Will Meyerhofer's Blog

Hey – I just got interviewed by none less than WorldClassPerformer.com!

Can’t really complain about that…or the interview itself, which is rather in-depth and (I humbly aver) rather interesting.

Here it is.

[image error]Richie T – “Best DJ in Utah” (as he’s universally known)

So, okay…I couldn’t resist. Dillon Hansen, the charming young producer from The Lisa Show on BYU Radio, mentioned maybe coming back to do another show, and, well…so he talked me into it. What can I say? He twisted my arm.

This week it was Lisa’s delightful and hilarious co-host, Richie T, at the mic (Richard T Steadman, if you want to get all formal about it), and we had a great time chatting about burnout and how it can really spoil that dream job, if you let it.

But, of course, you’re not going to let burnout rain on your parade, because you’re going to listen to the show HERE, and find out lots of useful pointers on defeating burnout before it defeats you. I start off the show right at the head, and we’re on together for about the first 15 minutes.

It’s a pleasure to work with true radio pros like Lisa and Richie (they both have backgrounds in theater and comedy and improv on top of years of experience on the airwaves, and it shows in a tightly paced, unceasingly entertaining show.)

The truth is I’d join them at the mic anytime they’ll have me. Thanks, guys.

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Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

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And now there’s a Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error]This is getting predictable.

I suspect I’m dating myself, but does anyone else remember the Peanuts cartoons? Specifically that endlessly repeated gag (more like heart-wrenching tragedy) of Lucy offering to hold the football for poor, hapless Charlie Brown so he can kick it? Of course, she winds up pulling it away just in time for him to miss the kick and fly through the air screaming, then land in a heap, bruised and miserable, furious at himself for placing his trust once again in a faithless so-called friend. 

Law firms do that. I mean, they do the Lucy bit, with the football. 

“So…when you say he promised you’d be elevated to partner,” I asked one client just the other day, “Do you mean, as in, he actually promise promised to make you partner…or just sort of implied strongly it would happen?” 

My client’s response was unequivocal: “He promised.” 

I fumbled for wiggle room. “But can he do that? How much capital does this guy have at the firm to burn on elevating one of his own?”

My client wasn’t taking wiggle for an answer: “He’s the managing partner of a smallish firm. He can elevate whomever he wants.”

Wait. Hang on…one more question: “Did he specify when he’d make you partner?”

Now I had him.  Because the unfailing law firm answer to any question regarding something good that’s going to happen to you (i.e., not to them) is: Not now…but soon. 

Promising stuff to you (not now, but soon) is actually a key law firm technique for getting what they want from you (immediately.)

The looming temporal gulf between what they offer to you and what they demand from you is acute. It is stark. It is striking. 

Compare and contrast:

The stuff they offer to you will arrive whenever they please, which seldom means anytime remotely contemporaneous with the current era. (And, no, don’t bother them about it, or they might change their minds.)

The stuff they require from you, on the other hand, will happen immediately. This very minute.  As in, I’m aware it’s Saturday night, and no, I don’t care. I’m not asking – that’s me being polite.  I’ll have it Monday morning or you’re fired. 

That kind of right now. Law firm right now. 

Returning for a moment to those lovely, tasty things that they’re promising to you… It’s worth asking just how long a period of time not now, but soon can be drawn out to occupy, at least in the minds of those who run law firms. 

I had a blast this morning recording a segment on The Lisa Show, on BYU Radio. And no – it had nothing whatsoever to do with law! Isn’t that satisfying?!?

[image error]Lisa’s the best!

Instead, we laughed and chortled and giggled and had ourselves a grand old time talking about everyone’s favorite topic – “regression in the service of the ego” – and old tv shows! Cause that’s probably the best response to this pandemic – go watch more old tv shows!

Hey, it might make you feel better. In the meantime, check out the show here. I go on at about 9:00, but the whole thing is a delight and Lisa and her sidekick Richie are a blast and it was worth waking up to share some laughs. Thanks, guys! A great way to start the day.

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Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

[image error]

And now there’s a Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error]These are some serious dudes.

