Well yes, of course. Hence the “they will change their ways … or not”. It is a matter of relative indifference after you have left.
Point is that there is little you can do with those who are penny wise and pound foolish, as the saying goes - to my mind, as a lawyer, pissing off your support staff falls into that category. Without a competent support team, nothing gets done efficiently. Pissing them off over petty bullshit simply isn’t wise, from a self-interested POV: they will leave if they are (a) any good, and (b) get tired of being shat on.
For myself, I’ve had good support people and bad; and the former make your life infinitely easier. I simply can’t imagine the stupidity of annoying them over comparatively small sums - or where a simple frank talk to the managing Partner could solve the problem ("look, X is up for review, and they haven’t met the billable target because I’ve had them doing absolutely vital business development work … "). How hard can that be?
BD , is there any way that the op could have responded in an equally cryptic and denialable fashion , ie , you got me by the short and curlies but in the future when the dust settles and times are better , I am gonna embarass you or what ever gets a partner reamed ?
I don’t see how. The OP’s boss phrased the demand in an extremely deniable fashion. In short…this work MUST be done…and overtime is not allowed. The only way you can get him by the short and curlies is if you can document that the tasks couldn’t be completed without overtime. This is much harder than it sounds. Even if you accomplish this task and have the opportunity to use it (another highly doubtful event) the probability that someone higher up will bother to take your side over someone more powerful/profitable to the company is near nonexistant. Heck, there is a large probabilty that that person APPROVES of the bosses OP’s actions.
I have been on both sides of the fence here. While I and the company’s I’ve worked for were not assholes…there is a marked difference between ‘support staff’ even when they all are technically doing their jobs competently. It is so much nicer to have support staff will to go the extra mile (i.e. give work for free) that I can easily see managers willing to punish and get rid of ones that do not.
I’ve never done this…but sometimes the temptation was huge…like when a fire drill comes up late in the day with a client and I am scrambling and the support staff is heading home. I stop the temptation by reminding myself that this is not their drill…they are paid what they are paid and if I meet this emergency well then they will not be rewarded no matter how much I plug them…they will only work for nothing. I can see many managers making it their problem by slamming them in reviews, getting rid of them and cycling through them until they find a patsy…especially in this economy.
This email confirms that, per your instructions, 23 hrs. of work for cheapskate inc. account were billed as clerical overhead.
“Oh hi Mr senior partner, fancy seeing you in the elevator. Say, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we could come up with some sort of charge code, so that when Mr. not so senior partner asks me not to bill a client for work on that client’s behalf we don’t have to , you know, lie on our time sheets as Mr. not so senior partner has requested?”
Well the bolded part would be relevant if he wanted to take the place before some sort of state employment practices tribunal. I get that today is a employers market and what the boss said was deniable. So I am more speaking to the future when times get better, now I dont know the industry or if it has a cycle of employee market due to its nature, but if the boss man is telling the peasants sotto vocce that the work has to be done, and the grunts are doing it not to make waves and put food on the table, was there anything the grunt could have said , to the effect of " come the revolution" in an equally deniable way.
Is this a common trait among litigation support people? I have met and worked with a lot of these folks and they all seem like they exibit the same certain characteristics:
-Mild, understated or “neutral” personalities. Everything is very “factual” and humorless. Kind of like they are making sure to say nothing that can ever be misconstrued as offensive.
-Seething underbelly of resentment and bitterness. They always seem like they are bent out of shape about something but are afraid to express it.
-Passive aggressive. I mean all these little notes and comments to partners. Do you really think they care?
-Pedantically obsessed about the administrative minutea of their tasks and whether they are being asked to do things “outside their job description”.
This is not to disparage their profession. But as I said, I work with a lot of them, and quite frankly, I don’t think they like my management style. I’m more used to managing teams of consultants where basically it’s “here’s what we need to get done, now let’s get out there and do it!” and off we go. It’s kind of like the difference between two dogsled teams. One is yelping and ready to break out of their harnesses to tear ass across the tundra while the other begrudingly pulls the sled so long as you throw meat at them (while probably planning to bite me while I’m sleeping). In other words, yeah, they will do the work but only so long as it is EXACTLY what they think it should be and you phrase it exactly right.
But I’ve seen this in lit support folks at other companies and I haven’t been at my job that long so I was wondering if it was a trend.
If someone did that to me, I would fire them on the spot for threats/extortion.
Now, I wouldn’t have been asking you to work unpaid overtime so my ethicalness would have been clear…but if a boss was asking you to work unpaid overtime and you brought up your deniable threat he could also fire you on the spot. Sure, you could complain but it’s your bosses word against yours and your boss will win.
