Meeting My Replacement

Today, I got to meet a young lawyer who it appears will replace me at the Law Office of the Great Man. A surreal experience. He's about ten years younger than me, a nice enough guy, eager to work and desparate to get his career started. The poor dude's been doing a menial, non-legal job and living at his parent's house in order to survive for nearly a year while he's been looking for a job. He's got a good resume for an attorney of his vintage; he went to Rutgers Law School which sounds pretty good in my book. Problem is, in Knoxville there is a definite hierarchy of law schools which one can attent, in order of preference:

1. The University of Tennessee
2. Vanderbilt University
3. Memphis University
4. Nashville School of Law
5. Anywhere else (including Harvard or Yale)

As a fellow alumnus of Law School #5, I have a lot of sympathy for him. Actually, I have sympathy for him in a lot of ways. I tried to talk straight with him, within the boundaries of professionalism. He deserves to know what he's getting in to, although he got more than enough face time with The Great Man today to have a pretty clear picture of that as well.

But, by this time next week it appears I will be unemployed. As this guy's experience demonstrates, jobs are hard to come by in Knoxville. I'm wondering very seriously how much of a loss The Wife and I are going to have to take on La Casita Knoxvilla should we have to sell it after next month.