I’ve been on a lot of podcasts over the years. But there are podcasts, and there are podcasts. Iron Advocate, a new series created by legendary courtroom hard-asses Jeff Riebel and Bob Levant, is…well…a hardcore podcast. Which is to say, these guys don’t mess around.

If there’s a podcast out there where you really do cut the cr*p and say what you mean…it’s Iron Advocate.

We got real. Really real. The starting point was my all-time favorite subject – lawyer misery – but along the way we shared a few lawyers laughs as well.

You can hear the show on Apple Podcasts here, and on Spotify here. Brace yourself for impact, because this series is going to have an impact. Jeff & Bob have argued cases in criminal court where lives literally hung on the outcome. They don’t mess around.

Well, they do mess around. But even when they do mess around…it’s hardcore messing around.

Check out the whole series – I’m already hooked.

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Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

[image error]

And now there’s a Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error]

It came as a bit of a relief, in these troubled times, to sit down for an hour with my old friend Sarah Mills, from Lawline, and record a webinar with the somewhat daunting title “How to Stay Sane, Productive, and Healthy in Isolation – Wellness Strategies for Attorneys During the Pandemic” (it’s a mouthful.) You can watch the webinar here.

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When Sarah asked me to put this together, my first thought was, well…let’s not just have me lecturing with slides, not at a time like this. So instead I talked her into doing a sort of conversation, along with me. And that was a relief. Because sure, therapists can dispense advice, and occasionally I might even stumble on a good piece of advice. But what therapists mostly do best is give people a chance to talk to someone who really wants to listen and cares about what you’re saying, so you can hear yourself, and we can both heal one another.

These are scary times we’re living through. You can reality-test your fears and you might find this time that no, you’re not just being neurotic, these times really are scary. During days like these, we need one another more than ever, and this webinar was a way of acknowledging that, and bringing a bit of healing to all involved. Hope you like it. And wishing you the very best as we all navigate this pandemic together. It will end.
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Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

[image error]

And now there’s a Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error]

There’s no getting out of it: This is a column discussing a syndrome in which lawyers (I suspect mostly women lawyers) sometimes cry on the job in what are arguably inappropriate situations, and the often negative (and avoidable) fallout that results. 

Maybe I shouldn’t post this one. It’ll only get me into trouble. But what the heck – I’m here to talk about what I see and hear happening in the world of law, and darn it, this falls under that heading.

So here goes nothing:

My client had done what a lot of lawyers wind up doing at some point in their careers – tried to get herself fired.

That’s a phenomenon I see all the time in biglaw – the unconscious attempt to get yourself fired thing. You can’t rationally convince yourself to quit, but the irrational part of you knows it isn’t about to let you stay, either. So, in therapist speak, you “act out on unexamined feelings.” That manifests itself in stuff like complaining about your job a bit too loudly in places that are a bit too public. Or coming in late. Or not coming in. Or just acting weird at the office without owning the fact that people are going to notice and some of them aren’t going to like it.

I urge lawyers, if they have reached that point of no return (the place where you really cannot come back and work at your firm for one more day without losing your shit) then please, go ahead and own it, and make the decision to leave in a conscious way. It’s best to reframe all aspects of your life as conscious choices, including your career, and put your decision process into words someplace safe (like a psychotherapist’s office) so you can take back your autonomy and be the actor in your own life, instead of acting out on unconscious, unexplored emotions.

You’re allowed to quit. There will be consequences, especially if you don’t have another job lined up, or are saddled with a heap of school debt. But everything in life involves a cost/benefit calculus; this is just another one of those things.

The person who most needs to know what’s going on with you, so she can deal with it, is your boss. That way, instead of wondering what the heck is going on with that associate acting like a lunatic, she can process the news that you want out and, maybe even work together with you to find a solution.

My client freely admitted she’d been broadcasting her discontent to a lot of people – other associates, secretaries, paralegals, word processors, librarians, doc reviewers, you name it. In fact, if you were with her for more than a few moments, you probably heard how miserable she was, along with a stream of complaints and criticism about her firm.

Sure enough, a partner she worked with eventually took her aside and said, “I’ve been hearing you’re unhappy. Why don’t we set up a time to talk?” They agreed my client would come by her office the next morning.

