Shunting trucks and hauling freight

K is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine.

I had never actually watched a Thomas episode before about a week ago. There are an infinite number of trains, which all look more or less the same except that some are different colors, and they all have different names. Somehow K has learned to identify each one. I wonder how much space in his developing brain is taken up by determining which blue train is Thomas, which is Edward, and which is Gordon. Actually, I should worry more about myself. He still has years of neural plasticity ahead of him.

The British episodes of Thomas are all the same. The American ones appear to be a little more varied in their plots, but the British ones go like this:
1. Featured train gets excited over some assignment or compliment.
2. Exciting assignment or compliment goes to train's head.
3. Train refuses to listen to someone telling it what to do.
4. Instead, train does whatever it wants.
5. Train gets into trouble and disappoints everybody.
6. Train repents, listens to advice, does extra work, gives away exciting assignment or disclaims compliment.

Every British episode of Thomas features the following lines:
"[Train] was upset."
"[Train] felt terrible."
"Fizzling fireboxes!" or "Bust my buffers!"
"[Other train] was happy to help."
"[Other train that gets exciting assignment] was delighted."

K always runs for his (generic) toy trains first thing in the morning, and yesterday he kept repeating over and over as he played with them, "Thomas felt terrible. Thomas felt terrible. Thomas felt terrible."

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Baby corporate lawyer

After three weeks, I know a lot more about corporate law. But I still know very little about corporate law.

Work has been slow. I'm on a very complex deal, so there's not a whole lot I can do to contribute. I have some pro bono nonprofit work, but other than that I don't really have ways to get work. I've been taking lots of time to read through the deal documents carefully, peruse the Delaware corporate code, and learn about securities law and venture financing. I don't feel a lot of pressure to bill since it's my first few weeks and I didn't have the massive orientation that the other first-years get, and I know it's good to have time to ramp up. But I think I'll be happier when I'm busy. When nobody's knocking on my door and there's nothing urgent on my to-do list, it's hard to overcome my tendency to procrastinate. And procrastination is no good when you have to keep track of every tenth of an hour.

I understand now why junior corporate associates complain about work being dropped on their desk at 5 p.m. on a Friday. Partly it's the nature of the work -- when clients call, you spring into action. But also it's because the senior people on the deal are busy all day talking to clients, investors, banks, and their counsel. By the time they finally get to take a breath and get organized enough to think about what they can delegate to you, it's late in the day. So if you're a first-year, you sit around twiddling your thumbs (or reading an M&A treatise, if you're good) and waiting for that call.

Here are some things I've been doing: Maintaining a closing checklist. Drafting some simple documents, like consents, waivers, and certificates. Going through lists of employees and shareholders to figure out who all the stockholders are, how much they own, and how much stock is outstanding.

The typical first-year associate corporate activity is due diligence -- going through boxes and boxes of documents to make sure a company has no skeletons in its closet that would prevent a merger or acquisition -- but in this economy, big M&A deals are few and far between. Some commenter on Above the Law said that corporate lawyers who start during a recession never catch up on the skills they miss during the first few years when they don't have enough deal work. That sounds plausible to me, but I hope it doesn't happen.

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Almost two

K's conversation on his toy phone in the tub: "Hello. I listening monkey song. Then, Thomas movie!"

He's going to be two in a week.

A friend who's expecting soon told me about the tiny clothes she had bought. I remember seeing the 12 month pajamas on the same rack while shopping for newborn pajamas, and thinking they were impossibly huge.

My first summer at The Firm, K was just three months old. Another woman said to me, "We have a baby at home, too!" "How old?" I asked. "Two and a half." I remember thinking, "That's not a baby!"

He still cries and wears diapers, but he's not such a baby anymore.

Next week: stay tuned for adventures with a 3-D duck cake!

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Work goals

I wrote about my pre-law school goals. Now that school is over and I'm starting my new career, here's a new set of goals for the years to come.

• For the first two years, don't even think of being unhappy or bored. Just learn as much as possible. It's all training for whatever comes next.
  
• Step back once in a while, think about where I want to be, and develop a plan for how to get there, rather than just taking whatever is handed to me.
  
• Get to know people within the firm. Develop an internal network. Knock on somebody's door at least once a day.
  
• Set boundaries and stick to them as much as possible, keeping in mind the nature of the work and my need to establish a reputation.
  
• Also on the work/life front: Be flexible and do what works, without feeling constrained by what others have done in the past.

Where I see myself in five years: Maybe still at the firm, hoping to make partner eventually; maybe as in-house counsel at a tech company; maybe something that isn't on the radar yet.

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Looking back on law school

Before I started law school, I wrote two posts about my goals: Things I want to do in law school and How I hope law school will change me. I thought at the end of school, I'd go back and reflect on my expectations and what had actually happened. But actually, I moved on pretty quickly. When I went to clean out my locker a few weeks after finishing school, I had forgotten the combination. So I'll just say: check and check.

OK, I do have two comments about things that turned out differently than I expected:

I thought law school would be hard and competitive and not much fun. Wrong.

