Shift_Employers

Yesterday was surreal enough. Today I got to work on withdrawal arrangements for all my cases. Those amongst the Loyal Readership who are not attorneys may not be aware that I cannot simply quit a case; I need the court's permission. Since The Great Man is not going to be paying my salary anymore after Tuesday, I will not be paid for fulfilling my responsibilities to my clients. So if I do not file motions requesting the court's permission to be relieved of my duties as counsel for these people, I will continue to be their attorney, responsible for representing their interests, even though no one is paying me to do so. So that's what the motions are all about. There are financial interests to be divvied up with HBL, letters to be written to nearly 200 people, and a lot of other work involved. All this so The Great Man can hire a lawyer who will accept half my salary to do my job.

I've been pursuing every employment lead I can find. It seems like there is some demand for an attorney of my experience and background in Nashville. Nissan of North America is looking for a California-licensed attorney to assist with transferring operations from Gardena to Tennessee and for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. I already know how to do the former and I can hopefully get a few pointers on the latter from a good friend back in California. (If you are a CPA-JD working at a Big Four firm who was in my wedding party, I'm talking about you.) There are several CA-TN attorneys out there, but the population is somewhat narrow and I expect that whatever attorneys from Nissan's former headquarters in Gardena are going to transfer out here and try to waive in to the bar. Not all of them will make it thanks to some wrinkles in the Tennessee admissions policies. So hopefully, I've got a leg up on my competition there.

If I seem a little bitter it's because it's been a rough day on the emotional front. Many of these clients and cases are ones that I find myself loath to part with, not for the money but because I've come to care about the people and about the cases. And then there's the personal impact: I haven't been exactly happy in my soon-to-be-former employment situation, but it's the only situation I'd been able to find for myself. A job which one dislikes but which pays is better than no job at all. The prospect of returning to effective unemployment is very scary. Waiting for responses from potential employers is tough. Following up with phone calls and e-mails is apparently part of the game now, and I'm not sure about the protocol for how long one should wait.

Nashville would be kind of cool. Not that far to move; we'd still have to sell La Casita Knoxvilla and find a suitable residence in Middle Tennessee, but the logistics involved in that would be relatively easy to handle. And maybe people struggle a little bit less in a more cosmopolitan city like Nashville. Every time I've been there so far I've come away pleased. So we'll see. All I can do now is try as hard as I can and hope for the best.