The Sting
Here's another painful topic. What does an unemployed lawyer do when one or all of his or her references also become unemployed lawyers? Big ouch for everyone. Stings like iodine in an open cut. Hurts real, real bad.
Temp agencies actually call references. So do some law firms. What happens when the phone rings and the caller hears, "Mr. X is no longer with the firm. Goodbye."? If you're lucky, Mr. X has managed to get a job at another firm, and you've kept in touch, so you can update the information. If you're very unlucky, Mr. X is wondering, just like you are, how to pay the mortgage.
If that's the case, you're left with several problems: 1) whether or not to drop Mr. X as a reference; 2) if you don't drop Mr. X, do you ask potential employers to call his home or personal cell phone; 3) will he permit that, or is he too demoralized himself to wish to give out references; 4) if you do drop Mr. X, how and with whom do you replace Mr. X's empty space on your resume; and 5) how do you go about getting replacement references from the firm that fired you in the first place?
Your Unemployed Lawyer has had this very situation arise more than once in these sad, dark days. Not only do you have to feel anxious and distressed over your own plight, you now feel anxious and distressed over the plight of someone you counted as a friend (or why would you have asked that person for a reference in the first place?).
If you're like the Unemployed Lawyer, you will agonize over the possibility of opening even wider your former colleague's already gaping wounds, even as you acknowledge to yourself that without references you will never get another legal job, ever. Catch-22. No way around it. His pain means your pain means his pain means your pain.
Of course, you could always take the more starry-eyed approach--one that the Unemployed Lawyer has considered many times. Rather than seeking a reference from an unseated superior, you could always suggest that you gather up all the unemployed lawyers you know and start your own firm. That might be fun and profitable and feeds the additional revenge fantasy of getting back at the ones who done you wrong by taking all their business away. Let me linger on that thought just for a minute.
Let your Unemployed Lawyer know how you have dealt or would deal with this never-before-thought-of set of circumstances. It's an entirely changed world out there and we have to meet it with new solutions and new ways of thinking.
Temp agencies actually call references. So do some law firms. What happens when the phone rings and the caller hears, "Mr. X is no longer with the firm. Goodbye."? If you're lucky, Mr. X has managed to get a job at another firm, and you've kept in touch, so you can update the information. If you're very unlucky, Mr. X is wondering, just like you are, how to pay the mortgage.
If that's the case, you're left with several problems: 1) whether or not to drop Mr. X as a reference; 2) if you don't drop Mr. X, do you ask potential employers to call his home or personal cell phone; 3) will he permit that, or is he too demoralized himself to wish to give out references; 4) if you do drop Mr. X, how and with whom do you replace Mr. X's empty space on your resume; and 5) how do you go about getting replacement references from the firm that fired you in the first place?
Your Unemployed Lawyer has had this very situation arise more than once in these sad, dark days. Not only do you have to feel anxious and distressed over your own plight, you now feel anxious and distressed over the plight of someone you counted as a friend (or why would you have asked that person for a reference in the first place?).
If you're like the Unemployed Lawyer, you will agonize over the possibility of opening even wider your former colleague's already gaping wounds, even as you acknowledge to yourself that without references you will never get another legal job, ever. Catch-22. No way around it. His pain means your pain means his pain means your pain.
Of course, you could always take the more starry-eyed approach--one that the Unemployed Lawyer has considered many times. Rather than seeking a reference from an unseated superior, you could always suggest that you gather up all the unemployed lawyers you know and start your own firm. That might be fun and profitable and feeds the additional revenge fantasy of getting back at the ones who done you wrong by taking all their business away. Let me linger on that thought just for a minute.
Let your Unemployed Lawyer know how you have dealt or would deal with this never-before-thought-of set of circumstances. It's an entirely changed world out there and we have to meet it with new solutions and new ways of thinking.
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