I hope that I will be able to look back on law school and be proud of how hard I worked and what I accomplished, and that I will not work below my potential and regret it later.

I did achieve this goal. But when I look back and think of what I accomplished, I don't think about being on a journal or getting a prestigious job. I think of giving birth to and raising K, pumping in between classes, forming a community of parents at law school, while still keeping my grades up and writing papers and doing clinicals. I think what I accomplished is summed up by my official graduation picture: me in cap and gown, K on my hip brandishing a plastic gavel.

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Work continues

Not much to say there. I'm on a deal, but given that I have a whopping two weeks of experience, I'm doing stuff that's a notch above secretarial work. Not that I'm complaining -- I'm happy to do whatever I can.

I read these two books, Jagged Rocks of Wisdom: Professional Advice for the New Attorney by Morten Lund, and The Young Lawyer's Jungle Book: A Survival Guide by Thane Messinger.* Actually, I didn't get all the way through the Jungle Book, but Jagged Rocks is basically a very condensed version. They're both books on how to succeed in a large law firm. They purport to be applicable to all sorts of legal situations, but then they go on to discuss partners and secretaries and perks and huge deals/cases, so not really relevant for other settings. I liked them both -- the Jagged Rocks book is a quick, concise read, while the Jungle Book covers everything you could possibly think of (which is why I haven't finished it yet, but it's still on my shelf and I will continue to flip through it on occasion).

Anyway, both books boil down to: make yourself useful. You're a junior associate and you don't know anything. So, whatever little you can do, do it well and make sure that you're being as useful as possible to the people you're working with.

It's not rocket science, but it's a good reminder. Another good reminder: my first paycheck. Can't really complain about putting in lots of hours when I'm getting paid nearly twice as much as I was in my last real job. I was there until 10 p.m. one night this week, have put in some hours over the weekend and at night, and will be in tomorrow on a nominal firm holiday. Not a big deal, and I'm enjoying the work so far. (I have a high tolerance for proofreading and detail-checking, one reason I think I'm well-suited for corporate work.)

I am constantly busy, a big change from my relaxed school schedule. I'm tired. But these days, reading Above the Law is just as frightening as watching the national debt ticker increase, and I am very grateful to have this job.

* Disclaimer - I got these for free after reviewing The Slacker's Guide to Law School, by the same publisher.

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The juggle begins

Here's our new schedule:

6 a.m.: Everybody wakes up. (We set the alarm, but usually we hit snooze and are woken up by a yelling toddler before it goes off again.)
6:45 a.m.: JW leaves for work.
8 a.m.: K and I leave for daycare and work.
4 p.m.: JW leaves work to pick up K. JW comes home and makes dinner.
6-6:30 p.m.: I get home.
Before going to bed, I shower and lay out my clothes and pack my bag for the next day.

I sat down with the partner I'll be working for most and told him that I would like to be home for dinner and bedtime as often as possible. I assured him that I would stay in the office whenever necessary, and that I could continue working from home or even return to the office afterwards, but for those two hours each day, I would like to be at home. He seemed okay with that, although I'm sure he'll reserve judgment for a few months as we both see how things go.

So far, so good. JW has to get up two hours earlier, but he's happy to get out of work early. K isn't spending that much more time in daycare, and I think it's good for him to get more Daddy time. I need to get used to my days being jam-packed, especially since I'm like a ten-year old and need eight hours of sleep to function properly. But I like the job. ("I drafted an agreement!" I came home and said to JW, who replied, "Uh...okay. I mean, good for you?")

Our new schedule has been complicated by major sleep problems for K. (Which started a day or two before I went back to work, so at least I don't have to feel guilty.) K didn't sleep through the night until about ten and a half months, when we started letting him cry it out, and since then he's been a great sleeper. Happy to go to bed at night, only wakes up at night once a week or so, and generally goes back to sleep on his own. I saw it as payback for all those sleepless nights during the first year. But suddenly he developed major separation anxiety, refusing to go to bed and then screaming nonstop when we leave the room. Throughout the night, he keeps waking up and freaking out when we're not there. The first night, we had no idea what was going on and were in and out of his room all night. For a few nights I slept in his room. Two nights he threw up because he was crying so hard (and one of those nights, we didn't realize until after he had fallen asleep). Yesterday I tried telling him that we were close by, sleeping in our own bed, and that seemed to help. (This involved, among other things, a story about a mouse and a bunny who play with Legos together.)

As work gets busier, I'm not sure how the new schedule will work out. We'll have to play it by ear.

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But I do see that

K: Underneath. Can't reach! Underneath!
Me: Do you need help?
K: Yes. Mommy get it!
Me (peering under couch): I don't see it.
K: But I do see that.

Whoa. Did we just have a conversation?

When did this happen?

K has figured out "Yes I do" and "No I don't" lately, which has added quite a bit to his conversational abilities. I think this is his longest sentence to date, not counting "I don't know what that is," which he learned from a video.

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