Cried for first time at work Forum

[fats provolone]

check you rule 807 bro. everything i say has circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness by virtue of the source.

[fats provolone]

seriously though leaning toward war daddy here. defender with a capital D your last retort was kinda weak.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

"War daddy" anon here:

Is this whole spiel just you being upset at me saying it is "naive" to cry over the punishment of a felon? I noticed in a later post you tried to say I claimed the crying was "unreasonable," which I never did, and which is far from synonymous with naive. A little Googling of "naive" seems to be in order:

1. having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.

2. having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous:

I meant exactly what that means. It's not unreasonable to cry over this stuff, but that reaction would be much less likely in someone who was more experienced, more sophisticated, more affected, and more artificial than you. Certainly crying over these cases reeks of a new, young, genuine, bright-eyed type of person.

[baal hadad]

Female ex-capital defender here. First off, you don't identify yourself as working on homicide cases. Quite frankly, other felonies - no matter how serious the harm, and many are quite grave - are simply qualitatively different than murder and don't evoke the same depth of emotion. So I'd first say that it's naive to generalize experience working on non-homicide cases to the homicide context.

Second, whether or not you have homicide experience, you totally misread my post - and with sexist undertones, at that. I did not say I was crying because I thought that all of my clients were amazing and wonderfully sympathetic and I lost sleep at night because they were locked up. If you are an attorney who works on capital cases, and who cries from time to time to release emotion, the crying could have been prompted by a range of emotions, such as the emotions you feel when:
- Being physically threatened (or worse) by clients for whom you have been working your hardest
- Seeing young children wrestle with their parents (usually fathers) being on death row and their fears that their parent may be executed
- Speaking with guards haunted by their participation in prior executions
- Watching a client be executed or supporting colleagues who have watched a client die right in front of them
- Listening to victims' family members speak of the ongoing pain that their loved one's loss has caused (just because you do defense work does not mean you stop being human/being affected by hearing this)
- Confronting the often extremely graphic physical evidence related to the victim's pain and suffering before death (ditto)
- Interviewing non-capital prior victims of your client (e.g., victims of rapes or serious assaults) and hearing the trauma they underwent
- Learning of the severe abuse that your client and his siblings suffered as young, innocent children (whether or not the adult client is sympathetic, at some young enough age he was, and capital mitigation cases require you to trace all the way back to birth (and before)); often you learn of this in part through his siblings, and watch them relive their trauma

And so on. If you have any experience with these kinds of realities of capital defense work, your post certainly does not suggest it.

Other anon. Murder and capital cases may be different, but the same could be said of sexual abuse and child abuse.

I've had nasty cases, yes, including one on the national news involving the kidnapping and murder of my client's child. This type of thing, to varying degrees of heinousness, happens all the time in every state in the country. It doesn't make me a sociopath that I accept that reality and don't cry every time I see, hear, or talk to someone with a sad story.

There is a thing called "compassion fatigue." I acknowledge that it's a real thing, as I did have one thing that had a significant effect on me: prosecuting federal child porn cases, which I think is more difficult than murder or capital cases despite your obstinate protestations. Anyway, you sound like one of the people that is particularly susceptible to compassion fatigue. That's fine, but you should get help on that front instead of nonsensically lashing out at other attorneys who disagree with you.

As to this crap about YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND IF YOU DON'T DO CAPITAL CASES: please. I'm a combat vet; don't give me that shit. A lot of us saw and experienced much, much worse shit than you and handled it far better than you're handling your experiences. That's why I find your posts intolerable -- well, that and the condescending, special snowflake tone.

And if you must know, the answer is no, I don't do capital cases. My state doesn't have the death penalty, and I rarely take federal cases. But I'm fairly certain, based on past experience, that I wouldn't lose sleep over them. On the other hand, I do recognize that we're all different. What I'm saying is that you're not going to get any sympathy from me, but you should see a professional if this shit is bothering you, and give up the high horse routine about how tough your job is and about how you wouldn't understand, guise.

Female ex-Al Qaeda recruiter here. First off, you don't identify yourself as working in terrorism. Quite frankly, other war crimes - no matter how serious the harm, and many are quite grave - are simply qualitatively different than terrorism and don't evoke the same depth of emotion. So I'd first say that it's naive to generalize experience working on non-terrorism warring to the terrorist context.

