Hi Grad Girl,

I’m in my final year of my law degree and I’m a bit scared about what is going to happen next year. I’ve been applying for clerkships and putting my name and resume out there but it looks like the current law firms are struggling to keep the staff they’ve got – and to get a foot in the door someone needs to have a solid gold halo above their heads!

What is the work like, day to day at your firm? Are there any areas that are doing particularly well right now? If there are, how would a 09 graduate like me get started in those fields of work?

Sincerely,

Sans Halo.

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Dear Sans,

I know things seem a horrible right now.  GFC, pay-freezes, the budgeting-out of chocolate biscuits.  Yes, things aren’t as flash as they used to be around here.

But the first thing you need to know is this: Don’t Panic.

For a law student, the recruitment process is tough in ANY economic climate.  It was never an easy game; no matter how many times Lawyer’s Weekly wants to harp on about “Gen Y feeling the pinch for the first time ever”, what they do not seem to understand is that to write a bloody cover letter 17 times, to get an interview, to schmooze at a drinks night, to get an offer, WAS NEVER EASY.

(While it may not feel like it, this is supposed to make you feel better… bare with me.)

So you need to remember not to think things are the worst they’ve ever been and that you’re in a horrible position.

You’re a law student. You should be used to feeling like a useless failure on a regular basis even though you’re not, so take this all in your stride.

So my advice to a GFC law student going to the articles process is the same as it was two years ago: do you best, check for typos and shit grammar in your cover letters, and BE YOURSELF at the interviews.  Don’t try to mould yourself into what you think the firms are looking for — be your (slightly more polite and reverent) self.

And my advice to those who don’t make it through are the same too — suck it up, do College of Law, and seriously, not getting articles won’t matter one iota.

It’s kinda like the end of highschool, really — those exams seem like the end of the world, but who remembers their score the week after Leavers? (I suppose no one remembers much the week after leavers, but you know what I mean).

The second thing you need to know is that you have to pick your firms.  You know the ones that are cutting back on grad programs to save a few thousand bucks? DON’T BOTHER APPLYING THERE.

The myopic guppies running those places haven’t got a clue and don’t realise that when things pick up again, they’re not going to have enough people to do the work.

The firms you want to be at are the firms that are laying the foundations of their practices from the ground up, and understand that graduates eventually become lawyers, and like, are the people that help them print money.

My firm hasn’t changed any of its recruitment numbers and I know it’s going to be a sound investment for them (even though I do say so myself).

As for the second part of your question — well, it’s pretty cool to work at my firm (they are not even paying me to say this. I should demand a Tim Tam).

I’m learning a heck of a lot, and frankly, I can’t think of a better time to be a graduate — there is a LOT TO DO and that totally means that there is A LOT TO LEARN.  The GFC really is not so bad when you don’t have a mortgage or a dwindling superfund, and a pay freeze doesn’t matter when you’ve just come off five years of Youth Allowance.

I’m in litigation, doing insurance and insolvency, and maybe that’s why I’m loving what I’m doing right now. This is where all the fun stuff is happening, kiddo. The corporate cowboys have had their day — this is dispute resolution town, baby: litigators make lawyering look good.

Here’s what you need to do: Read the Bell judgement, focus all your study energy on Civil Procedure, and read law firm info-bulletins on restructuring, insolvency, and litigation.  And then show all that knowledge off in your cover-letter. Halos totally optional.

Aside from that, exercise, sleep well, see your friends, hug your mum/puppy and floss reguarly, and you’ll be JUST FINE!

All the best!!!

You know you love me (and law)
xoxo Grad Girl

Most days at work, Dick encounters behaviour so awkward, strange or downright repulsive he spews in his mouth a little. These are his stories.

Dr Octagon is a senior partner with mischievous boy features and a soul-crushing mean streak. The Doctor is so anally retentive he couldn’t take more than one shit a month. This leads him to micro-manage even the simplest tasks and demand his own highly particular spin on perfection with caustic nastiness.

The first time I got instructions from Dr Octagon, I felt like I was in special-education. In the Hitler Youth. Basically, he wanted me to put a bunch of documents in a file in accordance with a list. A typically soul-destroying junior’s task in litigation, I’d done this kind of rubbish work enough times that I’d occasionally dream about it, proving that it is possible to be bored shitless (no pun intended) in your sleep.

ANYWAY. It was a Friday, about lunch time. The doctor spoke clearly, enunciating each word and watching me closely to ensure that I understood.

“I need you to collate a brief to counsel based on this list” he started.

“Sure” I said.

“Now, these documents are located in various files.”

“A-ha.”

“So what I propose you do, is grab four orange files. Put dividers in them up until…” He flicked to the end of his list, “Up until, at the moment, 324.”

“Ok.”

“Now, our dividers only go up to 100. So what you’ll need to do is grab three sets of those and then delineate where the 100s and 200s start and etc.”

“Yep. I know what you mean.”

