Originally published on August 11, 2010 in our free BigLaw newsletter.
A few weeks ago, I helped you figure out when it's time to leave your large firm job behind. Whether you've decided to stay put or are feverishly working on your departure memo, you can't claim to have done time in Biglaw without completing certain rites of passage. At my undergrad alma mater, you couldn't graduate (with any dignity) without having both copulated in the library stacks and peed on a famous statue in the middle of campus. Given the humorlessness of the legal profession and the dismal job market, the BigLaw Bucket List below does not require you to defile a colleague in a supply closet or urinate on a Redweld … at least not at the same time. Before you earn your last inflated paycheck and kick the BigLaw Bucket, make sure you've earned your stripes. All 50 of them.
1. Bring a cocktail to every meeting.
2. Reference Rocky III repeatedly on a conference call, and say "I pity da fool" at least once.
3. Give an enormous box of your city's best donuts to the overnight word processing crew.
4. Sample all the cafeteria entrees at least once and fill out the feedback card.
5. Locate the mythical office shower and take one.
6. "Forget" to attach a document to buy yourself more time.
7. Tweet "In client meeting, LOL" from a client meeting.
8. Fart in a partner's chair.
9. Take your family on a tour of your office.
10. Seduce a paralegal.
11. Send a "high importance" email to a colleague asking if he or she wants to combine dinner orders.
12. Wear the same outfit every day until someone says something.
13. Steal someone's lunch from the communal fridge.
14. Give a good review to someone who means well but doesn't deserve it.
15. Pose for a photo with your deal toys.
16. Replace the water in the coffee machine with Gatorade.
17. Ask for a new computer before you give notice.
18. Take friends out for dinner and charge it to Business Development.
19. Conduct a messy break-up on speakerphone.
20. Perform a public records search on your supervising partner.
21. Sneak your dog into the office.
22. Buy and prominently use a "#1 Lawyer" mug.
23. Send a letter on firm letterhead to Steve Jobs about the iPhone 4.
24. Rap your voicemail greeting.
25. Request to connect with the managing partner on LinkedIn.
26. Invent a funeral and take a personal day.
27. Ask HR to have your firm photo retaken every year.
28. Send an email to your assistant thanking her or him for the hard work.
29. Take your firm's black car service to a White Castle.
30. Replace your "Ladies and Gentlemen" email salutation with "Listen Up People."
31. Read the Wall Street Journal cover to cover in the handicapped bathroom stall.
32. Switch your 401(k) contribution amount every term.
33. Organize an unnecessary teleconference.
34. Vomit at a firm social function.
35. Plant a receipt for condoms in a BNA Tax Portfolio.
36. Take out your own garbage at the end of the day.
37. List Seamless Web sushi delivery man as an emergency contact on your medical form.
38. Submit a scathing, unsolicited 360-review of a partner.
39. Keep your office door closed for the day while working in pajamas.
40. Send a scone via interoffice mail.
41. Describe a colleague to a partner as "definitely not partner track."
42. Affix "Born to Ride" bumper sticker to your firm-issued laptop.
43. Respond to a partner emailing you an assignment by stating, "Can't right now, at a club."
44. Practice a wind instrument in your office after hours.
45. Backtrack on an already-negotiated point by claiming Opposite Day.
46. Purchase telescope/binoculars for office.
47. Send office-wide "Does anybody know a good malpractice attorney (for a friend)?" email.
48. Prepare a tearjerker farewell speech.
49. Send in a juicy tip to Above the Law.
50. Become a BigLaw columnist for TechnoLawyer.
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