This column is written for Missouri Lawyers Weekly.

It isn’t often that I get letters from readers of this space asking for advice. Strike that, it isn’t often that I get letters at all, at least not on time. Whether the blame falls completely upon Postmaster General DeJoy, the Postmangler for short, or not, deliveries of my law firm’s mail are slow. Slow on good days.

Given his salary of over $300,000, one might expect a little pride in the job and at least the appearance of caring about the government service with which the Postmangler has been entrusted. My office gets mail roughly four days a week. The courts expect deadlines to be met, clients expect checks to be available promptly, and I expect that despite rain, sleet, and snow, the mail will arrive. Its nearing 100 degrees outside these days, so weather isn’t the problem. The price of a stamp is going up though, proving the maxim that paying more doesn’t always get you more.

With that in the background, I was surprised to get a letter from a young lawyer in the actual mail. It wasn’t dated, but hopefully the author hasn’t retired yet. I am sharing it here so that perhaps another lawyer with the same question can save the rising cost of a stamp.

Dear Mr. Farris,

I just started my first job at a law firm. It is nothing like I expected after my legal internship with this firm- the hours are long, the work is demanding. The partners have stopped taking us to dinner and asking about our lives and if they speak to the new associates at all, it is because they want something done in a crazy short amount of time, or they think we should bill more hours.

I want some time for myself to live my life! Yes, I make a pretty good salary, even after my obscene student loan payments. How do I find a work/life balance, and how do I get my bosses to see that it is important?

Signed,

Social-less in St. Louis.

 

Dear Social-less,

There is an old joke about a recently deceased person given the choice between heaven and hell. Heaven was fine, but his visit to hell is surprisingly nice- folks are seeming to have a good time, chatting and enjoying glasses of wine, even though they are all standing knee deep in a vile liquid of some sort. His tour guide was telling him all about the benefits of hell, really selling it like a timeshare broker.

The afterlife candidate is about to choose hell over heaven when his guide looks at her watch, and yells out, “Okay people, break is over. Back to standing on your heads!”  A legal internship is the break, in case you didn’t guess.

Those of us old enough to remember movies in theaters would watch several previews for future movies and sometimes the best part of the movie was in that trailer. A legal internship is only slightly more like practicing law than law movie.  It is usually more like a movie trailer for a bad movie.

To be fair to law firms, the workload doesn’t increase over the summer when law students want internships. In fact, it is just the opposite as lawyers take their vacations in the summer and legal work grinds down to the bare minimum needed to meet deadlines and the like. There is more time to wine and dine interns because there isn’t much else to do. Besides, if a law firm showed you exactly what your job would look like as an associate when you interned, you should be grateful. And then you should run away.

Your question of a work/life balance is not lost on me. I remember one of the partners at my first law firm when I asked for the day off for my first child’s birth. I later learned that he and his brother first worked for their dad’s law firm and when the brother’s first child was born, his father told him to come in to the office after a couple hours because his wife and the doctors could handle the proceedings from there.

If I had said the phrase “work/life balance” to an employer right out of law school he (all the managing partners were men back then) would have told me I could either work or have a life. Choose carefully, the life without an income wouldn’t be very enjoyable.

I know another lawyer who bragged that he came home for Thanksgiving dinner long enough to say the prayer and carve the turkey before heading back to the office. Being a lawyer is rarely a good part time gig, but it shouldn’t be all consuming either. I don’t fit that mold anymore. Okay, fine, I never did.

2020 certainly changed my perspective a bit. I try to take a Joe-day™ every week and even when I fail, the effort is there to take time off. I don’t come to the office every weekend anymore either. Given that the mail doesn’t often show up on Saturdays anymore, there isn’t much to do anyway.

My advice is to find an area of the law you enjoy and plan a path to get to that career. Working long hours is part of the profession, working long hours in a soul sucking job need not be. Success is in doing what you love. I admit that this isn’t an easy answer, but anything worth having is rarely easy.  And don’t call me Mr. Farris, it makes me feel old.

©2021 With All Due Respect. Spencer Farris is the founding partner of The S.E. Farris Law Firm in St Louis, Missouri. Got a question? Send it or any comments or criticisms about this column directly to me via email at farris@farrislaw.net. Some restrictions apply, see store for details.