Oddball Twists and Turns Along Legal Career Paths - From Aaron Charney to Matteo Godi

 Most of us know that career paths are not linear and the journey along them not smooth. It’s amazing we have survived external forces and our own myopia. More and more of us may be on our second, third, or fourth career.

Although increasingly familiar, those sagas still rivet. And inspire. ‘Tis the season to reflect on how those written off as “finished” managed to prove the world wrong.

AARON CHARNEY

It was January 2007, old-line time in Big Law. Generational differences hadn’t reared their heads.

But the rigid conformist ethos didn’t deter associate Aaron Charney from filing pro se litigation against employer Sullivan & Cromwell. He contended sexual-orientation bias. Soon enough there was a countersuit and loss of his job.

Amid the smirking in high-profile media such as New York Magazine was the assumption that Charney had blown up his legal career.

That’s not what happened. Instead there was a settlement (some speculate it was $15 million). He quickly landed a job at Clifford Chance.

Soon enough other associates and even partners would be suing their law firms. The hero lawyer in much of that has been David Sanford of Sanford Heisler.

SHINYUNG OH

Come Spring 2008, Paul Hastings associate Shinyung Oh returned to work after a miscarriage. And to being fired for performance.

She contended that earlier she had been reassured her performance was on-track. Therefore she asserted that she was being terminated because of the firm’s own financial performance.

In a firm-wide email she told her side of the story. That was to open the door to others in that kind of pickle to not slink out with their tail between their legs.

There was praise for her courage, along with the conclusion that she was, yes, finished.

What she indicated later was that a legal background is circumscribed. She experimented with finding a fit outside the traditional boundaries.

As you can view on her LinkedIn Profile, she created a new professional identity as a Marriage and Family Therapist at Mindful Living and a lecturer at San Diego State University. And, yes, she did become a mother.

MATTEO GODI

Late in the day on February 4, 2022, Politico broke the story:

“A former law clerk [Matteo Godi] for a potential Supreme Court nominee [Ketanji Brown Jackson] embarked on a Wikipedia editing spree over the past week, bolstering the page of his former boss while altering the pages of her competitors in an apparent attempt to invite liberal skepticism, according to a statement from his fellow clerks.”

There seemed no ambiguity: This busy bee just kissed away his career practicing law.

Yet, we all noticed this: There he continued to be on the Paul Weiss website. With my journalism hat loosely on (I wear it now and then since the mid-1970s) I called Godi. I wanted confirmation that he indeed had remained an associate at that elite firm. He hung up on me. Double down on the no ambiguity: With that kind of lack of social skills and disrespect for media, this guy …

But there he is, still there. Part of it might be luck. Unlike so many other associates, his expertise is litigation. According to Citi Private Bank and Hildebrand, litigation is the bright spot in Big Law. On professional anonymous networks the buzz is that many associates in litigation are hitting their hours while the lion's share of those in transactional aren't.

In response to the posted question about what lawyers are making their billable quota, for example, is this reply:

"Maybe 20 percent corporate
85 percent lit"

Here is the thread from Fishbowl Big Law.

Maybe it is also luck, maybe it is ability. Maybe it’s both. Godi also has been on the kinds of pro bono litigation projects such as “Samia v United States” that make his work valuable to the law firm.

SO MANY OTHERS

Then there are so many others who don’t make it back from the whatevers. I encountered them when I lectured to unemployed lawyers at the New York State Bar Association.

Essentially they ensnared themselves in a self-blame force field. Over and over again they replayed what they were convinced they had done wrong. Instead they should have changed the channel in their heads to “Strategy.”

Intuitive career coaching, with the option to use the Tarot, about your present and your next. Step back from that committee in your head and open to possibility.  Sliding Scale Fees. Please make an appointment for a complimentary consultation at janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

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