October 18, 2006

• I need to relax a little.  I'm on pace to bill 200 hours this month, and that's a lot.  I have to bill 1900 hours a year, and my personal goal is tentatively 2200, which is optimal in terms of both bonus and gaining a lot of experience during my first year.  I'm definitely NOT billing more than 2200, so being on pace for 2400 is a bit insane. 

  I've been billing so much because I love my job.  I'm on two awesome cases, and one of them has an insane number of discovery disputes.  The other side files motions to compel like they're going out of style, and now it's after the deadline for filing those motions, so each motion is really two motions, because they have to move for leave to be able to file their motion late and then there's the motion itself.  They send like 6 letters a day bitching about various things, which totally mischaracterize our positions, so we have to respond to all that.  I've learned an incredible amount about Civil Procedure in general and the day to day mechanics in particular.  But I know that I shouldn't keep this up for my own mental health, and that I probably can't keep it up for very long.

  The problem is that I always bring home one item of work and figure that I'll maybe read a deposition transcript while I'm watching baseball or bang out a few letters to the other side while I'm eating dinner.  And I dutifully complete those tasks and check them off my to do list.  But this is a case in which there's an infinite amount of work, so it's not as though doing work at home makes me any less busy the next day at work.  It just means I get more assignments.  It makes me feel good to contribute to the team, and I know that my immediate boss needs all the help she can get because there's just so much. 

  The thing is that I'm going to be a lawyer for a long time.  Right now it's all so new and exciting, which is why it's great to bill a lot of hours.  My first meet and confer with opposing counsel; the first time I'm drafting an interrogatory response; my first briefs.  I like doing what I'm doing, and so it's fun completing work knowing that there's still more new things to experience.  I think I might be rushing myself a little too much though, short-changing the other parts of my life.

  There have been times in my life where I've been ridiculously lazy.  I'm ashamed of them.  Senior year of college (and the summer before it) was one.  It's so hard to believe that I'm so productive now, but knowing my history, this could well be followed by burn-out and a long period of inactivity.  I need to pace myself.

  So from now on, I'm going to try and avoid taking work home.  And I'm going to try to avoid working too much on weekends.  I'm swamped the whole time I'm at work during weekdays, and that's all billable, so there's no need to bring still more work home.  Some of it has been that we've had immediate deadlines that have required me to work some late nights.  Now, though, I find myself taking briefs that are due in three weeks home to tinker with.  No more.  I'm putting the due date into my calendar and forgetting about it for the next two weeks, and I'll start working on it then.

  Today I left work, picked up dinner, came home and watched some TV.  Then I ran 3 miles and read two chapters of a book.  It was nice.  Eventually I'll need to find friends outside work, join an orchestra or two.  For now, I need to make sure that I have some thing to hold on to outside of work, and since no things immediately come to mind, I'm going to have to create them.  Which I can do.  I just have to follow through.

  • 3:21 am
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