Category Work
The capricious gods of work and weather
Sometimes I think the ancient Greeks had it pretty good: If something wasn’t going the way you wanted, all you had to do was identify the offended god, sacrifice something (100 bulls, say, or your fourteen-year-old daughter who thought she was about to be married to Achilles) to appease that god, and then things would go right again. […]
Bonus
Each year my law firm distributes performance bonuses to associates. Unlike in New York (including at my firm’s New York office), where all associates at top-tier law firms receive the same bonus in a lock-step structure, the bonuses in DC are not automatic and are meant to reward overall contributions to the firm, taking into consideration both […]
New York – Remind me why I don’t live here?
I’m working out of the New York office today. I’m on the 42nd floor, with awesome views of the Hudson River and New Jersey. With floor-to-ceiling windows, the office is bright (so bright, in fact, that I can’t see my screen very well) and I love it. It’s a marked difference from the shady 6th-floor […]
Workday Pause
I’m taking a break. Given that I’ve already billed 40 hours this week (and it’s only 3:00pm on Wednesday!), I think I’m entitled to a few minutes of down time. I initially thought I’d write about the weekend – I went to three opening receptions at art galleries downtown, met a friend for dinner at […]
Farewell Chicago
There was absolutely no point in having me stay in Chicago for another day of negotiations. We got to the offices and were shown into a conference room by the receptionist. We then got an email from the associate on the other side (my counterpart) informing us that he was in another meeting at the […]
One Day More
After last night’s break, we reconvened this morning on the 40th floor of our counterparty’s offices to resume negotiations. They began by handing us what was (in the terms of the partner I’m working with) an “F.U.” markup of the agreemnet we’ve been negotiating. In other words, in turning the draft, the other side had done everything they could […]
Dealmaking in the Windy City
As I boarded the plane to Chicago this morning, the partner I’m traveling with leaned over and said, “If anyone asks, we vote in favor of working non-stop until this agreement is done. Even if it means working all night long. Got it?” Got it. Only no one ever asked. At 5:00pm, the negotiations broke […]
Trauma Surgery vs. Urology
Last Thursday I got a note from my friend Paul saying that he and his wife Blake would be in town over the weekend. They live in Akron, Ohio, and were coming to DC to go to the temple (Akron apparently is equidistant from the Palmyra, Manhattan and DC temples, so they chose DC.) They […]
Flowers in spite of the firm
Last weekend was cold, rainy, and I had nothing to do. I was SO BORED. This weekend, on the other hand, the weather has been gorgeous, the cherry blossoms are opening, and I had a ton of things I wanted and needed to do. So, when last Friday rolled around, did I get any last […]
Fun Game
[Late Friday afternoon, Client sends a 150 page contract. I spend most of the weekend reviewing that contract. On Monday, Partner calls me into his office.] Partner: Client is very cost sensitive – they’ve asked us not to do a line-by-line mark-up of this document; instead, they want us to focus only on revising the […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 