Second, whether or not you have terrorism experience, you totally misread my post - and with sexist undertones, at that. I did not say I was crying because I thought that all of my recruits were amazing and wonderfully sympathetic and I lost sleep at night because they were blown up. If you are a soldier who works on terrorist bombing, and who cries from time to time to release emotion, the crying could have been prompted by a range of emotions, such as the emotions you feel when:
- The eight year old you just strapped twenty pounds of PET to asks why his superhero vest is so heavy
- Strapping some poor Syrian dude to the bottom of a sheep and sending him across the border to "fight the holy war"
- The sleeper cell you placed in the white house fails to detonate his suicide vest in a bunker with the president
- A fleet of flying death robots has standing orders to kill you, and, just to be safe, anyone who looks like they might know you
- You practiced sewing for years and every masterpiece suicide vest you create just gets incinerated
- You can't even go to the market to get groceries any more because you can't remember where you put the IEDs
- You have to clean your hijab every time you cry because the inside of the face-covering hood you're required to wear 24/7 gets salty

And so on. If you have any experience with these kinds of realities of terrorist work, your post certainly does not suggest it.

180

[fats provolone]

how many times a day do you bring up your death penalty experience in biglaw? you can use scientific notation if necessary.

[A. Nony Mouse]

"War daddy" anon here:

Is this whole spiel just you being upset at me saying it is "naive" to cry over the punishment of a felon? I noticed in a later post you tried to say I claimed the crying was "unreasonable," which I never did, and which is far from synonymous with naive. A little Googling of "naive" seems to be in order:

1. having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.

2. having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous:

I meant exactly what that means. It's not unreasonable to cry over this stuff, but that reaction would be much less likely in someone who was more experienced, more sophisticated, more affected, and more artificial than you. Certainly crying over these cases reeks of a new, young, genuine, bright-eyed type of person.

The problem is that this poster never said she was crying over the punishment of a felon - many other things, but not that - so I'm not sure where you get "naive" out of crying in a stressful job. But either way, this particular spat is really tedious.

[Cogburn87]

Thanks bro. But I'm in biglaw now, which means I get a free yet nonshitty dinner. Enjoy your nine hour day with your self-described "terrible people" clients and your dinner at Applebees.

Are u really bragging about eating a Seamless dinner in your office? lolololol

[Anonymous User]

Right. Whatever you may have said about shooting people in the face, the fact that your reaction to "many tragedies inherent in capital cases" is a sarcastic one again tells me all I need to know about your perspective - without any hearsay problem this time.

To the contrary, it wasn't sarcasm. It was a jab at the melodramatic, exaggerated style of prose that makes your posts insufferable.

And yet you've said that despite your combat experience, you dealt with compassion fatigue in handling child rape cases. So really, who knows how you'd react to a capital child homicide case ... despite your combat experience.

I appreciate that this is finally something on-topic! Yes, I think constant (or regular) exposure to that type of stuff would be difficult. Luckily, aside from one guy at that USAO office, I don't know of any jobs that have CONSTANT exposure to it. But I see little, if any, analogue between that and handling a rare, occasional case where your terrible person of a defendant is subject to capital punishment. How many clients did you have that were executed? As an empirical matter, very few attorneys ever have more than one or two clients in that position.

My only point with my initial post is that my experiences in capital defense put the stress of biglaw in context for me, so that I've not cried, and probably never will cry, in biglaw.

And that's the only point I've cared to question. I mean, do you really find it more stressful to very rarely represent a terrible person who dies than for some mid-life crisis boomer shithead to grasp your weekend from your hands at 8 p.m. on Friday, to belittle you and your work product, and to expect nothing but unflinching gratitude in return? Because that is what sounds sociopathic to me: to cry over a dead child rapist and murderer, but to accept constant stress, fatigue, and insults in the name of making a quick buck.

Thanks bro. But I'm in biglaw now, which means I get a free yet nonshitty dinner. Enjoy your nine hour day with your self-described "terrible people" clients and your dinner at Applebees.

Hey, only some of them are terrible! And some of the terrible people are pretty interesting. It's why I still do any criminal work at all, frankly. And I don't eat at Applebees -- I just made partner in flyover country on Oct. 1 and probably make slightly more than you, depending on your bonuses any given year and my firm's revenue. But enjoy biglaw--I'm heading home for the day!

