Ask Me Anything!
Q&A and open chat for paid subscribers
Hope everyone had relaxing or fun holiday weekends, whichever you wanted. I spent a large portion of it (a) eating because the hormone stimulation shots for egg/embryo freezing makes me HUNGRY and (b) playing The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy which is exceeding expectations because I am tens of hours into it and I still can’t predict what will happen next (rare for me!).
As many of you know, I have huge guilt about creative labor vs. service labor and spend a fair amount of time thinking about ways to offer more to y’all—because I really wouldn’t be here without you. A recent post on one of my fave publishing newsletters inspired me to do my own AMA this week. May is one of those months with a fifth Friday—which means I don’t have any posts planned—so what better time to have an open Q&A/chat thread for paid subscribers!
Feel free to use the comments to:
Introduce yourself! I love reading about you and why you’re here.
Ask me questions about work, life, whatever’s on your mind!
Ask the rest of the readers about work, life, whatever’s on your mind!
Answer other people’s questions!
Link to articles or posts or other internet artifacts you’ve been thinking about.
I’ll respond over the next few days and answer as many as I can (but given that there aren’t too many paid subs yet, hopefully all!), as candidly as I can (given that it’s still a semi-public forum). If y’all seem to enjoy this, we can make it a monthly or semimonthly date! I like Of Counsel because I get to deep-dive into advice—but I also recognize that sometimes you want answers and you want them now, and it doesn’t need to be ~a whole thing~
Three guidelines to keep in mind:
Be respectful and civil. If you feel the urge to insult, disparage, or belittle, ask a question instead to try and better understand where the other person is coming from!
Lead with curiosity, not fear or greed. Please don’t ask for reassurance that is more appropriate for LSD.law or solicit me or others for jobs, application reviews, and the like.
If your question falls in one of those buckets, take a moment to think about how to reframe it in a curiosity-led manner which will also impart value on others reading. Ex. “I have a 3.9x GPA and 16x LSAT. What are my chances of getting into Columbia?” → “I’m really anxious about how much more competitive law school admissions has gotten. What are some things I can do to improve my prospects and my anxiety?” (This is also generally a good tactic for engaging others in relatable conversation instead of alienating them with a seemingly hyper-specific anxiety.)Respect the privacy of others. This includes your friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc. While these comments will only be viewable to other paid subscribers, they will still be viewable to other paid subscribers.
And the usual disclaimer: I reserve the right to delete any and all comments, as judged in my sole discretion, including for violations of the above guidelines.
I’ll kick us off with a few things I’ve been thinking about!