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Tagging @WhiningCoil since this is an appropriate response to his comment as well.
This is what I call "Smartest Motherfucker in the Room" syndrome. I think law school does this to a lot of smart people because they spend three years arguing edge cases with professors who do nothing but theorize in edge cases and when they get into the field they realize that edge cases are rare and that most cases are fairly routine. Compounding this is that most of the work is looking through documents and doing a lot of writing. I think the drive is that these people are constantly looking for opportunities to prove to the bosses how smart they are, while the bosses are looking for people to, you know, get the work done. They constantly bitch about how tedious the work is and are always planning an exit strategy, thinking that if only they worked for a firm with better management or a in different practice area that was more exciting they'd be happier. I give them that name because they seem to forget that they were hired to do actual work, not to be the smartest motherfucker in the room.
On the other end of the spectrum are the people who don't necessarily hate their jobs, and maybe even like their jobs, but have them down to such a routine that they don't want to do anything to rock the boat. These people tend to be reluctant to ask the bosses for advice or bring up their ideas to them. They are significantly less annoying and last a lot longer than the smartest motherfuckers in the room, but they tend to get pissed when they are passed over for promotions by people whom they perceive as lower on the totem pole, usually by virtue of how long they've been with the company.
They're basically two sides of the same coin: The gifted kid who gets As without studying on the one hand, and the overachiever whose grade is a one to one reflection of the work put into it on the other. The gifted kid balks when he finds out that homework is a big part of the grade, not based on its quality but on the fact that it was done, and the overachiever balks when he finds out that 8 hours of consistent studying might not result in an A. The most successful attorneys I know are the ones who embrace the drudgery, not because it's a necessary evil but because it's part of the job, and nonetheless aren't afraid to be the smartest motherfucker in the room if the situation presents itself.
The best part of my job is that I have significant autonomy to select the clients I accept. And if one of them has an "interesting" legal problem to solve and they are willing to pay for the work, I can take on those jobs to keep things fresh.
Thats how I became probably a top 10 expert in a very particular area of Florida construction law.
The drudgery pays the bills, the occasional novel matter keeps me from bashing my head in.
Embrace the suck. Then you'll have more power to achieve success on your own terms.
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