When I Grow Up

It's kind of weird to think that I've pretty much made my mind about what I want to be when I grow up. Granted, I in no way have narrowed down what type of law I want to practice, but nevertheless I will be practicing law. It's just bizarre to think that you spend the first 20 years of your life trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, and someday you just stumble into it. I wasn't exactly crazy about the prospect of law school for very much of my undergraduate years-it was basically something that became a lucrative option late in my career at UGA. It seemed like a pretty good idea, so I went for it knowing relatively little about the day to day practice of a typical lawyer. I really didn't know at all what is involved in the job, the education, anything about the legal industry in general. Sure I had some superificial idea about what went on, what was required of the education but I certainly didn't comprehend the riggors of the day to day classwork and reading. I still don't understand the day to day riggors of a firm, or an in-house position. It is all still very foreign but what I have learned has only made me more curious, more optimistic about the future. I went to a discussion with a senior partner at a relative large and prestigious firm and he was telling us about how incredibly lost he was his first year. He said he had no idea what was going on, his writing was horrible, his grades were "hilarious." The guy was probably 40 and, as a shareholding partner, was sitting very, very pretty. He told us about the intangibles that you can't teach and you can't learn: work ethic, fitting in with the culture of the firm, not being a jerk, being a genuinely good person. I don't know it made me feel good. Funny thing, he hires a lot of summer associates and junior associates and told us the other day that a young 26 year old junior associate walked into his office at about 7pm on a Friday and said "Hey Paul, I'm gonna head out, is there anything I can do for you before I leave." He said statements and attitudes like that are one of most important things to him in selecting who helps hire and promote. The whole thing made me feel good about the cuthroatedness (that's not a word) of the entire industry. Alright, he is an IP lawyer, who are by reputation the most liberal and kind attorneys in the legal industry, but still. Maybe it's not just raw intellect and how much your willing to backstab and sabotage. Sometimes it just has to do with what kind of person you are. And by sometimes I mean very, very rarely. Oh well. Here's to being an asshole in training.
Movie Quote (maybe my favorite of all time):
"Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president."
-You should probably just know the movie really.