Whether the self-assessment of your typical 3L as to the scope of his skills and quality of his work can be trusted is one thing. That he believes himself to have so much to offer that, standing in a puddle of unemployment at a time when the potential of finding of work in a law office is slightly less likely than discovery cold fusion, he can make demands is quite another.
Via Kash Hill at ATL, a law student from Astoria, Queens has issued the terms of his employment on Craigslist.
In order to be considered for this opening as my new boss, in addition to being willing to pay for my services, you must also meet all of the following criteria:
1. You must not be a lunatic.
2. You must not be a complete jerk.
3. You must not be a senile person who should have retired years ago.
4. You must not be disastrously disorganized.
5. You must actually show up to your legal practice on a regular basis.
6. You must not use screaming or condescension as your preferred method of communication.
7. You must actually know what is going on in your own cases.
8. You must actually be a boss, which means correcting me if I make a reasonable mistake and explaining how to do a new task.
9. You must be able to meet basic deadlines in your own case, which also entails knowing what these deadlines are.
10. You must not be a major alcoholic or drug addict.
11. You must not ask me to do unreasonable, personal tasks. I am a legal employee, not your babysitter.
12. You must not have unreasonable religious preferences, such as expecting me to wear your preferred religious garb while at work and proselytizing on the job.
13. You must not require me to lie to clients on a regular basis, or forge your signature, or do any other activities which could jeopardize me obtaining a legal license in the future.
14. You must not continually screw up your own cases, and then expect me to magically fix the problems or blame me when things go wrong as a result of your errors.
15. You must be financially stable in such a way that I am not continually worried about getting paid at the end of each pay period.
16. You must have basic, functioning office equipment, including an internet connection.
17. You must be capable of legal and logical reasoning skills that are more sophisticated than knee jerk reactions such as “that’s bullshit!” Sometimes something more complex is going on.
18. You must possess basic social skills.
19. You must be willing to pay me on a regular basis for my services (just a reminder). I do not accept food, liquor or drugs as payment. Payment must be made in valid, U.S. currency and must be a reasonable wage for a person of my skill set.
20. You must not be a crazy, obsessive-compulsive control freak.
21. You must not get off on degrading your employees.
And the advertisement offers a great deal on his side of the bargain as well, at least according to him:
I have a lot of experience drafting contracts, including very complex and lengthy contracts. I have substantial experience preparing various tax returns and forms. I am great with dealing with clients, even particularly difficult clients. I am talented at interviewing and screening potential clients. I have worked in outstanding, industry-leading law firms, where I worked on high impact cases and aided in representing major corporations, and these firms loved my work. I have a high work ethic, and I pride myself in doing outstanding work for both my employers and the clients they represent. I work well under pressure. I have good social skills, and I am a friendly person. I am the kind of employee who would hit the ground running at your firm, and do great work with minimal supervision and instruction.
I can do pretty much any work that an attorney would normally do.
Plus, he has access to Lexis and Westlaw via his educational password, which he will happily use provided nobody mention this to Lexis or Westlaw so he doesn’t get in trouble.
As one might expect, this third year law student has already been widely denigrated as King of the Slackoisie, from his [I’m assuming he’s male from the whiff of testosterone in the ad] over-estimate of his worth to his extreme sense of entitlement. Being slightly contrarian, I’m going to take the point of view that we, lawyers of a certain age, can learn from this young man’s hubris.
This Astorian has provided a laundry list of how lawyers are perceived by the ruling class of 2035. We are an ugly, nasty, lazy, stupid, crazy bunch, we are. They may tolerate us to the extent we engage them on their terms, such as twitter or facebook, and even in blogs provided we don’t call them Slackoisie or any other name that makes them feel badly about themselves, but they will flip on us in the blink of an eye, the moment they see our true nature appear.
There is nothing to learn from us. Our Astoria can “do pretty much any work that an attorney would normally do,” which may come as a surprise to some lawyers. Lawyers in the first five years of practice may be more likely to believe this assertion, since they too tend to believe they have every skill, every competency, to do “any work that an attorney would normally do.” From what I hear, the only thing experience does is make us increasingly lazy, greedy and senile.
What makes little sense to me is why, given how awful the job is and we are, how it interferes with the preferred lifestyle which demands that work cease the minute they have something better, more fun, to do, and how terrible we are to work for, this Astorian wants to be a lawyer. And that doesn’t just go for this 3L, but for all those paying huge sums of loaned money to learn worthless crap, knowing that they will either remain unemployed or be forced to work for psychotic, incompetent ogres.
We are ogres, you know. If we weren’t, we would see no issue with accommodating the very reasonable requests and expectations of law students like our Astorian. Our inability to let go of the archaic notion that as experienced lawyers, not to mention the folks signing the paychecks, confers some amorphous right to expect to have a say over the terms of employment proves it.
