Disinvestment

The pure blood had a busy festive season. Although he tried his best to take out time for his studies, yet undue client pressures and chores at home somewhat took a toll at times. Visits to relatives and a steady stream of guests and visitors added to the time constraint. Since this was a new area for him, with every passing day he was getting nervous. His whole plan of targeting the faraway city would receive a setback if he was unable to crack this one.

He has researched extensively on the internet to make himself familiar with the subject. In fact the website of the interviewer company had all the requisite information. He downloaded as much as he could on to his desktop in office. In those days, laptops had not yet made an entry in his firm. It was not safe to save a lot of material not related to his assignments. His desktop could hardly be called ‘personal’ except that it was placed on his work station. Anyone could access it with the password generously shared with colleagues.

He also needed printouts of some material which he could read only at home. This posed another challenge since the room housing printers in his office also housed other staff. Either he dared to do it right under their nose or he had to wait for it to be devoid of them. He chose the latter. For that he had to wait till late in the evening. This was not feasible any day now since he was not the only one facing the client heat. Many other colleagues too stayed late and he felt it useless to wait endlessly for them to pack up. At last his opportunity came on a late Saturday afternoon. Office was half day on Saturdays and most of the staff cleared out by 3 p.m. He double checked to ensure that no one else was around and furtively clambered the stairs to printer room. He switched on one of the computers. Since most of them were quite old it took ages to boot. Finally once it was ready, he logged in and began taking the prints. While his prints were going on, he heard the creaking of the stairs leading to the room.

His heart skipped a beat. He quickly assimilated the printed papers below some of his client papers. Soon the office in-charge stepped in. Since it was not uncommon to find the pure blood in office at that hour, it did not raise any doubt in the mind of the office in-charge. He merrily chatted for a few minutes and then went about his assigned duties. The rest of the printing was uneventful. With a bag brimming with papers, the pure blood stepped out of office. He poured through the papers the next day, it being a Sunday. He had carefully avoided any engagements that day and devoted time for final preparation for his upcoming interview next week.

He had taken half day leave on the day of the interview. He patiently waited for the call at the appointed time. Keeping in mind the previous debacle, he had categorically instructed the consultant to convey to the interviewer to call on his home landline number. The loud ringing of the phone made him jump a bit. He picked up and got into the act immediately. There was a lady at the other end with a soft pleasant voice, who introduced herself as a manager in the legal team. After that she asked the pure blood to run through his resume, which he did. She asked him about his experience in drafting contracts relating to international financial transactions. He upfront mentioned that he didn’t have any but since he had read up he was familiar with the terms. She patiently heard and also mandated that experience in their area was a preference and not a pre-requisite for the position on offer. As the interview progressed, she was neutral to the responses. The pure blood was not sure where this was heading.

Once the regular questioning was done, she began explaining the role played by the company’s office in the faraway city. The company, being a multi-national and having presence in multiple jurisdictions required various kinds of research and standard agreements to be drafted. These were generally carried out by the team at this office. Since the company’s global operations had increased manyfold in recent times, they were required to expand their team size to meet the growing demand. The position involved limited interaction with some other lawyers within and was generally backend in nature. She then asked him bluntly if he would be interested in such kind of profile where there not much involvement of Indian laws and the requirement was to carry out standard research and draft standard contracts with pre-defined templates. He was stomped. All the research, effort and time spent on planning for this opportunity with the world’s leading investment bank seemed going down the drain. It appeared that essentially this office was an outsourcing office. After some further probing and discussion, which reaffirmed his conclusion, he signed off after seeking time to think it over. Internally, though, he knew it was over and he would have to make his scheduled trip to the faraway city with not much in hand.

Exploring the Faraway City

After the lull, comes the storm. Having smelled the rose after many months, the pure blood was upbeat now. He shifted gears very fast over the next few days. With a little more effort he was able to complete the routine work much earlier, giving him the time for testing his thoughts. He had made up his mind to seek his fortunes in another city, much like Vasco da Gama or Amerigo! New things meant new thrills.

