EDITOR’S NOTE: The posts concerning my quest to secure employment will not all come in real time and may include some liberties in order to make them as anonymous as possible given the sensative nature of discussing the firms I may one day work for. In fact, this is likely to be all anyone will ever hear from me concerning work. However, I think it’s important to document this very crucial aspect of the gaining a foothold in the legal profession. Moreover, any stories of compromise will likely feature my mishaps as the village idiot who couldn’t make it through a professional interview without goofing something up, so here goes (this first one is obviously from the a point last year when I was still in school and I just saved it as a draft back then, but it fits perfectly in this new category, now):

I did not really study today. Well, I’m sort of studying now. I also feel as if I just took a final today in the form of a job interview for a firm that would be perfect. And when I say perfect, I mean I have not seen a better job for me in the field of law ever. (Disclaimer so I won’t be crushed when I get rejected, see below: I haven’t been seriously looking for more than a month either.)

So I finished my last classes this morning and got all dolled up for the interview (I do clean up nicely, thanks to the pretty girls who noticed and said so today.) It was downtown, so I took off a little early to make sure I could get parking and brought a commcerial outline with me just in case I had some extra time. Well, had the interview and I thought it went quite well. It lasted a decent amount of time, there was no fixation on my grades, I think I kept from doing weird stuff with my eyebrows while the interviewer was talking, etc. I thought the job was great. I walked out feeling like I did when I thought I aced International Law (This should have been the first warning sign.)

Then, with that feeling of somehow having completed a final while simultaneously not having studied for anything at all, I drove down the scenic highway with the windows down and Gwen Stefani singing away (Old No Doubt, not new L.A.M.E. stuff.) I bought expensive chinese food and called home basically to brag. I am so stoked about the interview and the prospect of working in this great office that I get the notion to write a thank you letter and mail it before 5 so that the interviewer will get it before she makes her decision over the weekend. Usually I think you mainly do this for big firm call-backs, but why not right? It can’t hurt and I think she was the type of person who would appreciate the touch.

Plus I would really like this job. Everything I have done this year and complained about would be worth it and then some to get this job. Did I mention I would like to have this job? (With all due knocking on wood and disclaimers that I probably won’t get the job. In fact, I’ll even drop that I have a promising girl prospect just because mentioning dates before they become serious is my usual jinx and so I am using that jinx to cancel out any jinx that might be incurred by telling this story.) I think it’s a good story to remember and document. I’m not superstitious at all (No wonder I like baseball - touch first base everytime you walk on or off the field, grab your crotch, and then touch your right temple, side of your nose, and soul-patch area.)

I write the letter. I spend half an hour drafting it. Still no studying has occured. Go through my last 4 thank you notes that were meant for relatives for my birthday due to my shitty handwriting and then dash down to the post office confident that I had dreamed about getting this job sometime in a past life. I walk the letter up to the counter and hand it to the clerk and life is wonderful. It was like turning in your exam after your last final. The deal is done. Flash back to service in civ pro and the whole in-the-mail, out-of-your-control situation so that if I die, before hearing back in person, my parents can put this job on my resume and attach it to my picture at the wake (Trying to be funny and Holden Caulfield-like. No? Okay.) So it’s basically like a final. Go home, relax, watch the Cards game and eat more chinese food.

Then it hits me. About an hour after I got back from the post office. Sort of as I was starting to think about going to the gym to run and then to the library to study. I am almost positive I spelled the last name of the lady, and in turn her firm, wrong. Like the type of wrong that is small and phonetic, but that could very well knock you out of the running if things were neck-and-neck. Oh yes, I am a future lawyer and no aspect of life is immune from the second-guessing and anguished, horror-laden flashes of doom and despair. I have the type of memory where, while not photographic per se, I can visualize pretty well specific moments. I can basically see the front of the envelope and how I transformed my “it can’t hurt, but it might very well help” letter into a “could very well cost you the greatest job ever” verdict.

I double checked everything else in the letter for spelling since I didn’t have the computer to do it. Then I dashed through the front of the envelope that everyone sees first. Cringe, cringe, cringe. This has happened before, on the Property final last year when I just had to throw in a joke at the end of the final.

It’s okay though. In the end…

-jd

EDITOR’S NOTE 2: Turns out I didn’t get that job. In all likelihood, it wasn’t the spelling on the front of the envelope. Either I was wrong about the spelling or else a secretary probably opened it and I can’t imagine someone mentioning that I got the name wrong by a letter. So who knows. As someone pointed out, maybe the partners had a nephew who suddenly needed a job, thus skipping right over me, perfect interview and all. However, now that it’s summer, I’ve noticed there are a lot of firms that practice using the same model as this “perfect” firm and so I am confident I’ll find something very similar in the near future.