Great Work Dresses in 2025

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1. May is mental health awareness month. Can someone tell my office that supporting mental health is not about displaying toxic-positive messages on felt letter boards and handing out packets of lavender electrolytes?

   1. What would you like to see them do?

      1. I’d give anything to work at a place that cared enough about mental health to pull out felt letterboards and lavender electrolytes. If I were to even tell my boss something hurt my feelings, I’d be treated as a pansy not built for an office.

         1. The “Just Power Through!” message I was greeted with today is soooo encouraging!

      2. My work could certainly do a lot more, but one thing they have done that I appreciate is that we get two hours of additional leave per week to spend however makes us feel rejuvenated/relaxed/etc. People use it to go to therapy, to go fishing, to take an art class, to take a nap! It is not nearly enough and my court schedule doesn’t always allow me to take it, but it feels like something more than lip-service to the idea of taking care of ourselves.

   2. I’m sorry, this is so entitled. If you are at a company that is even honoring mental health awareness, you are luckier than 99% of people. Companies are gutting DEI and insisting the workforce needs to be ‘more masculine.’ Be grateful they are even acknowledging it as something to build awareness and empathy for, while many treat it as a liability and something to shame, like most would.

      1. If that’s your schtick you can suck it up and Be Grateful but I will not normalize reposting toxic instagram garbage as a replacement for actual mental health support awareness. My office has a front row view of an anti-BML protest this week. Today, dozens of uniformed law enforcement officers have joined the protest. The hydration packets don’t make strong enough koolaid for me to Live Laugh Love my way through that crowd to arrive here in a peaceful state of mind.

         1. The protest is horrible, and I’m so sorry you had to walk through that! Unfortunately, it isn’t our workplace’s responsibility to give us a ‘peaceful state of mind.’ The idea that we are entitled to expect that from them, and can get mad when they don’t provide it, is just hard for me to wrap my head around when I am seeing office cultures all around me regressing to the point where they wouldn’t even acknowledge mental health as something to think about at all. Let alone non-office jobs, where in some states you’re lucky if they even take physical health seriously.

            1. You misread. I am pissed that they could have just done nothing but instead are peddling drivel as though cutesy kitsch will hide the awfulness out the window.

            2. lol I’m with you. Having to act grateful for something that’s no more than lip service is irritating. Better to either do nothing, or actually consider what could be substantively improved, than hand out lavender and call it a day!

         2. What is BML? Google says the Bank of the Maldives, I can’t imagine anyone would protest that.

            1. I assumed it was a typo for BLM

   3. I didn’t know that lavender electrolytes were a thing, but now I want some! I’ll take the random positivity messages too – it might seem generic to you, but we could all use more positivity in our lives. You never know who needs to see/hear it.

   4. I’ll take your lavender electrolytes.

   5. As someone struggling with crippling PTSD, thank you.

      I absolutely loathe this fake positivity crap. I spend thousands of my hard-earned dollars on therapy because “take it one day at a time! :) :) ” isn’t cutting it anymore.

2. A newish big-law non-equity partner in a practice where you need to build your own book…any tips on what has worked best for you? I am going to endless mixers and dinners and I’m tired.

   1. Make sure you explicitly understand your firm’s crediting model. Do you only get credit for originating new clients? New work with existing clients? Running a deal? Can you have something like 20% of any tranche?

      Then, go where the clients are. Mixers are (IMO) a lot of lawyers. Figuring out how to do an accredited CLE (if for your area + ethics, that usually gets attention). Package up something and start meeting actual clients. Clients often don’t have a budget, so offer to present to them. But think about your metrics and where clients actually are for the work you can pitch to them (and the best is bringing in work that someone else does, so think about your friends; possibly learn to hunt in packs).

   2. -where have your former associate friends gone in-house? they will grow into decisionmakers, or at least major influencers, faster than you might think
      -as the prior poster said, how does origination credit work at your firm? if you cross-sell, how much of that is “yours”?
      -thinking about how I would go about finding a firm “cold” if I needed an expert in something new-to-us — does your practice group issue whitepapers, do CLEs, generally participate in SEO-friendly activity?

