"Where Do You See Yourself in One Year?"

I hate that question. Pretty much every life decision I've ever made is in some way related to my desire to temporize, putting off any 'big decisions'. Every family function where I see old(er) people, that's the first question they ask. (I'd prefer, 'so how about this heat?', actually) Heck, law school was supposed to buy me three years. (Of course, little did I know that, were I really a go-get-em lawyery guy, I would have had my career mapped out up to age 40 after my first term...but why map out today what you can slide into tommorow?)

But soon, such decisions will have to be made. Probably not by me, though. I mean, I'd hire me, but would you? (Don't answer, geeze, you aren't objective...) That being said, I'll almost certainly be working as a first year associate for some litigation firm, somewhere, doing, well associat-y things: Cite checks? Check. Document review? Yes, (and throw an extra shot into that Grande Pumpkin MochiFrappaCano, if you would). Discovery responses. Objection to form...

In all honesty, I'll a little wary of how 'life' will be in that venue. Thankfully, pseudonymous blogger Stanley Stankowski has some (I hope) exagerrated and (I'm sure) humorous tips and annectodotes for a newly minted associate. Favorites: Hypothetical interoffice memos to various firm archetypes. An excerpt:

Dear Really Short 6th Year Associate: I know that it sucks to be short. I mean, really, outside of the legal world, I am average at best. Of course, since I am in the legal world, and I am over 5'9 … I am a damn giant. I tower above everyone, be they male or female. Especially you. As noted, I am sympathetic. However, contrary to the old saying, when you ask me if I have finished that 20 page brief that you assigned me ten minutes ago, and I say (in my most nonchalant of voices) "Well, no," and then you yell at me and curse a lot, I am not really "being cut down to size." This is easily demonstrated when I stand up to follow you down the hall as you continue to yell. I am still much taller than you.

Also amusing, ruminations on the fallibility of spell-check, the pointlessness of most discovery-related litigation and, of course, the truism that lawyers are assholes.