As I sat there shaking my fist and yelling consensus ad idem out my car window, I knew I was going into the correct profession. It was a timely confirmation, having just endured articling week, secured future employment, and realized that I’ll be married to my profession.
Articling week is an interesting experience. It’s like the biological clocks of most second year law students begin ticking and they are all start dating with the intent to wed, with the added reality TV show feel of contrived junior high-like rules that everyone has to follow. If it were a Discovery Channel special it would be called “Legal Mating Rituals.”
First, firms post openings much like personal ads in the classified section. Some firms prefer long walks on the beach, others prefer a good intimate conversation, and yet others prefer to make you slave away for them while they crush your soul and dampen your spirits. Next, upon seeing the postings, law students send in their application packages to the firms they like (or all of them, for those using the shotgun approach) in hopes of getting asked on a first date. First dates are awkward. Both the firms and the students are trying to figure out if they like the other party and if the other party likes them (a “good fit” if you will), all while operating under strict timelines and with numerous third parties. Some students play hard to get, others are quite forward about their feelings, while others embody desperation.
In the end, the firms ask a subset of the students it dated on second dates. These second dates vary from an interview over a classy dinner, to an interview over coffee, to an interview over dinner with several of the other potential students being pitted against each other.
Then comes the suspense. Students wonder if their favourite firm will propose to them and firms wonder if their choice students will say yes.
Now enter the contrived rules. No firm can propose before a set date and time. Firms can express interest in students, but they cannot pressure students to divulge what they will say to a proposal. There can even be a blackout time during which the firms cannot contact the students.
Finally it’s 8am. Phone calls go out and firms propose to students. Students that accept a proposal are engaged. Their marriage will take place just over a year later, barring any unforeseen circumstances (of course, they all stay motivated during the next year). As of 8:04, the grapevine gets going; who’s engaged? To whom? And who received numerous proposals?
The dating analogy continues; some marriages are happy and long-lasting, while others end divorce – an associate may be courted and wooed by another firm, or choose to go in-house, or because the associate no longer wants to practice law. I wonder how a firm feels if it thinks that it was the reason that a student was turned off of the legal profession.
Now in lieu of an actual wrap-up of my post: in London, I heard a TV announcer refer to toilet paper as loo-roll.
I'm driving a car for this week in Israel. It's a white Daihatsu Sirion that we've affectionately named milk dud (milky for short) it's white, looks like a miniature milk delivery truck, and is a bit of a dud.