   3. What’s your practice area? I have to think this is very dependent.

      In my practice area (employer-side employment law, but I focus on smaller businesses and government entities), the thing I do with the biggest return is speak at conferences. Legal updates for tiny local chapters of larger groups, state wide conferences, whatever, I am up for it. And I stay at the conference before and after, and hang out, and put myself out there and make friends with people. For me, I focus on (1) creating a large network of folks who know me and know my name; and (2) being known as an expert in an area so when they need help, whether it’s next week or two years from now, they think of me. I’m have a ton of connections (who I actually know, I connect with basically everyone I meet) and am active on LinkedIn even though I otherwise hate SM because it is basically free advertising. I share basically every speech I give and otherwise share thoughts and blog articles, whatever, to show I am in the know.
      Also, this took me a while to learn, but I do not spend time on activities that don’t serve me in one way or another. Doesn’t have to bring in business, but if I don’t get SOMETHING out of it, I don’t do it.

   4. Build a subject matter expertise and publish on it. As an in house counsel, if I Google some issue and some BigLaw partner wrote a helpful resource on it, I’d be likely to reach out to them.

      Network within the firm and glom onto work for existing clients. When the partner who already represents my company is too busy to directly handle the work we have, she’ll loop in other randos at the firm, and then I’ll start going to that person directly if they’re good.

      Give CLEs and presentations to clients and potential clients. Speak on panels at conferences to be known as an expert in X. I’m way more likely to reach out to someone who I saw speak on X issue that I later see come up in my work than I am to remember what someone I talked to at a mixer actually does in their practice when really what we talked about was vacations and our kids – fun, but ultimately not helpful for their BDV.

   5. Find ways to add value to your clients’ and potential clients’ business and make their lives easier. Hard to give concrete examples without knowing practice area, but below is what I’m thinking of.

      Can you do training seminars, forms creation, internal guideline/policy review and drafting that help them manage risk internally? Are there risk points where you could provide value on a fixed fee basis to become embedded in their workflow (think smaller, less desirable tasks they may be handling in house that could benefit from OC assistance, possibly things that can be automated)? Do you see articles/news developments relevant to topics you talked about that might be interesting to them that you can pass along?

      Additionally, make sure you’re a viable option for them. Is there an Outside Counsel list limiting who they can use that you might not be on? Do they have strict preferences/policies as to who you use?

      Dinners and lunches don’t really move the needle too much anymore, but understanding and adding to their business goals and being part of that “team” will help volumes. Just asking these types of questions shows you are invested and want to be value accretive to their operations.

      1. *I should have mentioned to be clear, most of these “value add” activities will not be billable and you should just consider that “Business Development” time, but it pays off in spades.

3. I’m on the hunt for a new shoulder bag, and I’m seeing a lot of coach and kate spade on Nordstrom. Both are brands that I wore in the early 2000s….are they back on trend, or is nordstrom simply pushing them a bit? If not, what brands do you like right now? Looking for something classic yet on point.

   1. what’s your budget?

      1. Probably in the $300 to $500 range. Could go higher if I really loved it, but a true designer bag is not really in the budget~

         1. I like Brahmin for a Nordstrom brand that’s in that price range, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly trendy

         2. Clare V.! I love the Moyen Messenger.

         3. for that budget i’d look at polene, songmont, or demellier. clare v maybe too. i think coach is having a resurgence i just don’t like it because i wore it 30 years ago.

            1. +1 to this; I like some of Coach’s new stuff but flashbacks to the CCCCC bags everywhere in 2002 keeps me away, and Kate Spade just does not look modern to me.

            2. I don’t like Coach because I still have a beautiful leather crossbody from 2001 and nothing they make these days compares.

   2. Threadjack: What if the budget is up to $300?

      1. Cuyana. I have a crossbody of theirs and it’s still going strong after 4 years of regular use. I love the lack of obvious branding. JCrew and Madewell also sometimes have great bags.

   3. Awesome ideas — thanks friends. I’m quite smitten with several of them.

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