THE STANKOWSKI REPORT #10: A Day in My Life

by Stan Stankowski

I have noted that, from time to time, there are folks out there that make comments like "This isn't really helpful," or "I need real information about what goes on at a law firm." Believe me, I would like nothing more that to help you out. This being the case, let me give you a complete rundown of a typical day.

5:45 am- Alarm goes off. Curse. Hit snooze. Repeat at five minute increments for the next 45 minutes.
6:30 am- Look at clock, see time, curse. Jump out of bed. Brush teeth. Shower. Engage in Ritual Torture known commonly as "shaving." Dress.
7:25 am- Get in car. Pretend to flip around various music channels knowing damn well it is all irritating and that you will end up at NPR. Smoke cigarette. Stop to get a Diet Coke. Continue to office.
7:50 am- Arrive at office. Park underground. Say hello to the weird security guard who will ask how you are fifty-nine times a day if he sees you that many times. Think about telling him to only talk to me once in the morning and once at night. Also think about how to explain that if I go down to get something from my car, and then come right back up, and in the process cross the lobby three times, he only needs to acknowledge my presence once. Maybe a head nod the second time. Realize he has no idea who I am and is simply looking for Christmas checks.

7:53 am- Get in Elevator. Go up.
7:55 am- Arrive at office. Greet receptionist.
7:56 am- Look at coffee. Spend thirty seconds deciding if you want the mocha cinnamon, french vanilla, the weird flavor of the day or regular. Decide on regular. Add cream and sugar.
7:58- Walk down hall chatting with various support personnel as you go.
8:02- Arrive in office, check email, Drudge, two or three blogs.
8:17- Decide that is enough bullshit. Begin to research brief that is due in two days.
10:35- Go to the bathroom and pee. Run into any number of people there. Engage in awkward small talk.
10:39- Return to office. Continue research.
11:00- Really short sixth year associate enters office. Greet him. He has no time for such formalities. Conversation as follows: RSSA: "Have you ever written a brief before." Stan: "Well, yes." RSSA: "Really, when?" Stan: "Last week. You liked it. We filed it yesterday." RSSA: "I filed one of your briefs? Unbelievable." Stan: "What do you mean by that?" RSSA: "I mean this is shit. Fix it." Stan: "Okey-Dokey."
11:16- Sit there and contemplate how bizarre that conversation was. Realize it wasn't bizarre at all and that it essentially occurs everyday.
11:17- Check ESPN.com to see if any sporting event has occurred since 8 am.
11:18- Go get a diet coke.
11:21- Fix brief for RSSA.
12:15- Finish with RSSA's brief. Contemplate lacing pages with cyanide. Decide that it would be hard to find cyanide on such short notice. Contemplate what a shame that is.
12:23- Listen to secretary tell you that she will be going to X for lunch. Be polite.
12:27- Eat a firm-provided granola bar. Continue to work on brief started this morning.
2:00- Go smoke. Also, pee. Continue to work while you do both. (That's right. Read and Pee. That way, it's billable.)
2:45- Go to partner's office for conference call. Enjoy the fact that you are sitting in the presence of other human beings. Experience terrible disappointment when conference call ends in four minutes. Realize it is pathetic to be sad that a conference call only lasted four minutes. Tell the part of you that thought that to go to hell. After all, this was your chance to really do something lawyerly. Realize that last thought was also pathetic. Also realize that you were not going to get to talk anyway. Stare at various art objects in partner's office.
2:51- Begin to draft brief.
2:53- Realize you have to do record cites in fact section. Contemplate this. Think about crying. Instead, Check CNN, drudge, other news outlets to see if someone has invaded country and you should be buying survival supplies and thinking of joining some sort of armed resistance instead of writing the damned brief.
2:57- Become convinced everything is fine and you should be writing. Strangely, this is not comforting.
2:58- Start working again.
4:15- Have brief conversation with secretary about videotaped CLE in three months. Get excited about that for a minute.
4:19- Say goodbye to secretary, continue writing.
7:35- Think about leaving. Decide not to because the bastard next door has not. Check email instead.
8:05- Leave. Even though that bastard next door is still there.

So you see, the every day events are not very charming. "Surely," you think, "he must have cut out some interesting conversations or some horsing around with other associates." Well, no. This is pretty much how it goes. Lovely huh? Don't get the wrong idea, there are good things about the job and I will indeed give out real-life advice when I come across it. However, it will generally be interspersed with the more interesting events that occur. Luckily, those happen about once a week.

About the Author: Stan Stankowski is the pseudonym of a first-year associate working in a litigation firm somewhere in the South. For more details, read his introductory post, as well as Evan Schaeffer's introduction. The collected Stankowski Reports are here.

Comments

[Mike]

Yet another excellent post.

[mythago]

I am really impressed by how infrequently you pee.

[Stan]

And you should be. More importantly, you should be impressed by how infrequently I smoke.