Future Proof

I was drunk googling over the weekend, looking up various former co-workers and seeing where they were in life. Golden Boy left Phuqued Firm, which is saying a lot for how fucked Phuqued Firm is. He was viewed as the lead partner's heir to the thrown, groomed to the mantle of all that was passive/aggressive and psychotic. He's at one of the major insurance defense firms in downtown Los Angeles, a slight setback to my belief in karma. But Phuqued Firm is, well, fucked as usual. They now have a single litigation associate to work between two partners and two counsel.

One of the associates who started the same day as me at BigLaw One is now a partner--only after seven years. He was even lead counsel on a trial. Now that is a true Golden Boy. BigLaw One does not have small clients, and since he was in the intellectual property group, it's not as if the trial was some limited jurisdiction fluff. He's a good guy too, so I don't begrudge him his success. It's lawyers like him that make me pause, take stock of where I am, and wonder where I'm at.

Non-Married Blonde Lawyer is still non-married and blonde, but at a different firm. She's four years younger than me, but she's been listed as a "Super Lawyer" for two years straight. I guess when she said she wouldn't go to any small firms after GigByTheOcean, she didn't mean it.

I had reviewed the attorney lists at the firms I was at, seeing where people I knew ended up, and then, another world opened up to me.

In this other world, on that weekend, at that time, I was in my second floor office in BigLaw Two. The hall lights had already shut themselves off automatically. I had turned my office lights off save for a desk lamp and a corner halogen lamp turned to low. It was two in the morning and my office was dark save for an orange glow. I had a large U-shaped desk, and it was covered with legal research and deposition transcripts.

I was in that two-year grace period where I either made partner, or I shipped out to be come counsel somewhere. This was night number five where I stayed past two in the morning. I was second in command on a matter, so this motion for summary adjudication was mine to fuck up. There were three empty instant noodle styrofoam cups near my keyboard and five empty cans of Coke. I knew this wasn't good for my blood pressure, but it was either my pressure or my job.

When I went to the hospital a year ago, one of the partners had called every single day to find out when I'd return, incredulous that I had to be hospitalized for blood pressure. He had even talked to the managing partner, who politely and almost apologetically informed me of this complaint. I could have mentioned labor law, but why rock the boat. I knew I wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. But luckily, the rainmaking partner seemed to like me, and reigned the other partner in.

So here I was, on a Saturday night, being the good soldier. There is no time. Everything is one single deadline. Once every month, the one day I have off, I buy a twelve pack of Heinekin, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and five liters of water. I finish those off in a single night. I decompress. Then I go back to thirty more days of meeting with clients, deposing witnesses, managing discovery, drafting motions, yelling at opposing counsel, reviewing the work of associates which more often than not I have to redraft from scratch.

At two in the morning, I'm not thinking about the relationships that I've never had. There are other associates, other lawyers, who have significang others and spouses and families. But they met them prior to becoming a lawyer. The associates that are single maybe have random hookups, or if they're female and in corporate, end up dating clients. I'm not jealous or angry at two in the morning. At least, not about relationships. I'm trying to keep awake, to focus on starting to draft this motion. What will put me in a rage are missing documents, or incorrectly inputted facts in the litigation database. That will make me punch the walls, bloodying my knuckes.

This has been my life for four years, when I decided not to leave the law. A total of seven years of eating from vending machines (eating food ordered in takes too long, breaks the work flow), weekends at work, diving into work so that I don't have to think about that creeping loneliness, that malaise.

Outside, the only traffic on the 101 are trucks barrelling into unknown destinations.