Cried for first time at work Forum

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 14, 2014 2:20 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote: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).
Wardaddy anon here. I'm not responding to Intolerable Tyrannical Midlevel ("ITM"), since the mods have kindly asked us to stop (which of course she ignored because she wanted to "clarify," but that's another issue), and the conversation should die anyway.

But to respond to this, I don't think the issue is that a person finds doing criminal defense work to be more stressful than biglaw. The issue is probably more that the person attempted to draw a patronizing connection between the criminal defense experience to imply that biglaw is objectively less stressful. See these quotes from ITM's first post:
I have never cried in biglaw and, with the benefit of my PD experience, frankly have a perspective where I might not ever end up crying because the stakes feel so manageable in biglaw. ... But frankly, when you've worked capital cases it puts the biglaw stress in perspective. ... Coming off that work...it's just easy not to get fazed by BigLaw.
If she had said that she finds the work less stressful in biglaw, without all the extracurricular high horse bullshit, I doubt anyone would find her intolerable. But there's nothing objectively less stressful about working all of the time just to make a quick buck than having a full-time job that works with criminal defendants and, peripherally at least, victims of tragic occurrences. Surely people can disagree (like I do) on which is more stressful, but ITM's post didn't leave a lot of room for disagreement.

When I confronted her with the fact that my opinion was based on doing similar work involving heinous cases, including murder and kidnapping, she said it's not similar because the defendants in my cases can't get the death penalty. Then I questioned whether it's really remarkably stressful to work with cases where the worst outcome is that a terrible person gets punished, to which she responded that the punishment part isn't the tough part, to which my head exploded because logic + her earlier statements. So there's a recap of why people aren't picking up what ITM is dropping.

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fats provolone

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by fats provolone » Fri Nov 14, 2014 3:50 pm

ignore the mods, this thread is amazing

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:06 pm

See, I didn't see that horse as so high or the statements as comments on objective reality as others in this thread did - just as a statement that she had this different experience and that's why she saw it differently. Because let's be honest, most biglaw associates (and remember, the comparison was with biglaw, not other criminal practice) don't come to biglaw after capital defense (not saying either is better or worse, just that it's not a common associate background). If that's how it was intended (as a personal experience), then subsequent attempts to say that isn't objective reality look more like an attempt to tell TML why she shouldn't feel that way. (Not taking sides on that, just saying why I think this escalated the way it did.)

Also, war daddy anon ( :lol: ), I wasn't clear whether you had been a PD or a private defense attorney?

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by AVBucks4239 » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:08 pm

fats provolone wrote:ignore the mods, this thread is amazing
+1

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:27 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Also, war daddy anon ( :lol: ), I wasn't clear whether you had been a PD or a private defense attorney?
(Wardaddy here.) I'm private, but my experience crosses that divide owing to how public criminal defense works in my jurisdiction. Well, not quite so much now, but when I was early in my career. I suppose that's as much as I'll get into that because anon.

Regarding the other stuff, it wasn't so much me taking issue with her reality, but I did characterize crying over your criminal cases as "naive," which ITM took as offensive. In my experience in the line of work, people just harden the fuck up after a year or three. Not that they become mentally ill or inhuman, but they adapt and learn to successfully manage and cope with the emotional baggage of the job. People who are young, genuine, pure (e.g. naive) have a harder time with it. But nobody likes to be called naive, I guess, even when it's true. In our profession, I find it to be a borderline compliment, but whatever...

The naive thing is relevant not as an insult, but to suggest that if she stuck with crim defense instead of jumping to biglaw, then it might not be very stressful now either. Put another way, to the extent that a few years of the criminal defense work may have insulated her from biglaw stress, it may have equally insulated her from criminal defense stress as her practice wore on.

Otherwise it's possible that career prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys are a self-selected group of ultra-resilient people with highly-developed skills in coping with the stress and emotional baggage, and some people like ITM are just not cut out to handle it.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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fats provolone

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by fats provolone » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:28 pm

i want to hear more from ITM. how often do you assign the same research assignment to multiple junior associates just to be safe?

