How to say no to work w/o killing your government lawyer career?

[Anonymous]

Say sure I can help, but it will done in x amount of time. Then give them some far off time.

[Anonymous]

You sound so full of yourself, OP, that I find it hard to trust your perspective on the situation. Puh-lease, a "partner track" fourth year associate? LOL!

[Anonymous]

There is a career path?

If you say no what happens?

Clearly there are plenty of people saying no at your agency and they still have a job. Just say no. Once you realize there are no consequences you may realize why there is so much dead weight.

[Anonymous]

OP, the situation you describe is very common at least at one of the "premier" government agencies you describe (I can only speak for SEC). It is very frustrating, I know, and also may not fit with your personality. I know it did not fit with mine. Ultimately I left the agency and returned to the private sector.

I agree with the strategy of not saying no, but providing some far-off date when you think you'll have time for it. Give reminders of how heavy your workload is at every opportunity. You need to advocate for yourself and even sing your own praises.

Sadly, however, you may conclude that it's just not possible to maintain your work standards and ethic in your section. This is what I concluded. I could refuse to do work, refuse to stay after hours with no consequences for me/my career. (I was a manager). Consequence was simply the work product which was mediocre without my extra effort. I was well paid. I had interesting work. But in order to do my job to the level to which it needed to be done properly required me giving up the balance that I had sought by going to government from Big Law in the first place to make up for the slackers around me. (BTW, I am not saying at everyone at the SEC is a slacker and there are some divisions/office that function better than others; but in this particular division, I would say about 30% of the people are doing 95% of the work). At a certain point, I asked myself, if I'm going to miss dinner with my kids 9 nights out of 10, then why not get paid for it? In fact, my transition to private sector actually resulted in me having more flexible hours (on average actually fewer hours) with a lot more pay. I eat dinner with my kids 9 nights out of 10 now. I'm really happy having moved back to the private sector.

[Anonymous]

When I think of all the money being paid to the government attorneys described in this thread, well you can see why some people may feel the government is bloated. Please let go of the do-nothings, there should be consequences (firings) in the public sector for doing little or no work for a good salary.

[Anonymous]

Can you sit down with your supervisor to discuss your workload and present a list of the projects you have and their deadlines? You can say you have felt overloaded recently and would hesitate to take on too many more projects at the moment because you won't be able to attend to them adequately. This lets you present yourself as managing your workload and bringing issues to your supervisor before they occur, also giving him/her the big picture, rather than having to say no to projects piecemeal as they come up. Your supervisor ought to know how much more work you are doing than your colleagues, but perhaps they don't -- in which case this will inform them.

I agree it is hard to say no to an assignment unless you are given an outright choice. I used to say no all the time in Biglaw because I could document how much I was billing, I had a partner to stick up for me and intercede on my behalf, and I wasn't planning to stay there long term anyway. I have never said no to an assignment in my government job because generally I can get it all done, and frankly, if I can't, no one else can either. Therefore if it really needs to be done, I will push other things aside or work late to do it because nobody else will. But if I really did need to say no for some reason, I would use the blueprint I outlined above. I have enough credibility after 3 years of working my ass off here that I am pretty sure my supervisor would understand and not think I was just trying to get out of working. If you are as valuable to your office as you say, hopefully you will experience the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound so full of yourself, OP, that I find it hard to trust your perspective on the situation. Puh-lease, a "partner track" fourth year associate? LOL!

+1. LOL! Where? It wasn't Big Law in NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This happens to all of our government lawyers. We have SO many people on staff that can't be trusted with work or decisions that the work tends to go to the new hires. It's just an awful cycle because of the inability to fire people or move them to different areas. Our solicitor's office is very messed up.

OP I would say no and just keep saying no.

Which agency is this?

[Anonymous]

Just say no. You aren't at DOJ or anything. You can't kill your career at a low ranking agency.

Hell, I feel like it is tough to get rid of lawyers at DOJ as well. It is just that the process to get in is more competitive, so there are a smaller percentage of ineffective people who make it through. But IMO, the ones who have tend to linger, just like other agencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I'm over my comp time limit as it is."

Ha! Do any government attorneys get comp time? I don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound so full of yourself, OP, that I find it hard to trust your perspective on the situation. Puh-lease, a "partner track" fourth year associate? LOL!

seriously, that's just an associate who hasn't gotten "the talk" yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happens to all of our government lawyers. We have SO many people on staff that can't be trusted with work or decisions that the work tends to go to the new hires. It's just an awful cycle because of the inability to fire people or move them to different areas. Our solicitor's office is very messed up.

OP I would say no and just keep saying no.

Which agency is this?

does anyone besides DOI call it the solicitor's office?

[Anonymous]

Well OP you're letting it happen. I've worked in both government and big law and frankly you need to learn how to work the system for what it is.

[Anonymous]

I am the OP. Thanks to everyone for all the great suggestions. By "partner track" fourth year, I was probably overstating the situation. But I was working in a very lucrative practice area that no one else wanted to work in, for a variety of reasons. So, I basically could have stayed at the law firm for the foreseeable future making a lot more than my government salary. I really appreciate hearing from others. Even though I'm an experienced attorney, I still have difficulty saying 'no' to work, and my particular agency has some structural problems in how work is assigned, which leads to a general misallocation of work and resources, in my opinion.

Having said that, I also appreciate hearing from the posters who think I'm full of myself. I do foresee myself staying in this job for the foreseeable future: even though I am working harder than I thought I would, it's still far less hours than I worked for a law firm. It's good to hear strategies on creating balance but also keeping the overall perspective that I'm fortunate to be in the position I'm in doing the work I'm doing, that I do value my job but just need some strategies to create more balance.