“Then, locate the documents from the list and tag them for photocopying. Make sure the existing files stay intact.”

“Will do.”

“When you get the documents back, put them behind the requisite divider. I think that’s the only way to avoid confusion.”

“Ok. That’s fine.”

“The list is likely to change so we may need to do a bit of shuffling once you’re done.”

“Um.”

“Is that all straight?” Dr Octagon asked.

Jesus Christ, I thought.

“Yep,” I responded. “Thanks. Oh… when do you need it? I’m just doing an urgent advice at the moment for X.”

“You’re going to have to dedicate some time to this. We have to get it away by the end of next week…”

“Oh, ok… Is Monday afternoon ok then?”

“Monday morning would be better.”

In other words, come in over the weekend and shuffle documents to satisfy a false time constraint.

Fuck, I thought.

“Ok,” I responded. “I’ll have the files on your desk Monday.”

Dr Octagon thought about this. “No,” he said. “Put them in my tray.”

I returned to my desk. My phone rang. It was Dr Octagon.

“Actually,” he said, “Put them on my chair.”

…

I shuffled documents all Saturday afternoon and left the files on Dr Octagon’s chair.

He didn’t look at them until Wednesday.

Most days at work, Dick encounters behaviour so awkward, strange or downright repulsive he spews in his mouth a little. These are his stories.

For a while, I sat near a young senior associate I’m going to call Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet was sub-30, militant, and monstrously ambitious. The running joke was that Pinochet would kick his dying grandmother in the shin to make partner. Funny as this was, I called bullshit. Pinochet wouldn’t just kick his grandmother in the shin. Rather, the process would go something like this:

· Locate the problem (grandmother).

· Isolate the solution (shin-kicking).

· Delegate the task to a junior.

· Be unhappy with junior’s work.

· Force junior to go back and do it again.

· “Settle” junior’s work by going at it himself.

One time, during the course of a loud and particularly brutal telephonic shin-kicking of some poor grandmother, I transcribed Pinochet’s side of the conversation…

“It is not a big deal ok, it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal, IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL!” Pinochet was worked up.

He paused, listening. Then, clearly interrupting –

“AND SECONDLY THIS IS NOT EVEN MY AREA!” He screamed.

He paused again, while the future victim of Operation Condor on the other end of the phone explained themselves.

He interrupted again, smug this time: “And I don’t think they’re going to want to pay whatever an hour to have a contract drafted!”

The victim said something. Whatever it was, it pissed Pinochet off.

Pinochet responded abruptly, “Anyway I’ll call X and I’ll speak to them tonight. Don’t bloody pass on messages to me!”

Another short pause.

Then, inexplicably, Pinochet pulled out his super-sweet, friendly tone for the farewell: “Ok, bye!”

But the victim couldn’t leave it at that. Clearly, they needed some clarification.

Not happy, Pinochet: “Monday, MONDAY!” he screamed.

Then, it was over.

“Bye,” he said flatly. Pinochet was out of fake friendliness.

He went back to work.

Most days at work, Dick encounters behaviour so awkward, strange or downright repulsive he spews in his mouth a little.  These are his stories.

I used to work in the vicinity of a corporate lawyer who I’m going call Chris Farley.  This is something of a misnomer. While the real Chris Farley was tragicomic, corporate lawyer Chris is just tragic: a soft-bellied bumbling loudmouth with a nasty wheeze and a hideously awkward “sense” of “humour”. Farley only ever moves if has to, and when he does, his wheeze is so painfully obnoxious it could be guerrilla marketing for the end obesity campaign.  Though some of the Firm’s older staff have decades on him, Farley was the reason our office death pool didn’t make it beyond planning.  No one wanted to bet on anyone else.

Around the time the death pool got abortive (see what I did there?), I was working closely with a quiet, neutral junior solicitor I’m going to call Beth. Beth had been unlucky enough to work with Farley on a pretty big matter, and whenever the wheeze rattled and coughed in her vicinity her shoulders would tense just a little.  By her Swiss standards of neutrality, this was a declaration of OH BLOODY HELL ITS FARLEY AND HE’S WHEEZING THIS WAY. 

One time, I was chatting to Beth in her office, when Farley burst in.

“Have a look at this patent application!” he said. He waved a bulky document.

“Oh, wow” said Beth.

“It’s the only patent application in the world that has pictures of breasts in it.”

Beth took this in.

“Um.”

“Want to see?” He asked.

Beth didn’t answer.

“I’ll show you!”

He flicked through the application, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. I kept watching.  Beth sat stiffly. He flicked urgently.

Finally, he found it.

“Look!” He shoved the grainy photocopy under Beth’s nose.  She looked.

She didn’t say a word.

“I’m not going to tell you who they belong to!”

He guffawed, which brought on a minor coughing fit.

There was a pause. Beth gave me a fleeting look. Her eyes spoke of pure terror.

Farley left.