Lawyer Work-Life Balance
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Are WASP law firms finally dead?
By Legal Week | July 5, 2010
Harvard law professor Noah Feldman had some very nice things to say about WASPs (in case you weren't aware, that stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and their contribution to diversity in a recent New York Times article. So nice, in fact, that I wondered if I missed something. Feldman starts off by noting that if Elena Kagan is confirmed as a US Supreme Court Justice, the court will consist of six Catholics and three Jews - a dramatic departure from as recently as five years ago when the court "had a plurality of white Protestants". The change, he adds, "is a cause for celebration" in that "no one much cares about the nominee's religion".
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From Freshfields to private equity fund manager - via the Antarctic
By Legal Week | June 30, 2010
If you are looking for a commercial lawyer who has gone to somewhat extraordinary lengths to achieve a life outside law, you need not look much further than Alastair Vere Nicoll. In broad terms, the former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer private equity associate's story is unremarkable - disillusioned lawyer attempts to escape from a profession that offers potfulls of cash but insufficient fulfilment. We have heard it before. But what is more unusual is that he now runs his own successful fund management company and got there via a 76-day traverse of the Antarctic. And, by the way, he has written a book about it.
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Climbing a new ladder
By Suzi Ring | June 22, 2010
Try as they might to extend their career after the law, lawyers often bemoan the fact that they get dragged back in to legal roles or are eternally cast as one-trick ponies. But once you have reached the top of your career and there really is nowhere else to go, what then?
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Women opt out of the career fast track
By Legal Week | June 16, 2010
Women seeking work/life balance are getting their faces slapped with cold water these days. Andrews Kurth partner Kathleen Wu, who has led an initiative at her firm to to improve the retention and advancement of women, last week warned in a Texas Lawyer article that law school graduates should not "get their hearts set on having it all." Wu calls law practice "demanding - exceedingly so. It is next to impossible to balance a full-time legal career with marriage, children and regular trips to the gym."
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Little relief for the rich
By Legal Week | June 16, 2010
Chancellor George Osborne's emergency Budget next week (22 June) is likely to be the final piece in the jigsaw of the new coalition Government's plans to tackle Britain's economic crisis. As many observers expected - and given the urgency with which the UK's budget deficit needs to be cut - the Conservative-Liberal Democrat team that took office last month has had very little room to manoeuvre with regard to overturning some of the more controversial aspects of Labour's taxation policies.
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(Over) dressed for success?
By Legal Week | June 11, 2010
I don't usually write about fashion in the office, because the topic seems too obvious. What's there to discuss when you're talking about dressing for a law firm? But apparently some junior associates are venturing beyond the usual safe harbours and putting their own mark on corporate fashion. I'm hearing complaints - usually from more senior women - that young female associates in particular seem clueless about looking professional. "They go for cute and girlish, and that undercuts their seriousness," says one partner. "They are way too informal," gripes another.
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The iPad - toy or tool?
By Legal Week | June 9, 2010
With apologies to the missus, my three weeks with Apple's iPad have reminded me of my old dating days. There would be that instant attraction, some really good things in the mix, but all the while I'd be wondering - just where is this relationship going? The iPad is a terrific device - for certain tasks. It does a stellar job of playing video, with a crisp, vivid display that puts plenty of laptops to shame. It gets great battery life; ten hours or more on a charge. It provides surprisingly fast web browsing. And who can complain about a device that starts up at the press of a button? With the right apps - those specialised add-on programmes that have helped make Apple's iPhone the tech world's biggest recent phenomenon - the iPad will probably do a lot of things very well.
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Pretty enough for this job market?
By Legal Week | June 4, 2010
To the list of insecurities that already plague job applicants (not going to a top law school, failure to make the Law Review, or the inability to get excited by golf), you can now add physical beauty - or the lack thereof. Contrary to what your mother might have told you, looks count. In a recent editorial in The National Law Journal, Stanford Law School professor Deborah Rhode, author of The Beauty Bias, makes the case that there's a prejudice against those not blessed with good looks, and that it is a form of discrimination as insidious as racism or sexism:
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Fiction writing: a lawyer's guide
By Legal Week | June 1, 2010
It's a tricky business, telling your boss that you want to write a novel. I was a two-year qualified associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer when I spoke to the partners about the possibility of taking unpaid leave. I explained, somewhat nervously, that I wanted to finish a manuscript I'd been working on since qualifying as a solicitor. Then I sat back and waited for the P45.
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From Helmand to Holborn
By Legal Week | May 26, 2010
Soldier-turned-law student Patrick Hennessey on how his experiences in Afghanistan helped him land a pupillage...Pupillage interviews are nerve-wracking at the best of times. They are never improved by the experience of desperately trying to remember what cases you mentioned in your application while your rivals chat about the dozens of mini-pupillages and endless hours of pro-bono work they've already done. In a number of such interviews last summer I would spot the eyebrows raise, ever so slightly, when I had to concede that I hadn't done any mini-pupillages, any clerking or even any mooting. All those little extras are bread and butter to an undergraduate law student planning to come to the Bar, but are out of the experience of most of those coming from another career, attempting to cram the conversion course into an already full working week and wondering what the hell they have let themselves in for.
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