Following my Bliss

My parents have always been a bit into astrology (and other things I call “woo woo”) and, I admit that despite my Judgy McJudgerson attitude about it, I have always been intrigued by it too. Since I am at a crossroads and trying to make some big life decisions, when my mom got a “natal chart” reading that she thought was fantastic a few weeks ago, I decided to shed my lawyerly skepticism for the moment and get a reading myself. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not one to chart the course of my life 100% based on what anyone else tells me (be it career coach, astrologer, parent, therapist, etc), so this is no different, but I do feel that it’s good to get advice from all sides and perspectives when making big life decisions. I must say, I was impressed by what came out of my reading. Here are some of the highlights of what the astrologer told me:

-I am very sensitive and have a 6th sense about other people’s emotions and body language, which can be emotionally exhausting. I need time by myself to regenerate and go back out in the world.
-My skill set might be good for psychology or therapy (this was without me mentioning anything other than I was looking to maybe switch jobs or careers).
-I’m an autodidact and can teach myself anything I want to learn. Great love of reading, writing and ideas.
-Huge interest in causes, particularly relating to girls and young women. I need to have something I believe in. My work needs to be meaningful. The issue will always come back to whether I believe in what I’m doing.
-There is something to be said for utilizing what I have already learned. My path is like a pyramid where everything I’ve done continues to be useful.
-I have a theatrical component that he thinks would be good in a courtroom along with my ability to read body language.
-I mentioned jury consulting and he said I would be very good at that but that it involves the manipulative side of Scorpio and might not square with my belief system – he referred to it as “flirting with bad karma.”
-I have a 6th sense for figuring out what other peoples’ needs are. He thinks I could come up with something that doesn’t exist.
-He thinks I would be really good at teaching moot court, either in high school, college or law school. Strong language skills.
-Nontraditional way of healing or seeing what’s beneath the surface.
-I need to first figure out what I’m passionate about, what turns me on, and the rest is logistics. He sees me doing something with communications and/or young women.
-My calling in life is about finding a place for myself out in the world. The fact that I’m struggling about what to do means that I’m working on my calling.

My readers may or may not know enough about me to know that this was right on the money. And really, his advice was not much different than the exercises I’ve been doing with my career counselor — it seems once I figure out my passion, the rest will follow. Of course, it’s that process which is so difficult and time consuming and…well, such hard work.

My mom has recently discovered Joseph Campbell, and the expression “Follow your bliss.” When it comes right down to it, that’s really what I’m doing, isn’t it — trying to find my bliss?

So I decided I want to do a variation on the erstwhile gratitude journal. I want to take time each day to jot down those things in the day that made me smile, made me laugh, made me passionate…gave me bliss. To the extent they are little things (eating a good meal, sitting with Noodles on my feet, etc.) I will know I can boost my mood by doing these things. To the extent that themes develop with what blisses me out in work and play and they are things that I can pursue in my career, then I will be well on my way to finding out what, as the astrologer put it, “turns me on.” If nothing else, I think it will make me smile just to think about those things which make me smile day to day. And that’s always a good thing.

All Growns Up, Part II

A few weeks ago, my dear friend T. (who just had her first baby who I am dying to meet!) reminded me about a post that I wrote about 3 1/2 years ago, back when Little Miss Law was just starting out. The title of the post was Babies R Not Me, and I’m sure you can imagine the subject of the post. At that time, none of my close girlfriends had babies or were trying to have babies just yet and I was still riding the wedding wave. Now, many of my close friends and co-workers have at least one child. Pregnancy, birth and babies are a frequent subject of lunch or dinner conversation with my friends. And now that I’m getting married in July, the topic of having kids has turned from “I’ll worry about that someday” to a subject that’s on my mind an awful lot.

In certain ways, I’m much more of a baby person now that I was when I wrote that post. It’s been so fun to watch my friends have kids and I love playing Auntie. Mr. Law has a niece and nephew back East and I can’t wait to officially be their aunt. I can easily imagine having kids with Mr. Law (and I admit that we’ve even discussed names we like). But where before my concerns about kids were abstract, now they have become more concrete and more worrisome.