This Astorian isn’t going to take it. Frankly, he’s got plenty of company on that ground. While others may not be as bold or forthright in nailing his 21 Theses to our virtual door, they agree wholeheartedly with him. Like him, they see us as the festering remains of a legal profession gone wrong. They can’t wait to put us on the sled, pull us out to the middle of the forest in winter and walk away.
This is the future of the legal profession, and it’s right there in black and white on Craigslist.
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Scott, although I am not sure we see completely eye to eye on this matters, please let it be known that if this truly is “the future of our profession”, then I am scared. I couldn’t agree more with your sentiment. This is the epitome of lazy entitlement. We, the younger generation, are not all so bold as to think we deserve such fanciful treatment. We may not like our lot at times, but we accept it nonetheless. In fact isn’t that the source of motivation to do better? I am saddened and embarrassed by this guys waste of energy. Thanks for the post.
Maybe I’m just another entitled 3L who’s not getting it, but I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about his list of requests (the other part is pointless). While it’s probably stupid to list them out like a set of hostage demands, none of those requirements is unreasonable, and personally I kind of admire someone who’s not willing to be treated like garbage just because they happen to be at the bottom level of the profession.
I’m confused. Why does this guy need a boss if he can do anything any other attorney would do?
For the paycheck.
Someone looking for a job is well-advised not to post demands (nor so many) at the outset. First you sell your skills to get the potential employer interested in you. Then, if you should be so fortunate to get to an interview, you can discuss expectations.
As someone who worked her way through college by being an Asst. Personnel Director for a large corp, I can tell you that the L3’s ad came across as immature and offensive (e.g., you must be sane, not obsessive-compulsive, etc.)
The L3 seems to have removed the ad from Craigslist.
You know, I think he could have pulled it off, portraying himself as a no-nonsense applicant, if he had cut the list to just a handful of the most egregious offenses and then followed it with a similar list for himself:
1. I won’t whine about it when people we deal with are mean to me.
2. I won’t complain if a case means I have to work through lunch. Or dinner. Or nights or weekends.
3. There are things I don’t know how to do, but there’s no part of the job I’m unwilling to do: Proofread briefs, file paperwork, move furniture, pick up clients who live in bad neighborhoods, repaint the offices, unclog the toilets, and pick your kids up from school so you can prep for trial.
4. My work/life balance is not your problem.
5. I won’t tell you to take more pro bono cases, or anything else that sounds like I’m telling you how to run your business.
6. I’ll assume you stick me with crappy projects because you want them fixed, not because you want to hear me whine about them.
And so on… I don’t really know what lawyers do, but I’ll bet he could have made a few no-bullshit promises that would have made him look like a good hire.
Well, I’ve put my own trials and tribulations out there for anyone who wants to read them. I doubt that the folks who are now in a position to hire someone (I’m talking small firms and solos) are the type to throw shit at their associates and denigrate them, if only because it happened to a lot of us – but that’s just what was expected. Sorry folks, its true. We would share war stories about who worked for the crazier guy or girl. TLK never threw anything at me, and I was never asked to do any personal stuff for him (except go to his kid’s bar mitvah, which was awesome!) but I knew lots of other lawyers who did exactly that sort of thing.
If I was in a position to hire someone, I would expect a great deal, but it probably wouldn’t include picking my kids up from daycare (although it would be nice if they would) and I certainly would not throw stuff at them. I also certainly would not hire this guy though. What a tool.
Oh, PS – His first qualification “you must not be a lunatic” puts a lot of really zealous advocates out of the running. Aren’t we all a bunch of lunatics?
That’s funny – you read this as “male”, I read this as “female” (#12 sounds like fear of a burkah and overall there was a princessy “play nice” kind of vibe that I don’t usually associate with male law students. I also think that female lawyers are more bothered by “screamers” than others, but that may be my own bias. I can handle sarcasm and snarkiness, but use your “inside voice”, please!)
I also assumed this was parody and that, given “her” explantion that she has done time in Big Law (presumably as a paralegal or secretary, since “she’s” not a lawyer yet) “she” was playing off the sterotypes she got from that and watching a few too many David E. Kelly shows. Is the point that you’re fighting sterotypes with stereotypes? All “experienced” lawyers are drunken, lazy, senile and greedy is countered with all “new” lawyers are arrogant, lazy, entitled bastards that see you as nothing but a speedbump and meal-ticket? I appreciate the humor in both – unless you were seriously calling the kettle black.
It’s really just poor job hunting technique. It’s great to have a good working relationship with your boss but it’s not so good to squint at them when you’re applying and say “you’re not religious are you? I’m not wearing any of your funny clothes” (number 12).
I think if he’d stopped after “You must not be a lunatic” and then tried to sell himself as a good hire that would have come across better – it’s a good eye catching line to start with. The exhaustive list of “criteria” to be his boss is just not going to work out for him.
Yes, this guy’s not going to work for Norm any time soon…