[Anonymous User]

"War daddy" anon here:

Is this whole spiel just you being upset at me saying it is "naive" to cry over the punishment of a felon? I noticed in a later post you tried to say I claimed the crying was "unreasonable," which I never did, and which is far from synonymous with naive. A little Googling of "naive" seems to be in order:

1. having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.

2. having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous:

I meant exactly what that means. It's not unreasonable to cry over this stuff, but that reaction would be much less likely in someone who was more experienced, more sophisticated, more affected, and more artificial than you. Certainly crying over these cases reeks of a new, young, genuine, bright-eyed type of person.

The problem is that this poster never said she was crying over the punishment of a felon - many other things, but not that - so I'm not sure where you get "naive" out of crying in a stressful job. But either way, this particular spat is really tedious.

To answer this, the punishment of a felon is the one constant in CAPITAL CASES, which is her term, and one she is fond of using. It's an important distinction, because it's the one thing she claims separates her practice from mine. After all, my cases involve all the same other shit hers do, just not the death penalty. OK, now really, heading home. NOBODY POST UNTIL TOMORROW OMG...

(it's a good time for this to die anyway)

[84651846190]

Everyone just shut the fuck up and go back to talking about how much being a lawyer sucks.

[094320]

..

[mmelittlechicken]

wow how long did that go on for?

[911 crisis actor]

Extremely happy that fats provolone is poasting again...in fact so happy that I could cry *cries on TLS*

[Manhattan]

But on a more serious note, although working with criminals generally won't make a normal person cry, this poor soul will certainly be justified when they break down and start crying in the office.

[Anonymous User]

.

[gk101]

^^ how long have you been in biglaw?

[BeenDidThat]

^^ how long have you been in biglaw?

I want to know this as well (though I still think troll). I also want front row tickets when the inevitable mental breakdown occurs.

[AVBucks4239]

OMG this thread. What an amazing start to my Friday.

Carry on...

[gk101]

Female ex-capital defender here. First off, you don't identify yourself as working on homicide cases. Quite frankly, other felonies - no matter how serious the harm, and many are quite grave - are simply qualitatively different than murder and don't evoke the same depth of emotion. So I'd first say that it's naive to generalize experience working on non-homicide cases to the homicide context.

Second, whether or not you have homicide experience, you totally misread my post - and with sexist undertones, at that. I did not say I was crying because I thought that all of my clients were amazing and wonderfully sympathetic and I lost sleep at night because they were locked up. If you are an attorney who works on capital cases, and who cries from time to time to release emotion, the crying could have been prompted by a range of emotions, such as the emotions you feel when:
- Being physically threatened (or worse) by clients for whom you have been working your hardest
- Seeing young children wrestle with their parents (usually fathers) being on death row and their fears that their parent may be executed
- Speaking with guards haunted by their participation in prior executions
- Watching a client be executed or supporting colleagues who have watched a client die right in front of them
- Listening to victims' family members speak of the ongoing pain that their loved one's loss has caused (just because you do defense work does not mean you stop being human/being affected by hearing this)
- Confronting the often extremely graphic physical evidence related to the victim's pain and suffering before death (ditto)
- Interviewing non-capital prior victims of your client (e.g., victims of rapes or serious assaults) and hearing the trauma they underwent
- Learning of the severe abuse that your client and his siblings suffered as young, innocent children (whether or not the adult client is sympathetic, at some young enough age he was, and capital mitigation cases require you to trace all the way back to birth (and before)); often you learn of this in part through his siblings, and watch them relive their trauma

And so on. If you have any experience with these kinds of realities of capital defense work, your post certainly does not suggest it.

Other anon. Murder and capital cases may be different, but the same could be said of sexual abuse and child abuse.

I've had nasty cases, yes, including one on the national news involving the kidnapping and murder of my client's child. This type of thing, to varying degrees of heinousness, happens all the time in every state in the country. It doesn't make me a sociopath that I accept that reality and don't cry every time I see, hear, or talk to someone with a sad story.

