By all accounts, Trevor Gorkins was an attorney on the partner track at Paul Hastings LLP. A star from the moment he entered the firm’s summer program, Gorkins was all locked into a bright future overseeing the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions practice until the economy started making a gigantic sucking sound. Suddenly unable to call on once reliable clients for business, Gorkins was shown the door in January of 2009.
Anxious to hold on to his overpriced lifestyle, Gorkins shot his resume far and wide. A couple of weeks and interviews later, Gorkins was pumped to be hired by Carter & Peabody LLP, a three-lawyer Hoboken, New Jersey self-proclaimed “capital markets boutique.” Unfortunately, this “golden opportunity to make a name for himself” has turned into a bit of a struggle for Gorkins – a lawyer that depended heavily on the resources that surrounded him. Faced with a computer problem on his second day on the job, Gorkins immediately felt the pains of no longer having a dedicated technology help desk as he spent most of his morning dealing with a Gateway IT person (live from India) before giving up and driving home to use his personal laptop. Similarly, when he tried to get the one secretary in the office to help him with making some redlines on a deal document he was met with a blank stare and a "Sweetie, don’t be getting any ideas that I’m your own personal Erin Brockovich. I’m just here to answer the phones and make coffee."
Under pressure to get work done and generate business without the support of an army of junior associate at his beck and call, Gorkins has had to get creative with managing his workload. While he “tries his best” to stay on top of the day to day deal flow, he has been forced to hire his cleaning guy to make copies. He recently convinced his cousin, a junior at Manhattan College, that it would be a good resume booster if he took care of incorporating changes and making redlines on any documents Gorkins sends to his Gmail account. Gorkins has also had a rotating array of girlfriends and one-night stands transcribing his dictation and voicemail messages.
All of this has the once-savvy practitioner constantly on the verge of committing malpractice. In the end, though, Gorkins made a calculated gamble when he decided that size no longer matters. The risk of malpractice is better than no practice at all.
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