the partners "noticed" you. Kissing peoples asses to get noticed has never been the way I roll.

Granted, this is the life in most large law firms. It's a little better in the small firm environment. More flexibility.

Hubby could also go the public interest or government route as well. There is good money as a US Attorney.

The bottom line is: what area does he want to practice and where. He has time to figure it out.

Andrea said...

I agree. The reason firm practice is often so awful is because of the hours, low responsibility levels, and because many associates have no interest in the substance of the corporate work, but are held in place by "golden handcuffs." If he actually likes the work, that helps a lot, but many don't, so I hope his maturity will translate into figuring out what his skills and interests really are before floating into biglaw as a default. I have/had a LOT of unhappy friends there, many of whom are finally making escapes.

Personally, with his background I think he'd be an outstanding government litigator....

Anonymous said...

I will say that the partners at the firm where I worked this summer were all really good people. It's not traditional BigLaw (way too small - about 25 lawyers, which is midlaw where I am), but it does BigLaw-level work (i.e. very complex civil litigation). So you don't HAVE to sell your soul!

(That said, I don't know if Wise Woman is a lawyer or not, but I think non-lawyers make this kind of comment a lot more than is merited. FWIW.)

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

Wise woman's partner is a lawyer -- public interest.. so they have many friends who have gone that way...