Sunday, October 17, 2010

Law Ego, big time

I have heard tell of people who work in biglaw being pretentious jerks, but I never saw it until last night. I was at the bar for a friend's birthday. A woman who apparently knows one of my friends started talking to me:
Her: You are all law students, right?
Me: Yeah. How did you know that?
Her: I just know.
Me: How? Did you overhear a conversation?
Her: I'm omnipotent.
Me: I think you mean omniscient.
[I'd like to pause here and note that this interaction began with her vocabulary gaffe. I will add that I was actually polite about this entire conversation, for once.]
Her: So what kind of law do you want to do?
Me: It looks like energy law.
Her: Oh, I work for the number three energy lawyer in the country.
Me: Oh, that's cool.
Her: Yeah, you want to be on my good side.
Me: Ummm, ok...?
Her: Yeah, I work at Steptoe and Johnson for the number three energy lawyer in the country. He's my boss. [Then she said the names of some lawyers I've never heard of which I do not remember.]
Me: Oh, nice. That's really cool.
Her: Yeah, you want to be my friend.
Me: I'm sorry, I'm really not trying to suck up to you...I don't need...like I already have a job, so it's all good. And your firm already rejected me, haha.
Her: What's your GPA?
Me: What? Why? I'm not...I don't...
Her: What is it??
Me: [Tells her, perhaps stupidly.]
Her: Oh we probably wouldn't take you. We are all 4.0. Haha.
Me: Ok, well...???
Then she walked away and started talking about me angrily to her friend. I really have no idea why. No lie, I was very polite to her this entire time. That might be hard to believe, but take m word for it. I was very conscious of her bad attitude in the face of my pleasantries.
Besides her blatant insecurity and need to prove how important she was, I have questions about this interaction. Is she a lawyer, or is she a paralegal or secretary? I'm not sure how often lawyers refer to their "boss." I feel like they would talk about a partner they work with or their managing partner. Also, she had this massive superiority complex, but the entire thing started out with correcting her vocabulary. Finally, Steptoe is a good firm, but it isn't #1 in the country or anything. Her arrogance was simply stunning.
I asked my friend about this woman, and apparently she runs a health blog. That is ironic. How to put this lightly...her ego matches her physique. She went on to sexually harass Jeff (who was in town and it was fantastic to see). It got to the point where Jeff, a very laid back individual who does not mind female attention, had to tell her not to touch him. If I ever act as arrogantly as this woman, just kill me.

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