i spoke to a friend of mine from the law office I was working in before i came out to law school. We had the best office. First of all, it was super casual. Nobody dressed up unless they had to go to court, and since I was a legal assistant, it was NEVER for me. So I got to wear jeans all the time. I sometimes was more comfy in a skirt, but usually not, b/c as I said in a previous post, I ride my bike in the summer/spring/fall, and in Berkeley, CA, it's *always* summer/spring/fall.

Second, it was super-liberal. We weren't actually a firm, but rather a bunch of sole practitioners sharing a suite, and almost everybody had their progressive legal mission. My boss and I did family law, but with a heavy concentration on alternative families (we did adoptions for lesbian couples, and would have for gay men, but it never came up, even though we would do 3-4/month for lesbian couples; created relationship agreements for gay or lesbian partners starting out a domestic partnership; and we had some custody battles, and some break-up negotiations); another attorney represented tenant groups in nasty landlord/tenant cases -- oakland, california has some nasty-ass places to live, let me tell you. Cases where babies got their fingers and toes chewed on by rats. ugh. Another did bankruptcy law, another did death penalty cases -- even argued in front of the good old U.S. Supreme Court last summer. Oh, and then there was the ambulance chaser. Yeah. he wasn't so progressive.

The attorney I worked for was known as being really "difficult." Or, a bitch. But we really clicked, in a professional kind of way, and we worked together fantastically. I worked there for 3 years, with people looking at me with their eyes bugging out of their heads as my boss would come out at 2:30 and say, "I'm sick of working, let's go home!" since apparently, her last assistant was mistreated to the point of being forced to bring her puking child to work, even though there wasn't anything to do. But it wasn't the case for me. I even had one summer where G went on a trip for TWO MONTHS, and I sat there reading a book. Or 10. Or 20. (why law school is such a shock). And I got paid. Full time. I had mail to open. A few phone calls here or there.

But since I left in August .... her EIGHTH assistant just gave notice. Because G is just being MEAN. She was never mean to me. I don't get it. She is scaring people off left and right. I feel terrible, fleetingly now and again, as if I left her stuck, unable to get decent help.

I thought maybe she was mad at me, for leaving. But she sent me a really nice email recently, saying she heard I was all set for the summer, and that I should always remember I can go back to CA and practice with her. So she's not mad at me. I wonder if she has been holding out, though, on committing to an assistant, thinking I may want to return for summers. It wsa never on the table for me (and she never mentioned it outloud!), b/c I can't go moving my kids back and forth like that, and my summer isn't the same as their summer; I'm done on May 13, and htey're not done until June 29 or something obnoxious like that. So I couldn't up and run off to CA 6 weeks before they're done with school. Even though they'd love to come. They miss their friends :(

And I miss my sister. I left her behind there. And she's great.

posted by Zuska @ 1:54 AM

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