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:38 pm

I get that, but people also burn out of capital work (and PDs offices generally) pretty regularly, and it seems a little callous just to say "that's naive" at the same time as defending the stress level in biglaw. I mean, biglaw sucks for the associate, criminal defense sucks for the clients. And people burn out of biglaw all the time too.

That said, I still think "crying over your clients" isn't quite what TML was getting at. I know plenty of criminal law people (prosecution and defense) who have no illusions about defendants (or victims sometimes) and yet find the whole system stressful because of their working conditions and the stakes and popular perceptions of their work and so on.

I mean, I get your reading of the exchange. I don't agree with all of it, but I understand where you're getting that.

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fats provolone

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by fats provolone » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:45 pm

I think we can all agree that defending capital cases is probably really stressful. and we probably can't or shouldn't try to quantify that stress and compare it to other stressful occupations, because who cares.

what we can quantify, however, is the size of the chip on an ex-PD's shoulder after moving into biglaw, and the manifestations of that chip on the lives of junior associates (who may very well be driven to tears) is very interesting to me and arguably even more on topic than the present discussion.

so let's hear it, ITM
Last edited by fats provolone on Fri Nov 14, 2014 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by gk101 » Fri Nov 14, 2014 5:08 pm

I am with fats here. We do not get to hear enough of ITM's side here at the TLS echo chamber. ITM Anon: please tell us about how mentally weak your junior associates are

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Nov 15, 2014 3:39 am

.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

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fats provolone

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by fats provolone » Sat Nov 15, 2014 4:51 am

ok not bad i grant you a stay of execution

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fats provolone

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by fats provolone » Sat Nov 15, 2014 5:05 am

question:

is there any point doing excellent work as a junior? i mean if you're just going to get slammed and probably never make partner anyway, and that's assuming you don't burn out. are you better off being mediocre, going off and doing a stint in govt or w/e, and then come back to gun as a senior associate?

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Nov 15, 2014 6:49 am

.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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fats provolone

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by fats provolone » Sat Nov 15, 2014 1:52 pm

yea i guess tcr is just to leave and never come back. which isn't really an insight since that's kind of everyone's plan. interesting though

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by sinfiery » Sat Nov 15, 2014 3:53 pm

Why are you gunning for partner if it isn't for the money?

Also, how was the transition from capital work --> biglaw? Was it only possible b/c you did biglaw before?

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Manhattan » Sat Nov 15, 2014 5:36 pm

sinfiery wrote:Why are you gunning for partner if it isn't for the money?

Also, how was the transition from capital work --> biglaw? Was it only possible b/c you did biglaw before?
Yeah, I'd be interested to know this too. Like, what sort of skills were you able to sell during your interviews that the biglaw firms were like, "yeah, this person will be a valuable addition to our practice group"? Are you doing litigation, or did you somehow go from capital defender to transactional biglaw work?

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Nov 15, 2014 10:39 pm

.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Danteshek » Sun Nov 16, 2014 5:51 am

Good stuff. Next step, if you are ambitious, is to start your own firm and put your current law firm out of business.

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by 094320 » Sun Nov 16, 2014 11:05 am

..

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by DellE6500 » Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:20 pm

Anonymous User wrote:today.

I wish there were a way out of this life.
I'm not sure that this came off as intended. Please see a professional if you're feeling truly overwhelmed.

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Re: Cried for first time at work

Post by Harvette » Wed Dec 31, 2014 10:56 pm

kd5 wrote:I've cried at my BigLaw job three times since I started two months ago. However, the crying doesn't happen at work UNLESS someone is nice to me in the moment or immediate aftermath of something stressful. So I basically just pray that no one expresses sympathy or concern, stands up for me, or otherwise tries to comfort me, because unless that happens, I'm fine!

Thank god they give first year associates offices with doors.
:mrgreen:

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