It was the email that blew up traditional law firm decorum. Maybe forever.
Early last May, this blog posted on seven-year associate at Paul Hastings: Shinyung Oh. When terminated by the firm, she did not wait for most of the office to go home, then slip out, never to be heard from again. That was the shame-based way those cut from the team were supposed to do things.
Instead - a la Martin Luther nailing his complaints on the church door - she sent an email to the firm's brass and about 1000 colleagues around the world. She gave her point of view on getting the ax, she assessed the unfairness of the decision, and offered myriad other observations. So radical was that behavior that many influential digital sites such as Abovethelaw.com, as well as mainstream media ran with the story. Just yesterday, the LOS ANGELES TIMES went there again.
The question that preoccupies media, lawyers, and other members of The Professional Class is: Did this bold email finish off a career or throw open a new wonderful Pandora's Box of many more options and perhaps better one? I went and still go with the latter.
See, yes, Shinyung Oh had taken a risk. But it was and is really small potatoes in a professional universe which was becoming increasingly decentralized. Those monoliths BigLaw, BigPR, BigAd, BigCorp are crumpling into a million bits, each struggling to survive as a separate Darwinian player.
Hey, this isn't old Hollywood where one tycoon, one studio, one trade group could deep-six a career. Moreover, we are in the age of media. Shinyung Oh's high profile, along with her demonstration of personal courage and strong values, can if managed shrewdly constitute a whole new ticket providing access to unknown lands. Think Steve Jobs being driven from Paradise. Think the ridicule about Arianna Huffington's blog. Think Hillary's many second lives after being vilified.
Given what's going on in the economy, no one can finish us off, unless we allow it. I learned that in the early 21st century. What I got down cold is that The Professional Woman, The Girl Scout, The Well-Behaved Woman are the ones who are finished. The economy, along with all the technology developments, is so volatile that it demands wild women, renegades who live primarily by their wits. This 2009 economy, in fact, is so uncertain that, as global advisory agency The Dilenschneider Group reports in its Crisis Analysis, the Fortune 500 are ditching quarterly estimated earnings reports Download WorldinCrisisLookstoaNewEra.
On her blog, Shinyung Oh updates us on where she is and has been. My hunch is that this accidental game-changer will be having an amazing professional journey. Advice: It takes takes time for the miracle to happen. Here's my own tale of turning in my Girl Scout badges in 2003 Download Geezerguts. Today, my professional life is beyond any Good Girl fantasies I had while at Harvard Law School. The good news of the DOW at 7100 and Asian markets also tanking: The world has no where to go but to us game-changers. But we have to demonstrate we can and will change the game.
"Do not go gentle into that good night," as Dylan Thomas wrote. Those who have repressed their rage, their passion and their vision and become docile sheep will be the entree at the banquet. Viva Shinyung Oh!
Posted by: Marsha Keeffer | February 24, 2009 at 11:41 AM