How Do You Have A Job?

I'm a freshly minted lawyer, and practice with a couple of other people. Two of us were filling out paperwork today for malpractice insurance. Now, the company we're going through has only one set of forms for everybody. So, whether you've lost your carrier 50 times or just starting out, everyone has to answer the same shitty questions.

This becomes important because most of the questions assume that you've had some experience. Unfortunately, that's not us. And makes the question about how much of your billable hours are devoted to varying areas of the law a little difficult to answer. So, I call the wonderful people up to ask what the hell are we supposed to do. And the conversation went a little something like this:

"Hello, this is Black-Hole-of-Life, how may I help you?" in the the least helpful voice ever.

"Um, yes, Black-Hole-of-Life, I'm a new attorney with a new firm, and I was wondering if there was an additional/special application we should fill out as many of these questions do not seem applicable to us?"

"No, there is only the one application."

"Um, well, okay. The reason I asked is because of the question regarding percentage of practice. How do you suggest we fill it out?"

"Well, you should just approximate what you believe they might be."

"Approximate."

"Yes."

Uh-huh. So, let me get this right. The representative for the insurance company just told me to guess on the form I fill out to set my premium. Fan-fucking-tastic. My partner and I could wind up shelling out 6 grand a month, and Black-Hole-of-Life just told me that I might have just as well thrown darts at a board than call her up. What a country. I hate insurance companies.