And that’s when my client called me. 

In the fathomless sea of business school bromides, there are a couple chestnuts I deem worth heeding:

First, don’t bring me a problem without proposing a solution.

I learned that from my first boss when I worked as a marketing guy at a dot com (way back when start-ups were called “dot coms.”) They’re words to live by.

Second, don’t walk into a meeting without knowing what you want to accomplish before you leave.

Of the two, the second is the more essential, because it’s possible someone else will dream up a solution to a problem you identified, but if you don’t know what you want from a meeting, you’re either going to walk out operating on someone else’s agenda, or wasting everyone’s time.

I asked my client what she wanted to accomplish at this meeting in the partner’s office.

“Oh,” she replied distractedly, “I’ll probably just break down in tears.”

I took a moment for us both to process that. She waited.

“Do you think breaking down in tears is going to accomplish your broader goals?”

Now she sounded impatient. “My goal is to get out of there. I can’t stand it anymore. So yeah, who knows? I don’t care.”

“I get that,” I said, and I did. “But is breaking down in tears in front of this partner a sound strategy for arranging your departure from the firm?”

She rolled her eyes. Then she said, “In any case, I can’t help it. I hate it there.”

“So you don’t think you can manage not to cry?”

Another pause while she mulled that over. I was aware I might be coming across as slightly attacking, but I was making a valid point.

I explained to her that partners at law firms often desire to talk to associates who are leaving so they can arrange to place them in-house with their clients. That’s one of the best strategies partners at law firms have to generate new business – seeding existing clients with associates who have worked for them. I’ve talked to rainmaker after rainmaker, and they all swear by it, because it works. That associate you place with a client is grateful for the job, so she thinks, why not use my old firm on a deal, and help out the partner who helped me out? She returns a favor and sends the partner business. And in ten years time, that grateful associate might be associate general counsel at that client – heck, she might become GC or even CEO, and send the partner a few million in billables. 

That happens all the time. And it’s why most law firms (even the big scary ones) are surprisingly, almost weirdly, nice to associates who want to leave.

My client seemed intrigued. I got the strong impression she hadn’t received the memo on this aspect of law firm politics.

I further explained that law firms in general bend over backwards not to burn bridges when any attorney departs. At very least, they need to know why you’re leaving, in case there’s an issue they need to address that might affect other lawyers (or create liability down the line), and when you’re leaving, so they can plan for adequate coverage in your absence. And even if you’re departing to a competing firm, there’s a lot of lateral jumping from firm to firm (or from in-house position to in-house position) occurring nowadays, and people change jobs more often in general. It’s hard to predict where anyone will be in the near future, let alone a decade or more out. You could wind up as a client of your old firm, or across the table from them as opposing counsel. Or, while it might be hard to imagine right now, it’s at least possible your path could lead you back to your old firm’s threshold. People do return to their old firms. That happens, even when it seems impossible the day they leave. So best not to burn bridges.

Have you noticed that many firms (perhaps including yours) have started to behave like they’ve suddenly turned into universities, complete with “classes” and “alumni” and “reunions” – even sweatshirts with firm branding that you can wear while you jog around the reservoir. What next – a Cravath bumper sticker for the back window of your mom’s station wagon? Tail-gating at attorney touch football games? Just like universities, these firms are trying to generate a sense of loyalty to the place – and, just like universities, their motives aren’t entirely pure. These same firms go on to work their “alumni” for contacts to generate work. I’ve attended a couple of lavish alumni get-togethers hosted by my old firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, and they were unabashed schmoozefests, clearly dedicated to exploiting old working relationships with the goal of creating new business.

It might not feel like it right now, but for all you (or your current firm) know, you might be storming out of there in a huff today, only to return ten years later with a book of business worth millions. You can never tell. No one can.

This was also apparently news to my client.

“So you see,” I offered, “why breaking down in tears might not be the best way to handle this meeting.”

“I’m starting to see what you mean.”

It might seem to you, Dear Reader, that I (a therapist, no less) was simply hell-bent on tormenting this poor woman for crying (and don’t worry, she wasn’t actually a real client, merely a fictional composite of various clients, but still…).

