I left my associate attorney position to do a federal clerkship for a year. How do I explain to friends and family that it’s not like a demotion even though I won’t be practicing as an attorney? All the non-law people I tell seem confused as to why I would take a lower paying, temporary, non-attorney job for a year.

New bee here. How do you guys handle this long hours work mode? I feel like it’s not sustainable for me.

Do you ever discuss salary with your colleagues? Our partner said it was highly discouraged which just makes me want to snoop more.

Anyone at the point of crying and physical anxiety going into work? (Working with terrible people). Job searching but how do I hold on long enough to find something else? Even making time applying and prepping for interviews is hard. How bad an idea is it to just quit? Thinking of going on leave but was told department head has to approve and I think it will be an uphill battle.

How much of your “full self” do you bring to work? I was told that having a visible baby monitor in the background of a remote internal meeting looked uncommitted to the practice. We are an industry full of adults with families, aging parents, and personal lives, yet we’re expected to project this sterile, robotic image of total availability 24/7. I wasn’t interacting with my child at all, and I was fully paying attention to the meeting. But I’m not going to pretend that I’m not a parent.