 

He began browsing various websites for more information on the faraway city. Some of the more profound ones had listing of law firms. A few of them also gave out rankings. Some of the so called big and reputed firms also had their offices there. But this was unchartered territory for the pure blood and he was not inclined to take chances. He preferred to be cautious before making a choice. The reliability of random websites was also doubtful. To some extent, he thought aloud, credible information was likely to be covered by the more popular websites such as Legal500.com, Chambers & Partners etc. The pure blood did not want to be too selective either, so he had kept an open mind even with respect to the small and relatively lesser known firms.

 

He jotted down the names of the firms he perceived would possibly have opportunities for him. The next step was to get their contact details. Most law firms in India don’t have their own websites due to restrictions imposed by the Bar Council of India. Hence the only option left was to fish out the details from the websites he had scanned earlier. Some threw up the desired results but some did not. Over a period of nearly 2 weeks he was able to gather contact numbers and email addresses.

 

Now came the most crucial element of implementation – initiating contact through calls and emails. This appeared to be more time consuming and certainly cumbersome at times. Getting to the right person was the eventual challenge. At that time most law firms did not have an established human resources person, let alone a dedicated team. More than often, one person would have an additional responsibility to respond to job applications. And the replies were typical one liners thanking the pure blood for applying and mentioning that there was nothing to suit his profile at the moment. Although they would agree to keep his profile in their database, which initially was a glimmer of hope, similar replies from some more firms assured him that these were standard responses and involuntarily included in replies to job applications. Sometimes his emails would go unanswered. He sent reminders and forwarded the applications but to no avail.

 

He had carefully drafted the cover letter, which was his only chance of introduction. Somewhere he had read that a job application gets about 5 minutes time of attention of the recruiter, so the margin of error was very thin. He had taken equal pains to get his resume in order -after drafting, redrafting, proof reading, down sizing, improving fonts, spacing between lines and paragraphs, increasing page margins… he was able to get the content to 2 pages. This was also a result of his earlier research – the more crisp the CV the better chances of being read. Otherwise it wouldn’t take long to be deleted from the recruiter’s already overflowing inbox. This editing had consumed more than a week’s time before the pure blood was satisfied with the output.

 

In his own database, he had created columns for the researched data as well as the results of implementation. However, the results columns did not fill up as quickly as expected, rather it was slow and at times very frustrating. But a determined pure blood carried out relentlessly. His perseverance bore fruit after about 2 weeks when the first positive response came. The managing partner of a local firm requested her colleague to fix up an interview with the pure blood. The pure blood’s ecstasy knew no bounds that day.

 

The office break was round the corner by now. The pure blood was working full steam to get as many hits as possible. God helps those who help themselves, goes the saying - a consultant also happened to fix a telephonic interview for him. This was for an investment bank looking out for a legal person in their India office located in the faraway city. With 2 successes in 2 days, the pure blood continued his hunt. However, nothing much happened over the next few days and with the impending interview, he now changed tracks and got down to some serious preparation for the same.

 

 

Trial of an Experienced Lawyer!

The pure blood continued his search for that proverbial grape fruit after his first brush with an interview. In the process his meticulous research and par excellent timing landed him with another interview. This time the opportunity was with a smaller office of arguably the second best law firm of this country.

 

Having learnt his lesson from the earlier experience, he was careful to dot the i’s and cross t’s and scan every comma, semi-colon and full stop before taking the final print. The almost endless printouts in the waste paper bin, evidence of the high degree of precision in his presentation, were enough to raise a mini environmental concern. With the final print on bond paper, he could wipe the sweat off his brow.

 

On D-day, there was torrential downpour soon after the pure blood got into the public bus. Although he thanked his stars that his clothes were saved, nonetheless the bumper to bumper traffic was slowly getting on his nerves. The half hour journey had prolonged to more than an hour, what with the waterlogged roads and endless vehicles - he wondered what the government was doing to fulfill its election promises of clean drains and widening of road space for smooth travel. When his stop was approaching he was horrified at the knee deep water on the road. Some part of his mind which was still calm tried to explore workable solutions. Just then he spotted an empty auto rickshaw a little ahead where the water level seemed much lower. He gathered all his vocal strength and hailed it (the passenger beside him jumped in utter shock!). In a flash the pure blood was off the bus and had hopped into the auto with very minimal damage to his immaculate attire.

