I liked some of my partners all of the time; most of my partners most of the time; and one or two, almost never. I suspect that my partners, as a group, had similar sentiments about me.
The first thing to know about being a partner in a law firm is that you do not have to like all your partners all the time, but you are supposed to pretend that you do.
The second thing to know about partners in a law firm is that they are often not that good at the first thing.
And the third thing to know about partners in a law firm is that word always gets back to the person who it is not supposed to get back to.
Which brings me to the story of a talented young associate who I worked with. Let’s call her Maureen. She was out for lunch one day with an experienced lawyer who was a newcomer to our firm. I will call him Roy.
So, Roy and Maureen are talking, and Roy says something like, “I hear from Barb that Murray can be very difficult to work with.” (Barb was one of those partners who fell into the category of partners who did not like me much. Her name is not really Barb, but I will call her that because she knows how to sue people.)
Now, Maureen did not think that I was difficult to work with at all. In fact, as she told Roy, she thought that working with me was the best professional relationship that she had ever had.
Of course, Maureen told me about the conversation, and I had one more reason not to like Barb (not that I really needed another reason. Barb was not that likeable).
Another time, I became aware that one of my partners (who will go unnamed because he is really proficient at suing people), routinely told the incoming students that I did not suffer fools gladly and that they should be super careful about making a good first impression with me. He was not exactly wrong, but still, I would have liked to have some input into what he was telling people about me and some idea of why the students were visibly shaking when they met me.
The point of these stories is that partnership is not supposed to be like kindergarten. We sophisticated legal advisors are supposed to have some social skills, know how to be open and honest with each other, refrain from gossip, and be kind to each other. As members of a team, we are supposed to have each other’s backs and use them for something other than stabbing.
My wife tells a cute story about one of her sisters who used to bully her younger brother. Eventually he tired of the abuse and hit her. She went running to her mother saying, “mommy, mommy, Danny hit me back.”
We are all better at recognizing the wrongs that people do to us than we are at recognizing the wrongs that we do to them.
Was I much better? Not really. This is not about me being better than everyone else. It is about me belatedly realizing that we all should have been nicer. (But just for certainty, I was certainly nicer than Barb.)
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.