February: chow chow chow chow chow

February 2009

February was a transitional month. It started with having to check which way the wind blew to know if it would be a "staying on our own" day, or a "joining a national firm" day. By month's end, Dungeon Master and Grouchy Partner accepted an offer from a national firm (which included offers for the lot of us), and a third partner, who had historically fought with Grouchy Partner about...everything, moved on to a somewhat sleepy local firm to tick out the clock until retirement.

In between, there was much stressing and maneuvering. I picked a position by the middle of January -- stay on our own -- and stuck to it pretty solidly until mid-February when the Dow went below 8,000. Then, my tune became "grab some big firm willing to pay us and let's go!" Dungeon Master and Grouchy Partner had the same reaction and by the third week of February, they had accepted an offer with The Firm. A week later, the decision to take us on had been ratified by The Firm and we were off to the races!

The plan was that we would start April 1, since that was the first day of The Firm's fiscal year. It was necessarily the case, therefore, that The Firm didn't send me a formal offer letter (i.e., let me know what they would be paying me) until about March 25 -- why minimize my stress, right? (And not surprisingly, their analysis of the market in which I work reveal that I was earning exactly what I should have been earning... Whatevs. I got a big raise this September.)

February also marked another court extravaganza. Dungeon Master and I had been litigating an investment banking dispute since December 2007 and trial was scheduled to begin Tuesday, February 24, 2009. The bad guys had been without a lawyer since November 2008, and sold off all of their assets in January 2009 (to themselves). Thus, when we went out for the "trial", we really just expected a damages prove up with which we could then go against the bad guys again.

And then, on February 20 -- the Friday before trial -- lawyers enter an appearance and want to rumble. So we basically had the weekend to prepare for trial because our on Monday left at like 7:00 a.m. What we thought would be a quick breeze through LA Superior Court ended up being a week-long trial.

And it was cool -- all the drama you could imagine because none of the regular pre-trial discovery took place (they were sanctioned for it, thank you). This caused quite a few white-knuckle moments: we didn't know what the witness would say, didn't know how the Court would rule, etc. (In June, we learned that we won, but that's Wednesday's story.)

To even out February -- I celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary with the Hubbins. I think I did a post about it.