If that were what I was doing, you’d have a point. Aren’t people allowed to get upset, to have their feelings, to cry if they need to? Isn’t it asking too much to demand that someone rein in their authentic feelings? And hasn’t every lawyer (including me) cried alone in his or her office late at night after a really bad day, or shed a tear or two over lunch with a trusted officemate?

Of course. In fact, a therapist’s office is a great place to let it all out – that’s why I keep boxes of tissues everywhere. As my old therapist used to tell me when I opened up the waterworks, “sometimes you need a good cry.” But that therapist encouraged me to “contain the feelings” in the moment, when I was at the law firm, then bring them to a safe place (i.e., her office or someplace like it) and try to express everything in words, so I could not only have my feelings, but also learn from them, and learn about them.

I approve of crying at the movies, too. My best friend, a wonderful French woman, always cried at movies and I think I learned it from her. It felt good to let down my guard, not care who was around, and indulge myself in my feelings. A nice cathartic three-hankie weeper at the local multiplex can hit the spot sometimes.

But breaking down in tears in a partner’s office at a biglaw firm? Not so much. Especially when the real reason you’re there, in that professional setting, is to try to accomplish a career goal.

It’s worth pointing out, too, that crying can express different things depending on the circumstances. Sure, tears can be a pure, authentic expression of sadness or upset. But they can also serve another purpose, representing (in therapy jargon) a regression into infantile helplessness.

Babies cry all the time. They have to, because if they have a need, there’s only one way to express it, and one way to best ensure that need is addressed. A helpless infant cannot provide for itself, so crying is strategy number one to accomplish pretty much anything.

Perhaps you recall that time when, at some early age, you first learned crying doesn’t always work. Maybe you tried to cry (as you always had before) but somehow things didn’t go as planned. Maybe the adults gave you a look that said you were getting a bit old for histrionics. Or you realized you could take care of whatever needed taking care of yourself. Or you couldn’t work yourself into tears the way you always could before – it began to feel forced.

Under stress – and my client was under a lot of stress – people tend to regress back into old patterns of behavior. In the case of breaking down in tears, it’s a very old, primitive behavior, wrapped up in a fantasy of collapsing into helplessness and thus signaling a desperate need for care.

At some level, my client decided that she, a lawyer (and therefore a pleaser) could not, as the mature, capable adult she really is, bear to fail, to let down and disappoint the partner, so instead she regressed into a helpless child who falls apart in tears, wailing until help arrives.

That’s crazy, but it’s also how people work sometimes.

This is an appropriate place to pause, and ask what I’m really saying here. It boils down to something like, sometimes lawyers – and I’ll just suggest, without proof, that it’s probably more often women than men lawyers – regress into tearful collapse at the workplace as an unconscious strategy in response to difficult situations. I’ll also observe that this probably isn’t a very good idea.

I am not saying that all female lawyers or only female lawyers do this. And I’m not sure if it makes any difference whether the “boss” being exposed to the tearful collapse is female or male. I’ll leave these points up for discussion.

I am not saying that men never cry, or never cry at work. I am saying that there seems to be a difference in the way men and women use tears at the workplace. One of my clients, in discussing this topic with me, pointed out that the men at her law firm seem to effortlessly manage to enforce boundaries – and thus they get the “better” work and avoid the messier, less strategic, less “important” but more “people-oriented” and “emotional” work. One example I’ve heard a few times is that a male associate gets invited to a litigation strategy meeting while a woman associate is left managing a roomful of doc reviewers. I asked how she thought male lawyers achieved that, and she admitted it was hard for her to enforce boundaries coolly and unemotionally without feeling like “a bitch.” Perhaps, I suggested, it was easier to collapse into tears than it was to stand up and say no to someone who would rather hear you say yes. She mulled that over, and that’s where we left it.

Here’s another interesting idea around this topic: Tears can be aggressive. That sounds odd, because what could seem more vulnerable and less aggressive than breaking down in tears? But therapists use words like “anger” and “aggression” a little differently than everyone else, and, in reality, when you come to think about it, there is a controlling, manipulative aspect to the whole tearful collapse into infantile helplessness construct.

