Bob told me about his law firm exit interview with Joan from H.R. When Bob said that he was leaving due to the unreasonable workload, Joan was curious, because Bob was one of several associates who had left that department for the same reason. What surprised Joan was that in other departments, the associates were working many more hours, but no one was complaining, let alone quitting.
My story about Bob is my introduction to my completely made-up distinction between “macro mental health” and “micro mental health.” The former is what most of the firm experiences. The latter is what you experience.
Suppose that your law firm has wonderful policies about mental health. The billable hours target is reasonable. People are encouraged to take their vacations and to tune out while they are away. Parents of all genders take parental leave and return without adverse effect on their career progression. Team members undergoing life events are supported while they work through them. The firm brings in speakers to help their people learn how to maintain their mental health. There is a reasonable path to equity partnership without any mandatory stop in non-equity purgatory. In summary, the firm does everything that it can to foster the well-being of their people. On a macro level, you work for Nirvana and Partners LLP. Everyone there is happy.
Except for Susan and Stan. Susan works for Stan. Stan is miserable because he is always under stress. He has many clients and huge billings. He is a great lawyer and a decent human being on the rare occasions that you meet him out of the office. However, at work his method of dealing with stress is to transmit it to those who work for him. He worries. He micromanages. He snaps at people. He gives short deadlines. He rarely says thank you. His best self is not a bad guy, but he is rarely his best self at work.
Stan has trained Susan. She works even more hours than he does. She toils through many evenings and weekends and is on call for Stan during her “vacations.”
Her friend Bob made a move, and is much happier, so Susan scrolls LinkedIn late in the evenings looking for her happy place. She reads about a firm that offers the elusive work/life balance that she so badly craves. People there post about the great firm culture. She gets excited about the possibilities.
Susan’s heart sinks when she learns that the firm that she is reading about is Nirvana and Partners LLP. Apparently, in addition to its excellent mental health programs, the firm has a great marketing department.
The bottom line: (1) Firms lie. Do your homework; (2) Law firm cultures are rarely consistent from department to department. Do more homework; (3) The principal driver of your satisfaction as a junior at a law firm will be the character and personality of the person you report to. Do even more homework.
Is the homework going to be easy? Of course not. But that is no excuse for not trying.
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.
2 replies on “Macro Marvellous, Micro Miserable”
Spot on. Midsize and large law firms are not monoliths – instead they are a collection of different teams which share a marketing department but tend to be run and managed quite differently to one another, depending on the personalities and management styles of the partners in each team. Some lead with the carrot. Some lead with the stick. Some are competent and enlightened. Others less so. It is therefore possible for someone to find their experience at one firm to be “hell on earth” and another person to have a wonderful and supportive time, as long as they work with different partners.
Absolutely. In one firm I know, several partners were fantastic to work for, while another churned through Associates to the point where recruiters would warn people about working in that department.