 

The auto carried the pure blood to the relative safety of the prospective firm’s office, which took some time to be located, considering the not so friendly neighbourhood coupled with the inclement weather. Once protected from the natural ‘calamity’, he took out his wrist watch from this waist pocket. He could not believe what he saw – nothing short of a man-made ‘calamity’ to him. He was not only behind time, not 5 or 10 minutes, but 45 minutes beyond the scheduled time. For a few seconds he froze, but fortunately regained his composure and decided to go ahead and still give it a shot.

 

He slowly pushed open the heavy glass door and entered. With his voice quivering a bit, he informed the front desk his name and purpose. The middle-aged sharp-looking bespectacled receptionist gave him a surprised look and his heart sank. ‘Not sure if you’re lucky, Mr. so and so (interviewer being a partner) has not yet returned from his morning meeting’. The simultaneous feeling of disbelief and relief made a weird combination on his countenance. He was asked to wait in the adjacent library.

 

As the thunderstorm raged outside, with every passing minute the pure blood’s anxiousness slowly began to show on his expressive face. He grew restless as minutes turned to hours. After 2 hours and a couple of inquiries for any message regarding his interview, the receptionist at last ushered him to the partner’s room.

 

The relatively young looking partner’s volley of questions was directed towards the pure blood’s general legal knowledge. It was turning into more of bookish knowledge until he was asked to apply them to the transactions captured in his CV. This was also not difficult as the pure blood’s high natural curiosity had ensured his application skills were considerably sharpened.

 

Impressed with the pure blood’s interaction, the partner referred him to the other partner in that office, the senior and more thoroughbred of the two. With a tinge of excitement bubbling within him, the pure blood followed the partner into the senior’s room. There was a brief introductory discussion after which the junior partner left softly closing the wooden door behind him.

 

The senior grilled the pure blood on all aspects of the work done by him. He further went on to explain the kind of work which their office primarily handled. Slowly the monologue veered towards whether the pure blood’s past experience would match or even supplement the firm’s current areas of practice. This was the question the pure blood had been preparing for quite some time, since he was aware that he was aspiring to move into a new area of practice and he may not have the advantage of his past experience. He made a strong pitch on his ability to quickly grasp new things as well as his high adaptability level. Moreover the fact remained that he had worked hard to equip himself with legal knowledge and had sufficient experience to deliver in his current firm. Further, to his credit, as a fresher he had no past experience and had learnt it all on the job! So he was prepared to do it all over again and perhaps put in more effort. The senior seemed convinced since the interaction went into deeper aspects and continued for close to an hour (generally considered an indication of the level of interest of the interviewer).

 

The pure blood was out in the open after almost 4 hours, the rain had stopped, water level had receded although rumbling of thunder could be distantly heard. Carefully avoiding the little puddles and the slush of passing water on the sloping roads, he made his way to the nearest bus stop. Throughout the return journey to his temporary residence he kept reflecting on the day’s various discussions, questions, answers, trying to gauge the impression of his interviewers from the various changing expressions as the interview progressed. Although he didn’t want to count his chickens before they hatched, he felt much better to conclude that he definitely stood a bright chance to make it through.

 

It was a week later that the pure blood received a response from the junior partner. The one line response read ‘We are happy to try you for a period of three months on a salary of .... per month.’ The bolt from the blue left him speechless and rooted to the spot for what appeared to be eternity.

What Has Jack & Jill Got To Do With Your CV?

 

The anomaly of penning about life as a qualified lawyer lies in the fact that one way or the other we end up discrediting what we do, or at best keep wishing for what we cannot do!