I recently read a fascinating book on race relations, “White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to talk about Racism,” by Robin J. DiAngelo, and was struck by the author’s discussion of “white women’s tears.” Essentially, DiAngelo argues that when black people discuss their experiences of racism, white people often turn defensive and begin to feel that they are being attacked, accused of “being racist.” That hurts the white people’s feelings and they start insisting they aren’t racist, they treat everyone the same, they don’t even factor race into their dealings with people, etc., etc. Then, sometimes (especially, in DiAngelo’s experience as a person who conducts seminars about racism) the white women participating in this interaction burst into tears, resulting in a lot of everyone having to rush to their aid, offering comfort.

The reason bursting into tears in this context is rightly perceived as aggressive is that it seizes control of the entire conversation and manipulates it into being about the white woman and her hurt, her upset. The black person, who might have been benefitting from having a space (perhaps a rarely provided space) in which to talk about her or his experience of living in a racist society, has been effectively shunted aside while the white woman regresses into a crisis state of infantile need and her upset is addressed.

An adult conversation about the fact that our society as a whole is racist (simply in that it treats people differently based upon their race) and the related fact that this societal racism has profound adverse effects on black people is, in a flash, subsumed in a crisis over a white woman’s hurt feelings around her irrational fear that a discussion of societal racism is actually an attack on her for being white.

That’s a bit like what plays out at a law firm when you go into a meeting with a partner who wants to talk about your appearing to be unhappy and perhaps feel you out about whether you want to leave the firm, but that partner is instead roped into negotiating how to handle an associate in her office crying her eyes out. Once again, the tears highjack one discussion – an important one regarding your career and the workings of a law firm – for another, about trying, in effect, to comfort a screaming child.

I get it. I’ve been messy and unconscious in my time, too. And if women do more crying at law firms, then maybe men do more storming off and yelling and throwing stuff – I don’t know for certain what the statistics would be on this sort of thing.

 

But, to pull these threads together in a conclusion: Whoever you are, male or female, if you suspect “bursting into tears” is likely to occur at an upcoming meeting with a supervisor, it might be time to pull out of that regression and examine this expectation with fully conscious, adult eyes. What you’ll likely conclude is that no, crying your eyes out isn’t going to help you leave that meeting having met your objectives – and, furthermore, no, it isn’t good cricket to back someone else into a position where they have little choice but to be reduced to comforting an adult behaving like a child. 

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This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.

Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

And now there’s a new Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error] Hi!

I’ve always sort of wanted to do a TED talk. But I’ve also always thought it would be really hard to do a TED talk.

Luckily, I found the perfect compromise: Have someone else do a TED talk about me.

Liz Brown wrote a book in 2013 called “Life After Law: Finding Work You Love with the J.D. You Have.” It’s a good book, and one of the really great things about it is that I’m in it, as a case study of one of the lawyers (me!) who left law and went on to find another career.

In 2015, Liz did a TEDx talk about her book – and mentioned me! And I just realized it (sorry, got to keep better track of this stuff.) Here’s the talk, and here’s the bit about me.

Here’s some info about Liz. She’s an interesting lady, and well worth giving a listen (and a read.)

There are a couple teensy errors in her talk. I did Mergers & Acquisitions, not Mergers & Exchange, at S&C. At Barnes & Noble.com I did Marketing and Bus Dev, not sales. And my psychotherapy practice is located in lower Manhattan, not Brooklyn. But hey…she got a whole lot about me right (as in everything else including how much I love the work I do right now. )

So now I can (sort of ) say I did a TED talk (in a manner of speaking) without having to actually, you know, talk at TED. Yay!

====================================================

Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

[image error]

And now there’s a new Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error] poor things

Ah, lawyer misery. It is a force of nature. It drives the tides, powers the sun, causes the wind to blow and the trees to grow and the seasons to change. What would we do without miserable lawyers?

Actually, it might be nice. And I suspect the planet could handle happier lawyers, all things equal.

A week or two ago I chatted with the utterly delightful and refreshingly forthright Anjali Patel on her podcast for Sweatours, which she founded, and which is super worth checking out because it’s all about making law students and lawyers generally happier and, well, well-er.