There is a thing called "compassion fatigue." I acknowledge that it's a real thing, as I did have one thing that had a significant effect on me: prosecuting federal child porn cases, which I think is more difficult than murder or capital cases despite your obstinate protestations. Anyway, you sound like one of the people that is particularly susceptible to compassion fatigue. That's fine, but you should get help on that front instead of nonsensically lashing out at other attorneys who disagree with you.

As to this crap about YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND IF YOU DON'T DO CAPITAL CASES: please. I'm a combat vet; don't give me that shit. A lot of us saw and experienced much, much worse shit than you and handled it far better than you're handling your experiences. That's why I find your posts intolerable -- well, that and the condescending, special snowflake tone.

And if you must know, the answer is no, I don't do capital cases. My state doesn't have the death penalty, and I rarely take federal cases. But I'm fairly certain, based on past experience, that I wouldn't lose sleep over them. On the other hand, I do recognize that we're all different. What I'm saying is that you're not going to get any sympathy from me, but you should see a professional if this shit is bothering you, and give up the high horse routine about how tough your job is and about how you wouldn't understand, guise.

Female ex-Al Qaeda recruiter here. First off, you don't identify yourself as working in terrorism. Quite frankly, other war crimes - no matter how serious the harm, and many are quite grave - are simply qualitatively different than terrorism and don't evoke the same depth of emotion. So I'd first say that it's naive to generalize experience working on non-terrorism warring to the terrorist context.

Second, whether or not you have terrorism experience, you totally misread my post - and with sexist undertones, at that. I did not say I was crying because I thought that all of my recruits were amazing and wonderfully sympathetic and I lost sleep at night because they were blown up. If you are a soldier who works on terrorist bombing, and who cries from time to time to release emotion, the crying could have been prompted by a range of emotions, such as the emotions you feel when:
- The eight year old you just strapped twenty pounds of PET to asks why his superhero vest is so heavy
- Strapping some poor Syrian dude to the bottom of a sheep and sending him across the border to "fight the holy war"
- The sleeper cell you placed in the white house fails to detonate his suicide vest in a bunker with the president
- A fleet of flying death robots has standing orders to kill you, and, just to be safe, anyone who looks like they might know you
- You practiced sewing for years and every masterpiece suicide vest you create just gets incinerated
- You can't even go to the market to get groceries any more because you can't remember where you put the IEDs
- You have to clean your hijab every time you cry because the inside of the face-covering hood you're required to wear 24/7 gets salty

And so on. If you have any experience with these kinds of realities of terrorist work, your post certainly does not suggest it.

Just catching up on this thread, and this was incredible

[gk101]

^^ how long have you been in biglaw?

I want to know this as well (though I still think troll). I also want front row tickets when the inevitable mental breakdown occurs.

The anonymous posts make it a little difficult to follow but I think she is about to become a senior associate so she has presumably been there for a while. I would like to replace my original question with a different one.

Are you a tyrannical midlevel associate gunning for partnership?

[BeenDidThat]

^^ how long have you been in biglaw?

I want to know this as well (though I still think troll). I also want front row tickets when the inevitable mental breakdown occurs.

The anonymous posts make it a little difficult to follow but I think she is about to become a senior associate so she has presumably been there for a while. I would like to replace my original question with a different one.

Are you a tyrannical midlevel associate gunning for partnership?

Ah, in that case, I revise my ticket request: I want to be on the second floor as she flies by when denied partnership.

[Cogburn87]

Are u really bragging about eating a Seamless dinner in your office? lolololol

I don't do Seamless. My firm isn't big on facetime (although the hours are high) and just gives us a dinner budget we can use anywhere after 10 reportable hours (doesn't have to be billable). So I just get takeout from my favorite restaurants or even go out for dinner to places that are open at 11 PM or later after a long day. Agree Seamless blows.

Thank you for clarifying exactly how you charge food to your BIGLAW firm! This definitely sounds better than sharing a meal with one's loved ones at a reasonable time of day, especially when you imagine that other people are just proles eating at Applebees! I can see why you would use this perk as ammunition when justifying your life decisions to strangers on the Internet!

[A. Nony Mouse]

I mean, this is overall a really stupid debate, but I'm baffled that people ITT find it strange that someone would find representing exclusively capital defendants more stressful than biglaw. That's not really bizarre at all (nor is it saying people shouldn't find biglaw stressful, either).

[mmelittlechicken]

VERY MENTALLY STABLE