One thing I worry about a lot is losing myself in having kids. I know (or at least, I’m told by many people including my own mom) that being a parent is one of the most extraordinary things a person can experience. On the one hand, I do want to experience that and all that comes with it. But I do know that it can be an all-consuming thing and I have noticed that it (rightfully so) becomes the number one focus of the lives of my friends with kids. But for me, I still don’t have that deep biological urge of “OMG I need a baby RIGHT NOW” and I don’t know if I’m ready to make that the focus of my life to the exclusion or minimization of all else. Mr. Law and I aren’t even married yet, and after we get married it might be nice to spend some time as newlyweds before we decide to take that leap.

Also, as much as I am conflicted about my career and where it’s heading, it has been my biggest focus (for better or worse) since graduating law school and it’s hard to think about changing that. The issue of children is one of the things that is making me question my career — it’s all fine and well to work long days and weekends when Mr. Law and I are childless and we can come home and have a late dinner together, but I don’t know how this will work if we have a family. I know I will want a more flexible schedule and I won’t want to miss all the “firsts.” On the other hand, I have the sense that people who go part-time at my firm are somewhat relegated, at least in the higher-ups’ minds, to the “mommy track.” That bothers me to no end after having dedicated so much time to my education and work life. I also worry that I will be distracted by home life at work, and by work life at home. It’s such a balancing act and I don’t know how to make it work. Mr. Law responds, “Everyone else makes it work, and so will we.” But I know a lot of unhappy lawyers and a lot of women who have left work to stay home full time (which financially is not an option for us), so I’m not so sure.

Sometimes I feel like it is a disadvantage to have waited till I am older and (ha) wiser to get married and have kids because while there is something to be said for analyzing and assessing my options, there is also something to be said for jumping in headfirst and figuring it out as you go along (instead of just dipping my toe in and deciding it’s too cold). Sometimes I think that all my worrying will just paralyze me and I need to just set it aside and think, que sera sera.

Easier said than done…

All Growns Up

I’ve had a really interesting experience over the past couple of weeks looking back over my old blog posts.  A lot of things have changed since I stopped blogging but one thing has stayed remarkably the same — I am still grappling with certain feelings about my job and my career that I’ve had since I started at the firm. As I get more senior at the firm the considerations change slightly but the overarching issues, the push-pull, the ups and downs are still there. On the one hand I like the intellectual challenge, love the people, and appreciate the stability and opportunity the firm has provided me. On good days I feel like my job allows my strengths to shine: my writing ability, or my people skills, or problem-solving. On the other hand, I often have a nagging feeling that the job isn’t quite me, not in the truest and most authentic sense. (Strangely I sometimes think I had a better sense of what I loved when I was 18 than I do at 31.) I watch the young partners at my firm who sacrifice time with their families and I don’t envy any of them. I feel like I should want to be a partner but I don’t think I do. And then I feel guilty because I know a lot of people would want my job and that I’m lucky to have it. But is that a reason to stay?

Then, of course, there are the golden handcuffs. I’ve always tried to live frugally and save money, and I never used to feel the effects of the handcuffs, but then we bought our house. I don’t regret it at all — in fact, I love love LOVE our house. There are few things I like more than cooking in our kitchen (or grilling in the backyard), eating in our dining room at our new dining table, lounging in our living room. I love our home life and I don’t want to change any part of it. But it does require that I maintain a certain income which means there’s no use dreaming about quitting without another job lined up (not that I would). It seems Little Miss Law isn’t so little anymore…suddenly I feel all growns up!

Since I realized I’ve been having these feelings for a long time, I decided to take advantage of a free career counseling program offered in connection with my undergrad. Tomorrow is my intake phone meeting and filling out the forms already gave me food for thought – for example, “what does work mean to you?” I’m hoping that if nothing else, the process might help shake me up a little bit and help me think outside the box. I love that I’m friends with so many lawyers who I can commiserate with, but not many of us have moved beyond firm life, so it might be nice to talk to someone outside this universe. This will hopefully be an interesting process and I’ll keep you posted, dear readers!

The Return of Little Miss Law

Hello, old friends!