 

Any corporate lawyer (a true pure blood one) working for a 'top-notch' law firm will never admit the misery he goes from morning through next morning, without any break. He will instead brag about his 'hard work' to everyone he can, including his poor cousins who were not so 'fortunate' (half bloods) in joining the magic circle.

 

But as the saying goes, which I have always believed to be closer to the ultimate truth, "A man can fool everyone, except himself". The pure blood knows exactly where the shoe pinches! But his false sense of pride will egg him on to cover the cringe whenever the pinch hits him.

 

One such pure blood that I happen to acquaint told me how ridiculed he was at such a law firm. Having completed about 2 years in a smaller set up, he felt he was now prepared to take the plunge. So off he went putting CVs through owls at all the so called top corporate law firms. And voila! his efforts paid off when the invite for the interview came.

 

Dressed in his new white cuff-linked shirt and black trousers, he was seated inside the firm's plush office 15 minutes before time - 'on time is late' being his mantra. But being early had its consequences as well - frequent nervous looks at his wrist watch, hopeful eyes fixed on the petite receptionist, every intercom ring making his heart leap - all the ingredients of a nail-biting situation. 

 

Forty five minutes beyond schedule was getting too far, when he finally walked up to the damsel, who informed him that the interviewer was in a client meeting and will be a 'bit' late. But God is kind, a few more minutes later and with a stern look from the receptionist, he was ushered to a large conference room down the corridor.

 

The pure blood was now sweating all over, beads appearing on his forehead, despite the comfortable airconditioning. He quietly took the opposite chair and unmindfully sat on its edge. No sooner did he do that, that the door opened and a short, middle aged man with a neatly trimmed French beard appeared. The interviewer had arrived.

 

General introduction was followed by a description of the firm and the 'unique' work culture. Next on the agenda was a volley of questions, shot one after another, from the CV that had been presented. The pure blood answered all, diligently and confidently. He was sure he had aced it when all the topics were covered, or so he thought.

 

He had not paid much attention to the last section on 'co-curricular' activities and inspite of past experience with interviews, research on websites and general guidance from fellow professionals, he had not really focused on this part.

 

The first entry related to a moot court competition from his college days, in which he had represented his team as the official researcher. Pat came the question - what was the moot court problem?

Stumped (the pure blood's spontaneous reaction)!

 

Instinctively he racked his brains in vain - the few seconds of silence cost him dearly as we shall find out. The partner prodded some more into the moot court competition. By then the pure blood had gone completely blank. The next question was - Can you tell me the nursery rhyme - Jack & Jill? Come on, go ahead and tell me? The pure blood had no inkling about the connection. But finally his lips parted and he answered, like a small child.

 

The partner almost thundered - If you can remember what you learnt twenty years ago, why cant you remember something that happened four years ago?

 

The pure blood wished that the ground (aka conference room) would swallow him.

That was not the end of the humiliation. The partner then called for one of the firm's associates and asked him a question on some law (the pure blood was no more in a position to comprehend which law). The associate was also probably having a bad day, he fumbled with the incorrect answer.

The partner ordered him to take the relevant statute out, made him read the law and asked him to write out the same and prepare for a 'test' by evening, failing which his salary for that month would be halved.

 

The ordeal went on for fifteen minutes, at the end of which the partner once again turned his attention to the pure blood. This time, to the utter disbelief of the pure blood, he offered to recruit him; with a catch of course - he would have to accept a cut in the current salary (mind you - recession was never heard of at that time), as a token of gratitude for moving up the law firm ladder.

And just to entice him, the partner took him around the firm and also to the terrace cafeteria where daily lunch (on the house) was served. He also introduced him to other staff while showing him around and much to the pure blood's relief, bid him a good day!

 

Whether the pure blood took the job or not is anyone's guess. But I had learnt my lesson - something which we are told every now and then - be thorough with every comma, semicolon and full stop of your CV and do not include stuff which you cannot substantiate.

 

The pure blood felt so much better outside, notwithstanding the hot summer afternoon sun beating down on him... Indeed he had survived today to continue his quest for the quintessential life.

 

First published in http://www.legallyindia.com