I'm not high tech enough to get the Jaws music to play. Here is the next installment of my personal labor journal.

It was a beautiful September day so my mom and dad went for a picnic at Jones Beach (Long Island, New York).  They talked about how great it was that both their daughters had jobs.  Then, that night, dad got the call, "hey, what do you think it means that the law firm is dissolving?"  Now, I can tell you that it ultimately meant an $8000 pay increase (job at a different law firm) and a great future lesson in partnership dissolution!

Physics, Swimming Pools, Manholes, Contracts, Cats and Pink Cupcakes

My Personal Labor Journal   © 2011 Julie Shubin

First Employment as a Lawyer: 

I had to make a tough choice between accepting a job offer from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York or from LMM.  In the spring of 1987, I decided to go the civil route and work at LMM.  On my first day of work in September 1987, the other first year law associates and I were informed that the night before our first day of work, the LMM partnership had voted to dissolve the law firm.  Little did I realize then that, 20 years later, I would be able to use that horrible day, to teach my business law and commercial law students about  dissolution of partnerships.

The partners at LMM helped us set up interviews at competing law firms, and I was hired by the Watt, Tieder, Killian and Hoffer (WTKH) law firm, where I practiced construction and government contract law for approximately 2 years. 

During my tenure at WTKH, I developed excellent professional research and writing skills, participated in written discovery, took and defended depositions, and assisted with a construction contract trial involving the construction of the Denton County Jail, Denton, Texas.  I also argued my first court motion as a lawyer, representing a client in a mechanic’s lien case in a Chesterfied Circuit Court, Virgina. 

Dissolution does not equal disaster.