As those of you who used to read this blog may recall, I stopped posting 3+ years ago.  I started a new blog, then another, until I gave up having a blog altogether.  I decided at that time that it had been wonderful and entertaining and therapeutic, but that I was done with sharing personal details of my life and that it was just too time consuming anyway.  A lot of wonderful things have happened in the past 3 years, which I will share in a moment.  But one thing hasn’t changed in that time – I still love to write, and I still don’t have an outlet that quite fulfills my need to write the way this blog did.  So after some consideration, I’m back!

So here’s the life of Little Miss Law over the past 3 years, in a nutshell (and yes,  just because I can never resist: “Help!  How do I get out of this nutshell?”)

1.  After many months of being in a funk and not feeling like myself, in 2008 I started seeing a therapist, who I saw for over a year.  I had always been reluctant about therapy, but she was terrific and it really helped bring me back to feeling…well, like me.

2. After many, many first and second dates with various eHarmony, Match, etc prospects that went nowhere, I met an amazing guy, who we’ll call Mr. Law, through mutual friends in September 2008.  (He’s a litigator like me, at a small firm.)  Words don’t suffice to describe this, but he is everything I’ve always been looking for.  We hit it off and our relationship took off quickly.  In May 2010 we got engaged and we’re getting married in July!  (Yes, this blog is likely to contain many wedding-related posts.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

3. After looking at 60-70 houses starting in January 2010, in September Mr. Law and I bought our 1st house, a 98-year-old Craftsman in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.  We both fell in love the first time we saw it and, even though homeownership can be daunting and scary, not a day goes by that we don’t comment how lucky we are to have found a place that is so perfect for us.

And now for the things that haven’t changed:

4.  The infamous Noodles is still around (in fact, he is sitting partially on my arm as I write this!)  He has mellowed out substantially since the days of the vicious attacks, and he and Mr. Law have even grown to love each other.

5.  I’m still at the same firm practicing litigation, and now more than ever (as a 6th year associate) I feel like I’m at a crossroads where I need to decide where to go from here.  (More on this to come too.)

6.  My same friends who I mentioned previously on the blog are all still very much in the picture and, in most cases, will be in my wedding.  But those friends are also almost all married and some have kids or kids on the way.  Three years has definitely caused a huge shift in that regard!

This is a short post, but I promise you, dear readers (if I have any now), to make my blogging regular again and not leave you hanging for another 3 years!

Till next time,

LML

Back to the drawing board

This is how my morning started out. I had no sooner plopped myself in my desk chair at 8:45 am when the phone rang. It was a partner in my office with whom I have a good working relationship. He can be quite grumpy, but I seem to have endeared myself to him. He sort of reminds me of my grandpa.

He called me down to his office to talk about the brief I’ve been slaving over for him. Something in the tone of his voice made me realize that he was less than thrilled. And indeed, as soon as I stepped into his office he began, “You know I don’t mince words.” Oh, crap. Then he blurted it out: “I don’t like it. It needs a lot of work. I think you just need to go back to the drawing board. You need to rewrite it.” Words that I most dread hearing.

He then tried to make me feel better by 1) telling me a “war story” about a partner who used to criticize everything he did when he was a junior associate to the point that he dreaded coming to work in the morning and 2) telling me that I was “doing great.”

The real good news was, though, that as we started to go through the brief it became apparent that I wouldn’t need to go back to the drawing board — most of what he wanted was already there, it just needed to be retooled and re-framed. I breathed a big internal sigh of relief. It also occurred to me that I think I have a lot thicker skin than I used to. When I was younger I would cry at the drop of a hat and it was very hard for me to take criticism. But today, the criticism didn’t bother me because I knew it was coming from a good place, and that it will help me be a better lawyer. (If he were a screamer, that would be another story entirely).

At any rate, I am looking forward to 5 straight days of NO WORK. I’m flying up to Oregon to be with my family for the holidays and this time, unlike over Thanksgiving, I am bringing NO WORK with me!! I will be busy next week, but until then, it can wait. I need the R&R.

Another interesting thing this week. I wrote a few months ago about seeing A. for the first time since we broke up, and since then we have hung out several times and are buddies again. (In fact, he called me tonight and wants my advice, so we are having lunch next week.) That first time I saw him again, I expected it to be so hard, but instead I just had the feeling of “Huh – I used to really be into this guy.”

