Sitting At A Giant's Desk

Hi Family!

So if you come to London to work at a law firm and say you're from America, anything you say about your work experience at US law firms will inevitably be followed up with this phrase "so like in Suits?" or "Oh just like in How to Get Away With Murder." At first I kind of balked at this, and was like no of course not like a totally fantasy tv show. However, as I continue to work here I'm start to realize that maybe, just maybe there's a little bit too much truth in either of those fantasy shows as the American lawyers have a bit too much character compared to these UK ones. 

First off, you can throw away any sense of hierarchy when you enter a UK firm. I mean obviously by title you've got your secretaries, your junior or senior associates, your partners, and let's not forget the trainees. But Imagine this, you can walk into any office, sit at any desk and go your merry own way without someone feeling insulted. That's right people, partners here SHARE offices. Not only do they share offices, but they share offices with an attorney of any rank. And if that partner or senior associate is out on holiday, they will happily have you plug in your laptop into that desk and work in their space. Which is how this girl here ended up sitting at a giant's desk.

Now I'm sure that this guy wasn't a giant, but he was definitely larger than me. Just picture me, in this seat set as low as it can go, with the arms moved way and wide out, massive leather shoes under the desk, and the monitors set to the highest height. I looked positively ridiculous sitting there,  but was too afraid to change anything, as it didn't seem right since it wasn't my seat at all. (In hindsight, I could have changed all the settings to match a person of my size and have been perfectly okay, but I didn't figure that out until the end of the week, when I had been sent back to real estate.)

Since I was working in tax this week, I was sent down to floor two and plopped into a partner's desk while he was away on holiday. Even more crazy, this partner was in a cubicle space. Maybe you guys think I'm crazy to be in such awe with such a simple thing. Let me explain to you how it went at my last firm...

Bottom rung you sit in a cubicle. A little up there and you get an inside office. Partner and you got an outer office WITH windows. Everyone wanted that window space. Your office was your own space, each one with rather pricey furniture and full of expensive flotsam and jetsam: I-don't-know-who-that-is signed baseballs, imported rugs, bottles of alcohol I don't even want to know the cost of. If I ever had to go to a partner's office to grab something, I made sure not to breathe, for fear that I would mess something up and the partner would notice, and depending on the partner, throw a rather public hissy fit about. Now not all law firms are like this I'm sure, and I will give you that I was on a very weird floor with quite a few characters. But that sense of hierarchy is and will probably always be there.

Sometimes I chuckle to myself and wonder if my reaction to London's takedown of the legal hierarchy  is maybe how soviet countries felt with the implementation of communism. It's like I've walked in an alternate universe from what I have seen before, and I gotta say, I kind of like this system here. I mean don't get me wrong, the food chain still exists here, it's not like trainees are barging into a partner's office going "yo broski" and I don't think that will ever happen. However the relationships here seem to be better and more teamwork oriented. In some weird way, within a strongly individualist society, you've managed to get a totally collectivist legal work culture.

I see this over and over again, where I'm not expected to staple 100 copies of something just because I'm an intern. Or fetch the coffee because I'm an intern. Trust me, I offer to do these simple tasks to anyone and everyone when I don't have work to do and the answer is always the same, I can do the task and simply you're not here to do x,y, or z. Shocking I know.

If you've made it this far in the post and are wondering why the heck I haven't talked about tax law, it's because it was capital B-O-R-I-N-G. I mean I can probably quote you the latest British Government opinion and actions on offshore accounts or legislature to crack down on tax evasion. I can chart you the percentages and stamp duty taxes for various sundry things. But it all boils down to tax lawyers being the middle man between a corporation/billionaire who doesn't want to pay taxes and the government trying to force them to pay taxes. And since they're lawyers, they will probably find a loop hole and be the good guy, or not find a loop hole and have to tell their client, nope that's fraud, either change it or go to jail. So probably not going to make a career of this field, but I did get some really great insights into what type of a firm I want to work for and made a really great friend, Frankie, the trainee who sat next to me and gave me some great legal exercises when my to-do lists were severely lacking. 

But beyond that, the week was quiet, with lots of down time, reading, and observing. All I can say is I can't wait to go back to real estate next week!

Love you guys lots,

Carolyn