[image error] the lovely Anjali Patel

Anjali assigned our podcast episode the adorable title: “Why Some of Us are Miserable.” Who can resist a Victor Hugo tie-in?!

You can listen to the podcast here. I can’t recommend it enough. Anjali is something special – totally committed to telling the truth about lawyers’ lives, which is refreshing, and she’s smart, too, and knows what she’s talking about from experience. And (I love this part) she’s actually read my books, so we could get into the nitty-gritty.

[image error] Sweatours

This was a lot of fun, and I hope Anjali will have me back, cause trust me we could keep on going. Thanks to everyone at Sweatours – together, maybe we can turn the tide a bit, and spark a little lawyer joy.

====================================================

Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

[image error]

And now there’s a new Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance

[image error]You are really, really sick of law. In fact, you want out. At a minimum, you need to get out of your current job, or you might die. That much is not in dispute. 

But you still have the loans. Therefore common sense says you should “give law one more try.”

As H. L. Mencken once observed:“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

You sense this quotation might apply to your current situation, because it seems clear and simple you should go find another job in biglaw, at least for a year. Here are some screamingly clear and simple reasons why:

You need money to pay off loans – one more shot at biglaw money.It’s not life or death – you can always quit the new job if it doesn’t work out. According to the headhunters who call you twice a day, there are loads of “lifestyle” shops that would love to snap you up from your hotshot firm, despite the fact that you loath that place with every cell in your body. 

The list of “cons” includes:

imagining starting a law job at another firm makes you physically ill;the thought of interviewing at a law firm makes you physically ill; andthe thought of walking into another law firm makes you physically ill. 

A lot of lawyers find themselves in this situation, stuck (in the metaphorical sense) between a rock (school loans) and a hard place (the thought of continuing to practice law.) 

However, the final decision tends to be along the lines of – well, no harm in going for an interview. Which is why you’ll probably wind up going in for that interview. 

“So, should I go on this interview?” One client asked me recently. I knew he was talking about that interview. 

“My rule is that you should only go on an interview if you want the job,” I deflected. “Do you want this job?”

My client pretended to mull it over. “Does needing money to pay off loans count?”

“Go in there and nail it,” I evaded.

“Except,” he ambivalented. “I dread the thought of another law firm job. The notion makes me physically ill.”

My client and I knew perfectly well he would go on the interview. The reason was, as for most lawyers in his situation (and I’m guessing, perhaps, for you, too) money. To be specific, money for loans. But even in the more general, all-encompassing sense of the word: money.

Per Mencken’s dictum, the interview –that interview – will almost inevitably play out wrong. Clearly, simply wrong. 

But it’s worth noting a singular feature of these sorts of interviews (those interviews) which is that every word uttered will be a falsehood. This is a hard and fast rule. Each participant will intend precisely the opposite of what they’re expressing. 

Let’s say you’re a third year and it’s time to leave your first biglaw job. You know, because you got a lousy review and were asked to leave, or (alternatively) you haven’t been asked to leave yet but you dread each day, cry all the time and wonder whether, if you broke an arm or a leg, or came down with some serious disease, it might get you a week off, because that sounds worth it.

Friends offer advice: Go work at another firm! Plenty of places must be looking for people like you! Maybe try a “lifestyle” firm!

These friends are non-lawyers. They know nothing.

But let’s get granular, and examine how, should you go on it, one of thoseinterviews plays out in real time. For clarity, I’ll present what is said first, followed (in italics) by what’s meant. 

Here goes:

“Welcome to Wealth & Greed. Nice to meet you.”

You are anonymous and fungible. Within the hour, I shall forget your existence. 

“It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me in.”

Not sure I can go through with this. I feel nauseous.

“Tell me a bit about your time at Cold & Grasping.”

This is where you play nice. Say you love working in biglaw, or this interview is over. We have no desire to hear you gripe, whine or otherwise imply you weren’t completely contented as a galley slave.

“It’s a terrific firm. It was a privilege to work at an institution like Grasping.”

My time there nearly killed me. I’m already dead inside. In any case, they’ve told me to be gone within three months.