Well, I had that same experience this week with the guy I dated a few months back. He stopped by to drop off some of my things, and I was sort of dreading it. We have been emailing casually, but he had still been in my head more than I wanted to admit. I think when I’m not dating somebody, the tendency is to want to reminisce about the most recent person I dated. Anyway, he came by, and instead of feeling sad or wistful or flustered, I just got that same feeling of “Huh.” It was as if a switch went off and I was suddenly 100% over it — I still feel friendly towards him but that’s all.

And that is this week’s reminder that things really do fall into place just as they should, dear readers.

Noodles and I are off to bed … one more day of work and then leaving on a jet plane! I may blog while I’m in Oregon if the mood strikes…

My cat saved my life.

Ok, so that may be a bit dramatic. Noodles didn’t literally save my life. He’s not Lassie or anything. If I fell down a well (or, you know, slipped in the shower, the apartment-life version of falling down the well) I don’t have much confidence that he would run and find someone to save me. (First of all, how would he get out of the apartment? But I digress.)

So what happened is this. I had an 8:30 am court appearance in Riverside…65 miles from my apartment which in L.A. traffic could take forever. I set my alarm on my cell phone to 4:45 am, to allow myself to shower, get ready (in my slow moving way) and get gas before heading out at 6 am. I forced myself to go to sleep at 10 pm.

Several hours later I was dead asleep when I was awakened by the sound of meowing. Loud meowing. Noodles was meowing his pretty little head off. I rolled over sleepily to check the time on my phone and discovered that my phone was off! I leapt out of bed, heart racing, and ran to the kitchen to check the time. I was sure that I’d see it was already 6 am and I’d be screwed.

What time was it? That’s right — 4:45 a.m. on the nose. Noodles was officially the hero of the morning. I have never been so grateful to be woken by Noodles at the crack of dawn.

That was actually the most eventful part of my day…court went well, the day went by peacefully, and now I am sitting with my hero at my side and watching the season finale of The Hills. (Can I just mention how envious I am of Lauren and Whitney going to Paris??)

On a final note before I turn to my Netflix, thank you, dear readers, for weighing in on my poll from yesterday. I’ve always thought pickiness can be good…I’m glad I’m not alone in that sentiment!

At least he didn’t shoot the messenger…

This week, dear readers, I seem to have a lot of law fodder for the blog, since mostly all I’ve been doing this week is working!  Those of you who enjoy the “Law” part of Little Miss Law are in luck; those of you who enjoy something juicier will just have to wait until I emerge from my bubble and (maybe) have a life again.

 I had an endless morning in court today.  The judge’s calendar started at 8:30 am.  Since I was filing an ex parte application (which means you file it the same day, so the court doesn’t have advance notice) I was at the tail end of the calendar.  Some judges are speedy and just whip through their calendars.  Not so this judge.  If he were in the fable about the Tortoise and the Hare, he would make the tortoise look like a frickin’ racehorse. 

To top it all off, once it was almost 1:00 pm, he finally called our case.  Two minutes later, we were headed out the door, him having just DENIED my application to continue the trial date.  It sucks to lose in court.  It sucks even worse when the motion isn’t even opposed.  (I won’t go into that.)  But the judge said we can give it another go if we submit a declaration from our client explaining exactly why he’s going to be out of town when the trial was going to be.  “This sounds like a vacation,” observed the judge.

As it turns out, it was a vacation (which I didn’t know at the time, the partner having refused for some reason to answer my questions about this) and now, guess who gets to go in next week armed with a declaration from our client that says “sorry, I haven’t taken a vacation in a year and a half and I forgot to tell my lawyers that my wife scheduled it”?  Who is going to once again go down in flames?  Yes, yes, that would be yours truly.  Today the judge was surprisngly “measured” (opposing counsel’s description) with me, saying that he didn’t want to “shoot the messenger,” but if & when I go back again as the messenger, I have a feeling I will take a big ol’ shot. 

Sigh.

