I have written before about the high levels of employee attrition plaguing the modern law firm.

Also, contrary to the “science” (I hope those quotes hurt, ye bullshit statisticians) of conventional bullshit statistics, it is not dentists that suffer the highest rates of depression and eventual suicide (they have it easy contending only with bad breath and bleeding, receding gums), but lawyers (I feel so special!). A lot has been written about this phenomenon - I quite like this post and this one - but my main problem with the discourse is that it tends not to interrogate whether law merely attracts the pedantic, pessimistic, procrastinating perfectionists (who would off themselves eventually anyway even if they were florists) or makes these monsters. Another problem is that the “studies” (again, quotation marks should be construed hurtfully) generally confuse correlation with causation. But that is an edifying post for another day.

And now, back to my point (the blogging equivalent of “and now, back to the studio”). It should be evident to all readers, by this stage, that the legal world can be rather unpleasant (in much the same way genocidal dictators are “rather unpleasant”). You certainly know you are in a skewed industry when a large law firm’s implementation of a policy of saying “thank you” to junior employees makes front page news.

Against this background of intolerability, my previous office-mate has left, not only my firm, but the profession as a whole. Perhaps “left” is not as descriptively accurate as “forced and ostracized out under probably illegal circumstances”, but I am not one for semantics. Of more immediate importance, I now find myself with a new office-mate. He is a young, bright-eyed, recent university graduate, probably drunk on his own promise and potential, as I was for my first ten minutes here. Aside from the fact that I make it a point not to squander emotional energy on befriending people (I am of course polite) before I am sure they are not going to leave (I learned the hard way), I have a more pressing quandary.

My question is this: how much should I help him navigate the murky waters through which he is currently wading? I know the straightforward answer is “a lot, you heartless bastard“, but here’s the thing. It is more complicated than you know.

Law firms are all about distinguishing yourself from the hoard. In my first few weeks, my fellow underlings were totally throwing away stuff I had printed before I got to the copier, hiding important files of mine, spreading poisonous rumours about me, and, on one occasion, tearing pages out of a law report in the library they had heard I was looking for (all the while thinking they were unwatched). And that is just the blog-suitable stuff I am sharing. And I must also emphasize it was nothing specific to me, and not nearly on the level experienced at bigger law firms.

Also, law firms are all about earning fees. Fees, fees and more fees. Taking a dump is 5 minutes (ten to fifteen if you are constipated) that you are not billing your time (I will not even start on the time expended writing this blog…but I have already come to think of it as “necessary”). And the ominous stare of a senior partner will alert you to this fact (as if you could forget) as you pass him in the hall on your return from the bathroom to your desk. Plainly, new guy does not work for or under me, and is actually in a different partner’s department. And time spent helping him, is time spent not distinguishing and commending myself within the firm.

Also, petty as it may seem, nobody went out of their way to help me when I first started. It was sink or swim, and I have come to think of these first frenetic few weeks as a rite of passage. Surviving this initiation period is ultimately helpful to the new employee, as it is a real-time assessment of whether he has picked the right career, and is cut out for the travails it will bring.

Please believe me when I say that in real life (as distinguished from law firm life), I am an exceedingly affable, if cynical and jaded, person. And I have been nice to the new guy, if not overly giving of my time and expertise. But the rules that are applicable in real life are no good here, which I learnt as I spied the crazed page-tearing through a space in one of the bookshelves.

Please weigh in with your views here. I would not be asking this question unless I felt genuinely conflicted about it. We have shared the office for 2 days, and have now, unbeknownst to him, arrived at this watershed.