Anonymous wrote:I'm a legal secretary and have worked at large, medium and small firms. I have posted the ads for your position, read through resumes, and scheduled interviews. I've coordinated orientations for new hires, and answered all the questions they have but don't want to look stupid asking attorneys. I kind of know a lot about this is my point.
Here's the thing: a lot of lawyers break out of bigger firms and start their own because they have a beautiful vision of how a firm should be. Less stress, higher quality clients, whatever. But there are some lawyers who open their own firm because they can't get along with others. They may have been quietly asked to leave, or known it was coming. Those firms tend to never grow bigger than 10-12 people and have high turnover.
The only way to succeed at a small firm is if the head of the firm has taken you under their wing, like a protege and is basically teaching you everything they know, grooming you to become a partner down the road. When you work at a medium or large firm as a baby lawyer, you are given very specific tasks that are on your level. And when you screw them up, you are told HOW you're screwing up and HOW to do better. At a small firm you get to do more, but get less instruction. If it works out well, you have to fix jams in the copier, yet that balances out with going to court. If it doesn't work well, you wind up in the situation you're in now.
Is there another associate there? Can you ask them to go to coffee with you to talk, outside the office? I worked for a bonafide psychopath (literally) and I watched him hire and fire three attorneys over two years. When he hired the fourth and I could tell she was good, as soon as she had trouble with him I pulled her aside and quietly told her to ask the senior associate to coffee on a day he was out of the office. The senior associate reiterated the "it's not you, it's him" speech I'd given her. Was her research wrong sometimes? Yes. But the psychopath wasn't teaching her and it wasn't the senior associate's job to teach her to do proper research. She wound up moving to a mid-sized firm and got trained properly.
You need to get headhunters to help you move. [/quote
Thank you for this. Technically I'm the senior associate - he brought on an unlicensed law clerk awaiting bar results in a neighboring state, but he can only do certain things. Besides him it's just a paralegal and a receptionist.
My boss was a partner in a firm for many years before breaking out on his own but I don't know the details behind the split.
Your post makes me feel less hopeless. Thank you.
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