Anyway, the upside of this whole thing is that the morning calendar in court was, for the most part, highly entertaining.  I could regale you with loads of stories – but any of you law nerds can put in a special request for that.  For now, I’ll just say that I saw some of the most atrocious lawyering I have ever seen.  And not just bad arguments — though there was plenty of that — but more fundamental mistakes like not listening to the actual questions the judge was asking (and so saying something totally unresponsive), interrupting the judge, and being generally, blithely unaware of the times when there was practically smoke coming out of the judge’s ears and he looked like he wanted to punch somebody.   As lawyers know, law school teaches you little to nothing about real lawyering.  Well, I think that a lot of lawyers (and people in general of course, but I’ll pick on lawyers for the moment) just need a seminar in good old fashioned people skills.  Seriously, people.

My favorite hearing was about whether a lawyer should be sanctioned by the court.  The facts were this:  the case was set to start trial this past Tuesday the 27th.  In a pre trial conference the lawyer (defense counsel) told the court that he had another trial in Burbank the same day, but that it might settle.  All last week before Thanksgiving, plaintiff’s counsel called defense counsel to find out whether the trial was going on, to find out if he had to have his 3 witnesses for the first day of trial fly out from the East Coast on Monday.  Defense counsel doesn’t tell plaintiff’s counsel until 4 pm on Monday that no, the Burbank case hadn’t settled so the witnesses didn’t need to come.  Of course, by then the witnesses were already flying in.

There was a whole dispute about who told who what, and when, and on not one, not two, but many occasions, defense counsel had the audacity to say “English isn’t my first language, Your Honor, but…”  What really sent the judge over the edge was when defense counsel remarked, “Your Honor, these witnesses didn’t really need to fly out, this was just grandstanding to pressure my client into settlement.”  I honestly saw the judge make a subtle movement forward as though inspired to leap over and tackle the attorney.  Instead, he told defense counsel firmly that the statement was “not to his credit,” picked up his pen and started writing.   And writing.  And writing.  For what seemed like an eternity, you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as the judge wrote out his order.  Finally, he stopped writing and read the order aloud.  Bottom line: the attorney had to pay the other party over $6000 to cover the witnesses’ travel expenses.

Moral of the story:  1)  Return your phone calls.  2)  When the judge looks like he wants to kill you, keep your mouth shut.

I promise you more fun stories in the coming days, dear readers!  Happy almost-Friday!

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Before getting to the meat of the post, dear readers, I just had to share this comic that my dad called and told me about tonight:

The only thing that confuses me is…does this mean that Little Miss Law isn’t a published author????

Anyway, today I experienced for only the 3rd time in my career the joy that is mediation. As you lawyers and non-lawyers alike probably understand, civil litigation is…well, not exactly warm and fuzzy. In the best case scenario, the relationship between the plaintiffs and defendants’ counsel is cordial; in the worst-case scenario, it’s World War III. Or there is the lethal combination — nice to each others’ faces with a vicious letter-writing campaign. (It’s much easier to be nasty in a letter when you have time to think about what snarky, well-phrased thing you want to say.) In this adversarial environment, mediation creates that glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the parties may overcome their disdain or outright hatred of each other and come to some sort of agreement.

Most cases settle before they get to trial; but most cases get very close to trial or arbitration before settling. In our case, there was a mediation provision in the purchase agreement, so absolutely nothing has happened in the case apart from us filing the complaint. In this type of situation, the chances of settlement at this point are slim. In our case, the chances were virtually non-existent. Our mediation brief asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars; the other side’s mediation brief threatened a malicious prosecution action and sanctions against us. Even our mediator, a seasoned retired judge who successfully mediated a different case for our (difficult and unruly) client, told us that when he read the briefs, he said to himself, “Oh, shit.”

Isn’t that encouraging?

Suffice it to say, we spent the morning in separate rooms with the mediator shuttling back and forth, spending about 15 minutes total (if that) discussing the case with us and the remaining time trying to soften us up — chatting about anything and everything. He couldn’t get the parties to settle today, but to his credit, he would probably have had an easier time if we had asked him to preside over the Middle East peace talks. The other side’s generous offer in the mediation brief was to “allow” us to walk away and waive their malicious prosecution claims. After the mediation, their generous offer basically changed to “F— off, see you at the arbitration.” (As they trot off to seek sanctions.) Now that’s what I call progress.

