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10 Ways to Get Fired from a Law Firm in Under 5 Minutes

Summary: Here are 10 things to avoid doing as an attorney if you would like to keep your job.

1. In your next meeting with the firm’s biggest client, wear your “Lawyers Do It for Billable Hours” T-shirt.

2. In the office elevator, loudly ask, “Who is this Rehnquist guy everyone keeps talking about?”

3. Bring your iPhone to court with giant headphones, rock your head spasmodically to loud rap music, and when the firm’s top litigator tells you to remove your headphones, accuse him of being “old school.”

4. Display “Complex Litigation for Dummies” ostentatiously on your desk.

5. At your company’s annual retreat, go up to a senior partner of the opposite sex and say, “You know, I’m married, but I’m not married married.”

6. Defend a half-baked legal strategy of yours by saying, “Hey, it worked on The Practice.”

7. See how that Rolling Rock sign from your college dorm room looks on your office wall.

8. Send out the following mass e-mail to your firm’s managing director and to the partnership committee: “If anyone from the registrar’s office at Harvard Law School should call about ‘irregularities’ in my transcript, please disregard.”

9. “By mistake,” send an AmIHot.com photo of yourself in a thong through interoffice mail.

10. In the middle of a late-night work session on the night before a major trial, suddenly look up from a document, turn to a senior partner, and blurt out, “Dude! I totally think our client’s guilty!”

Andrew Ostler: I started working for The Employment Research Institute in 2008, and currently work as a content manager, writer, and editor for LawCrossing, EmploymentCrossing, and several of the company blogs, including JD Journal. I am also responsible for writing/editing many of the company emails for The Employment Research Institute.