For the past month or so, I’ve been pulling out some serious stops to post 4 times a week – let’s just say that sleep has become an entirely optional activity from Monday through Thursday. Considering that Boyfriend is starting to forget my hair color and Cat has begun prostrating herself across the keyboard in furry protest whenever I sit down to write, I figure it would be wise to spend a few minutes of actual semiconscious time with them to avoid a potential mutiny. At this rate, they might join forces and condemn me to a leaky raft headed for exile in the Upper East Side. So, with full awareness that Question & Answer posts are a bit of a copout, today I’m answering a few more regular queries. These are valid issues raised by readers that I think are worth addressing for those that have loyally stuck with the blog. Plus, responding to them forces me to engage in some self-reflection and actually figure out the answers. Here goes:

Did you hope to make partner when you began at a law firm?

Not really. I knew from the start that I had neither the will nor the desire. During my first law school class, I sat down in front of my shiny new laptop, hand poised to shoot into the air and indicate that I was ready to make my first poignant, well-developed, thought-provoking comment of the year. Then the class began, and other students started responding to the Professor’s dreaded Cold Calls, and suddenly I experienced a violent epiphany: Holy crap, the majority of people in this room are exponentially smarter than I am. That class pretty much set the tone for the next three years. While I scraped by with the sporadic shining academic moment, I knew all through law school that my peers were willing to go to lengths to achieve excellence that I would never even contemplate. No matter how hard I worked, how many hours I spent briefing cases, how much sweat and blood I funnelled into writing Pulitzer-worthy outlines, these pale, wan legal zealots would inevitably score much higher, possibly with less effort. They seemed to meld easily into the environment of endless outlining and memorizing, like escaped chameleons hiding on a desert rock. Those people have a shot at partner in a big firm. I managed to sneak in the back door on personality.

Are there any positives to your job (besides the money)?

I won’t lie, not every day is a hypersonic spiral down the razorblade-lined waterslide straight into Dante’s third circle of hell. Practicing law is intellectually stimulating, empirically intriguing and occasionally rewarding. If a client is pleased or a case is won or a partner delivers praise (which happens about as often as Us Weekly printing an actual fact) I feel great personal satisfaction. Plus there are associates that I have been grateful to meet and work with. They just tend to be few and far between.

So if working at a large firm is really so vile most of the time, why are you still there? Is it just for the money?

Yes.

Are you worried about being “found out” by your firm?

Of course. I have moments of total panic, where a partner shoots me a dirty look or acts particularly angry for no reason, and I think “Oh shit, they know.” But then I realize that their rude behavior is completely ordinary, and my anonymity remains safe. Plenty of friends have put forth their best Cassandra acts, preaching, “You really don’t want to do this, it could get you in so much trouble, don’t you know that no one else is saying these things about firms, blah blah blah.” The way I see it, I need to be writing this chiefly because no one else is talking about these issues at firms. Why simply accept this massive system that fools and employs thousands of smart young people, without ever questioning it? Why do we acquiesce to the way things are? So I ignore all naysaying advice. Worst case scenario: the firm finds out and throws me out on my ass. So I’ll find another job. I’ve done it before.

Would you quit your job to do something like write a book?

Here’s the tough one. Like my friend Rob the Bouncer, I started the blog because I had no spare time and wanted to stay in touch with friends and family, and make time for a daily journal. Then the site received a little media, lots of people started reading, and ironically now I have far less spare time than when I started. I’ve known for a while that this whole lawyer gig might not be my preferred path in the long run, and I love writing; despite the late nights and sacrificed sleep, blog-writing time is my favorite part of the day (along with designated quality Cat and Boyfriend time, of course). Would I do this stuff for a living? Sure, but I’d rather hold onto my rent and bill provider until HarperCollins comes calling. Of course the idea has occurred to me, but my throat automatically fills with bile at the thought of producing some “The Devil Wears Brooks Brothers” or equally dreadful tell-all roman a clef about evil high-powered law firms. Forgive me for holding out for something better. I’d love to write a book for incoming and current law students telling them the real story – both the positives and negatives of firms, large firms versus mid-sized or small, and the variety of other post-JD career options out there. I would write with no pro-firm or pro-public service agenda, but simply tell an amusing story, present options, and allow students/lawyers to make up their own minds. So Random House, if you’re reading and like the idea, you know where to find me. Now I’d better go remind Boyfriend that I exist and try to scrape Cat off the keyboard.