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Negotiating Law Firm Layoffs: My Part in It

By Victoria Pynchon

(right, Joshua Tree, California, 1992; I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations on this misdemeanor has expired)

To go in the dark with a

light is to know the light

to know the dark, go dark.

Go without sight, and find

that the dark, too, blooms

and sings and is travelled

by dark feet and dark wings.

American Poet, Wendell Berry

Here's the thing about the recession of 1992.  It was my life that collided with it, not someone else's.  There were many lawyers in my practice group of my "vintage" who also had no book of business.  A substantial majority of them found AmLaw200 life-rafts.  They were hired by other AmLaw200 or 100 firms.  Or they formed small, specialized practice groups, took a chunk of the firm's business with them and hung out their own boutique shingles.

I was not among them.  As you'll recall, I landed in a three-man commercial litigation practice in Westwood.  The shock of this transition jarred me awake enough to begin taking writing classes at UCLA.  I didn't have as much money as I used to.  But I did have time.  And as Thoreau famously wrote - The cost of a thing is the amount of [your] life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.  I was learning the cost of the first twelve years of my life as a lawyer.

The MCLE Substance Abuse Self-Study Course (with credit for California lawyers)

I was lucky.  I had what people call a "high bottom."  I'd just lost my place in the AmLaw200, not my license to practice law.  Others are not so lucky.  As of July, 2005, "42 percent of the State Bar Court's active caseload involves attorneys with chemical dependency or mental health issues." (California Bar Journal, July 2005, A Heavy Caseload of Addiction.)

In 2003, an estimated 19.5 million Americans (8.2 percent) age 12 or older had used illicit drugs during the month prior to the survey interview.  Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug (14.6 million past month users, 75.2 percent of illicit drug users).

No lawyer in practice for any period of time will be surprised to read in a recent post in the blog Women and Substance Abuse that drug and alcohol abuse is twice as likely among attorneys compared to the general population.

Frank Galvin: I changed my life today, what did you do?
Laura Fischer: I changed my room at the hotel.
Frank Galvin: Why did you do that?
Laura Fischer: TV didn't work.

February 8, 1994, a Work Day Like Any Other

I've been with this small firm for more than a year and I'm liking it.  My employer handles cases far more sophisticated than I'd expected and opposing counsel are often from the AmLaw100.  I like that because the quality of lawyering is high and I get to be the underdog.  Because of my 1800-hour requirement, I've been able to take three different fiction writing seminars at UCLA and have assembled a new group of friends who are as passionate about literature as I am.  I'm feeling returned, restored to myself.  And I'm enjoying practice because it doesn't totally dominate my life.

I have a hearing this morning in our most important case - a motion for judgment in a lawsuit brought by an HMO against the hospital at which it once practiced.  I've prepared the papers and the oral argument, which is taking place in our conference room before a AAA panel of arbitrators, including the expert who provided the legal punditry on the OJ Simpson case for the E! channel (it will always be Hollywood here).  Smart guy.  Best hearing officer I've ever had the pleasure to appear before.

I'm ready for the hearing but I'm feeling a little . . . dizzy.  And I'm shaking a lot -- too much to punch the right numbers on the telephone in the office to call my doctor to see what in the heck might be physically wrong with me.  I did stop drinking and smoking three days earlier but I am not an alcoholic so I can't imagine my present state has anything to do with that.  Why am I not an alcoholic?

I  never drink in the morning, unless, of course, it's brunch, in which case my drinks come with fruit and festive decorations.  Drinks at brunch are one of the four major food groups for goodness sakes. I only drink Chardonnay.  Good Chardonnay.  I'm particular about this and about the cost of the wine I buy at the Sun Bee Food and Liquor Mart just down the street on the Sunset Strip. I make a point of never paying less than $10 a bottle. I'm employed! and I'm functioning at a pretty high level.  I'm a good attorney and I never ever  drink or smoke anything other than tobacco on the job. I drink only after five (weekends excluded, of course, for festive brunch concoctions) calling myself an "alcoholic" would be overly dramatic, hysterical even; really, I'd just become a little bit dependent on a drink at the end of the working day (didn't everyone drink at the end of the day?) and I'd decided to lay off for awhile to see if it made any difference in my life I'd quit drinking three days before primarily to help me give up a two-pack a day cigarette habit.  I couldn't drink without smoking.  Cigarettes were the problem, not alcohol. I'd seen alcoholics before.  My best friend's father was an alcoholic.  He sat in a darkened room watching television and drinking all day.  He'd tried that antabuse medication - the medicine that makes you violently ill if you drink.  But he always drank anyway.  He was an alcoholic.

Nope.  No alcoholic here.  And I managed to get through that hearing with flying colors.  Then I went to see my internal medicine guy.

Tomorrow:  recovery.

(remember to get your 1-hour substance abuse credits above!)

And for the "worried well" here's a comparison of BigLaw severance packages from Above the Law.  Thanks to @brucecarton in my twitter network for the head's up.  Read his Securities Docket here and follow him on twitter.

 

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on February 20, 2009 (boomark / email).