Miscellaneous

The Invisible Attorney Rant

If I ever do a quasi-anonymous blog, it'll be called the Invisible Attorney - because that's what I am.  It doesn't matter if I'm the one who writes the powerhouse brief or discovers the magic bullet buried in the thousands of pages of discovery - and points it out.  I'm invisible.  Other attorneys talk over my head to my boss (OK, that's physically easy - I'm 5'1 and he's 6'5) or completely ignore my presence entirely.  Frequently attorneys don't even bother to address me at all, even when it's just them, me, and the boss in the room. 

There are a couple of advantages: first, when people don't realize you exist, they say all sorts of things in front of you that they oughtn't. Second, it is usually temporary: once they figure out I do have a brain, the invisibility starts to wear off.  And third, often when people underestimate me, I can get a lot of work done without them realizing I'm doing it. 

But still, it pisses me off.  Is it that I'm short?  Female?  Do I look and/or sound stupid?   I'm not exactly an unassertive person, so surely it's not that I'm mousy. 

Anyway, back to work.  Drives.me.crazy.

Full post as published by The Menagerie on November 18, 2008 (boomark / email).