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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DScottD who wrote (17166)	1/28/1999 10:23:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 71178

Wow, what a story! Sounds like The Job From Hell. I have a theory that the stress of litigation is so excoriating that eventually the personality of litigators is deformed into something unrecognizable. Not all, of course, some take to stress like ducks to water. I like to joke, "I don't get ulcers, I give them." But, I am not really superhuman, and it's not true. >>>>>I find that I can become very productive and somewhat creative in my thinking when I'm under the gun.<<<<< Me, too. My husband is a patent examiner, he deals with lawyers all the time, and he hates the fact that lawyers always do everything at the absolute last minute. He gripes at me about them, and he hates the fact that I am like that, too. I tell him that it is because we are always busy, so have to finish other things first or juggle, but it really is because I can't really feel motivated until the absolute last minute, just as he says. I can handle a lot of stress, psychologically, but my body needs to be exercised, and fed, and rested, and my family needs me, too. BTW, I hate preparing contracts and such. Wills, trusts, deeds, I really hate them. I love briefs, and pleadings.

To: DScottD who wrote (17166)	1/28/1999 6:27:00 PM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 71178

DSD, WOw--that was like reading a chapter from our past. You really brought that to life. LIstening to you and Coby, I realize how universal our experience was. At the time it was very scary to make a decision that completely changed what we we had worked for all those years. ANd scary to realize how completely unprepared we were for real life. (Or what passes for real life in the bigtime law community) We had believed all the stuff they told us in the interviews!!!! I suppose it's like being a resident in medicine. THere's a macho connotation to it; it's a baptism by fire, a nasty initiation into the brotherhood (even harder maybe for sisters) and there's very little help in dealing with it because the whole point is that you want it, you endure it and even beg for it. Every month the billable hours went higher, the expectations grew. We had two small children and I dreaded those calls at 6:30 or so when I knew Dan was going to tell me he couldn't come home. I remember that he was relieved when I went into labor on a Sunday so he could go to work on Monday. THe tradeoff was that the firm ordered an incredible lunch for two from Nieman's for the new parents served in the hospital. I don't remember if Dan made it, though. I obviously don't know what it was like as a lawyer, but I do know that wives have a role too. Suddenly there were clients to entertain, dinner parties to throw, the right organizations to join. When the clerks came for interviews, the associates' wives had to entertain their wives. There's a whole network of the right stores and neighborhoods and doctors and schools...oddly there's a certain female machismo- machisma? also. ANd then you had to be really interesting in your own way to be accepted. The wives were as high achieving as the husbands. I got lucky-I was in the Symphony Chorus--that was a "good" thing to do. It got me by. THere were some wonderful people in the firm, but there sure was a lot of the stuff present that because of Grisham has become almost mythical. I think people are more able to leave now, but when we left-along with a couple of friends, it was like being banished. You no longer existed. Your name was never spoken again in the hallowed halls.