My firm is tracking our office attendance via badge-swipes and sending automated warnings. It doesn't matter if my billables are through the roof or if I’m working until midnight from home. If my physical badge doesn't click into the lobby by 9:00 AM three days a week, I get an automated email from HR. It is the most patronizing, low-trust environment I’ve ever experienced in my professional life. Are your firms tracking you like inventory?

I left my associate attorney position to do a federal clerkship for a year. How do I explain to friends and family that it’s not like a demotion even though I won’t be practicing as an attorney? All the non-law people I tell seem confused as to why I would take a lower paying, temporary, non-attorney job for a year.

So I found a new job and tomorrow I am going to put in my two weeks’ notice. I am nervous how everyone will react because I have given no clues that I was looking. My boss always asks me if I am happy with where I am at and I lie and say yes so I am nervous this will come out of left field. I do have anxiety and the thought of letting others down only increases my anxiety. Any advice on how to calm my nerves before tomorrow?

How much of your “full self” do you bring to work? I was told that having a visible baby monitor in the background of a remote internal meeting looked uncommitted to the practice. We are an industry full of adults with families, aging parents, and personal lives, yet we’re expected to project this sterile, robotic image of total availability 24/7. I wasn’t interacting with my child at all, and I was fully paying attention to the meeting. But I’m not going to pretend that I’m not a parent.

Settle it once and for all: In the US, is there any difference between an attorney and a lawyer? Are people who graduate law school (without passing the bar) considered lawyers?