“Why have you decided to leave at this time?”

We both know why. I’m doing my job, pretending. Now it’s your turn to pretend.

I’d like to focus on the issuance of collateralized debt obligations. I know you have a well regarded practice group in that area, so it seems like a good fit.

I don’t really understand what a CDO is, except they nearly destroyed the world in ‘08. In any case, they were the only thing I worked on at Grasping, so they’re the only thing I can realistically pretend to know about. 

What is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness as a lawyer?

This is just bullshit to stretch out the interview – I couldn’t care less what you say. Play along and we’re good.

I’m detail-oriented – that’s my strength, and perhaps also my weakness – a surfeit of attention to detail. Mustn’t lose sight of the big picture.

I copied this answer from an online interviewing guide. It bears no relationship to any reality I know or have ever known. 

Are you a ‘team player’?

I don’t know what that means.

Of course, very much so.

I don’t know how that couldmean anything but whatevs.

Well, thanks for coming in. Before we finish, do you have any questions for me?

You know the rules: Come up with a question, and let’s get this over with. 

Sure. Are there plans to continue expanding the CDO practice group at Craven & Caustic?

I could care less. You could care less. 

I can’t speak to that specifically, other than to say that the group has been expanding quickly, and I would expect that trend to continue. I can refer you to the head of the practice group. If we have you back in, I’m sure you’ll be meeting with him personally.

Let’s get this over with. We’re hiring a drone – we both know that. 

Thank you so much for your time. You’ll be hearing back from us soon.

We won’t have you back in. We might hire you anyway. We might never get back to you or the headhunter. Either way, I’ll never see you again and I’ve already forgotten who you are. 

It’s been a pleasure.

Get me out of here. This was a terrible mistake. I need to throw up. 

A friend, who worked at an employment agency (back when there were such things as “employment agencies”) once told me the trick to a successful job interview. He said, “you have to establish two things – that you can do the job, and that you want the job. The second is more important, because all of the finalists can do it – they’ve been vetted – but only one wants it the most, and that’s who’s getting hired, since he’ll be the most appreciative and hardest working. So once you’ve established you can do it and you want it, shut up and walk away.”

That was good advice, and captures in a nutshell what’s doomed about thatinterview: You can’t do it and you don’t want it. That leaves you in a position where you have to lie, pretty much about everything, at least, everything that matters. 

What’s even weirder is that the employer probably already senses you can’t do it and don’t want it, so they’re lying, too. They’re probably figuring you’ll stay a year or two and do the minimum (which is enough for them to earn a profit billing for your labor), so, comme on dit,whatevs. 

Thatinterview is different from other interviews because the real task is pulling off one big trick – proving you can lie about essentially everything. 

If you can pull that off, you might get the job, and then, if you can’t hack it at the new firm, they’ll fire you or you can quit. The most likely outcome, if you do lie your way in, is that (as your employer probably already expects) you’ll last a year or so, and then one way or another, fall by the wayside. And let’s be honest, making a few more loan payments is nothing to sniff at, even if it entails a few more months of life spent in misery.

The question is whether the alternative – leaving law and getting stuck without a salary big enough to cover loan payments and your current lifestyle – is feasible. The truth is, it might have to be, because there’s a point where somebody has to blink, somebody has to stop lying, at very least, to himself.

Thatinterview is a reflection of a larger phenomenon: The speeding train you boarded when you took the LSAT has finally run out of track. 

You can pretend the tracks are still there and keep chugging along in the same direction, and go on thatinterview. 

But if thatinterview goes off the rails, there will be no more avoiding a new reality, which is that something has changed, irrevocably. 

You can no longer rely on clear, simple answers that happen to be wrong.

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This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.

Please check out The People’s Therapist’s legendary best-seller about the sad state of the legal profession: Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning

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And now there’s a new Sequel: Still Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: (The Sequel)

My first book is an unusual (and useful) introduction to the concepts underlying psychotherapy:Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy

I’ve also written a comic novel about a psychotherapist who falls in love with a blue alien from outer space. I guarantee pure reading pleasure: Bad Therapist: A Romance