Does anyone have any fun mediation stories to share?

It’s My Job, And I’ll Whine if I Want To

After my panic attack at work a couple of weeks ago, I have still been incredibly busy, but somewhat more calm. (Perhaps it’s just that I’m too busy to do more than just try to keep my head above water? Hmm.) I am still considering all my life options, but since I know I’m not going to be moving jobs or cities in the immediate future, I can relax and just keep my mind and eyes open.

One thing keeping my feet planted is that a case I’m on is going to jury trial in March, and I’m excited about that, so I know I need to stick around till then. Perhaps the fact that I am so excited about the prospect of choosing a jury, using a jury consultant, etc means I should stay Little Miss Law after all?…

In any event, at times when I’m feeling very burnt out and uninspired, it helps to know that I’m not alone. In that vein, I was amused by an article in my favorite blawg today about a poll taken that revealed that associates at big law firms are actually happy, and the follow-up comments on the truthiness or not of this finding. I can’t try to do the article justice, but the comments to it are particularly entertaining (and, as is always the case on this particular blawg, very snarky. And we wonder why us lawyers aren’t more beloved).

The commenters, among other things, say that law firm associates who complain about their jobs are basically big ol’ whining babies, since they are getting paid outrageously to do a cushy job. One commenter said that associates who went straight from college into law school are the biggest whiners of all.

Sure, call me a whiner. That’s fine. At least I’m not alone.

This past weekend I spent time with my best friend M. for the last time before she moves to England! We had a fantastic time — went to the movies (is there anyone hotter than Clive Owen, particularly as a pirate?), she made me some of her organic cooking, we dressed up for Halloween and went out, and we went to Santa Barbara for the day. When we were in SB, we stopped at a cute coffee shop to get some chai and ask for directions since we went the wrong way on State Street. I looked around at the people on their laptops and I thought how much I would love to be a free lance writer, and have my laptop be my only office. Of course, I know what an uphill battle that would be, but it’s fun to imagine myself as the next Carrie Bradshaw. Dear readers, do you know anyone who has actually lived a seemingly farfetched dream?

And, to top this off before I head to bed, something to make me and my compatriots feel better about our jobs, a quote from a reader of the above article:

“As a Naval Officer I worked twice as hard and earned one third as much money as I do as a 1st year associate in BigLaw. They actually let me sit down here when I am doing my work at 2 in the morning. That makes me happy.”

Yes…it could definitely be worse. Hold on a moment while I scratch “Naval Officer” off my wish list.

Have a Happy Halloween, dear readers!

“Nope, It’s Just Me and My Cat.”

It’s been a long Monday, but a good one. Still, I am happy to be home, in comfy clothes, Sex & the City on in the background (no, there’s no such thing as watching it too much), with Noodles on his new-favorite perch in front of the balcony, and blogging. Mmm.

Today I met with the in-house counsel for one of my firm’s big corporate clients, down at her hotel by the airport. She’s been traveling around like crazy and we haven’t had much time to talk about all the deadlines coming up or about case strategy in general, so it was good to sit face to face with her and discuss everything. Even better, it was a great chance for us to bond. I met her for the first time a few weeks ago at the client’s corporate headquarters, but since we were in the office, we had no chance to just chat. Tonight we were both a lot more relaxed and while we mostly stuck to business, we laughed a lot. She also gave me a huge compliment – she said that even though I’m a young associate, that she told my boss I’m “fabulous.” That was a nice boost after the way I felt about my job last week.

Then, we bonded over a very unlikely topic — our cats. She looked at her watch and commented, “Oh, I don’t want to keep you! Do you have kids?” “Nope,” I replied, “It’s just me and my cat.”

(Ironically — this was unplanned — I just came to the part in this Sex & the City episode where Miranda moves into her own condo and finds out that the woman who lived there before her died and the cat ate her face.)

Anyway, the client laughed and said, “Oh, you’re a young associate, they don’t give you time for anything but a cat!” She told me that she has two dogs and two cats, and can’t seem to stop adopting pets. Then, I was even able to give her advice that is probably far more sage than any legal advice I can dispense at this stage in my career: how to make your cat stop biting you.

This, dear readers, is why they pay me the big bucks.