The only way to nail a boss would be to have several different, over time, unrelated subordinates complain to the powers that be that the boss is doing what he is doing AND the powers at be disapprove & if they disapprove that they care.
Even if the powers that be disapprove (not likely) the chance that you were the one that broke him (rather than one of the several, unrelated subordinates who complained/were let go is slim.
Threatening your boss just doesn’t work in the USA…unless you have material evidence he committed homicide
Well, I am all for improving processes and efficiency, and in my (prior) case, we certainly did a lot of that. The problem arose when our team made so many improvements one year (reduced outside counsel costs of more than $2 million with a team of 4, as opposed to a team of 5 under previous management that didn’t do any in-house case prep at all) that we weren’t able to maintain the same pace of improvements the following year. There is such a thing as trying to get blood from a stone.
I never did understand the rationale for having such a small staff; we were probably each spending more than half of our time on work other than case prep (policy, strategy, etc.), and with even just a couple more people, we could have saved significantly more by doing more prep work in-house. No idea what went on above my head as far as deciding proper staffing levels for our group, though.
I am most familiar with this in the context of Silicon Valley. IMHO it is not really an issue of getting blood from a stone as much as if you are committed to keep old organizations when they may no longer be the best way to go, due to inertia.
In an abstract sense, once you reach a certain level of efficiency, with new processes and all, then holding on to the old structures, whatever they are, may be more of a burden on improvement then letting them go.
that may not be everyone’s human nature, but embracing change, obsoleting one’s self and one’s own work because if you don’t someone else will, these are at the core of Silicon Valley culture - it is a leap of faith that there will be something better once you jump off the cliff. that may not be obvious of course, but experience has shown it to be true, that if you jump periodically, the landing is very very good even if the fall was scary.
In your case, I’d say if the support team is so good and efficient, then maybe they should split off and become an outsource team that can sell its services to more then one firm instead of being at the whim of a few capricious partners. find a way to partner with them instead of serving under them. Hire all the best in your city form all the best firms, and all the firms will need to hire you at rates and terms you suggest, not salaries they impose.
The primary difference between IT services and legal services is that anyone with the skills can provide IT services, whereas there are very strict limitations on what legal services non-lawyers can provide without attorney supervision.
So it’s not nearly as simple as just setting up one’s own shop and contracting to one’s former employer, and non-lawyers cannot open law firms.
This is actually very similar to what I do at my company. I come from a background of IT consulting, which then morphed into management consulting (performance improvement/strategy/supply chain stuff) then litigation consulting (forensics, expert witness prep, electronic discovery stuff) and now work inside a large company advising the legal department on dealing with their outsourced services.
Basically there are all kinds of these little consulting firms and vendors that provide technology and services to law firms and legal departments.
Personally, I would never want to work in a law firm as anything other than an attorney, for the very reason you described. When you work for a company in the capacity of providing the service that is the core business of that company (lawyer in a law firm, etc) it’s a lot more satisfying that being in a support role.
Well, with all due respect, that is just inertial excuse making. You already said there are firms to outsource to, so it can be done even if you don’t want to be the one to do it.
It is also wrong with what you think about Silicon Valley, which is an extremely complex economy of financial, legal, IT, engineering, hardware, software, and many other types of firms, some of which didn’t even exist yesterday and some of which won’t exist tomorrow.
What I said applies to every single one of them, even the life support services such as food distribution and car cleaning or dry cleaning that is necessary anywhere there is a large enough population cluster.
Identifying problems and structural roadblocks everywhere is easy, and usually fair criticism. Seeing it as an opportunity instead of just a bitchfest as though the world owes you tomorrow the same as it was yesterday is rarer, but could be very rewarding indeed.
You have valued skills, you have insight, you probably have a valid point, so what are you going to DO about it?
They are law firms, run by lawyers. I used to work for one, and now I work for another one.
I know that - I have friends who work in Silicon Valley, and when I worked at another law firm, we did plenty of work for Silicon Valley companies. All of that work was supervised by lawyers. I have no desire to engage in the unlicensed practice of law.
I already voted with my feet, and I currently work for a bunch of lawyers who respect my skills and expertise, and who pay me for all the hours I work without giving me crap about it. And unless something drastic changes here, or unless I get laid off, I intend to stay here for the foreseeable future. It’s a win-win; I get a good job, and they get some routine legal work (and a LOT of admin work) done at prices that are cheaper than what it would cost them to hire a lawyer with the same expertise. But I still have to be supervised by a lawyer.
Starting a support teamwill require expertise beyond the actual supportees - otherwise you will be no better off and quite possibly worse off then when you started.
In your field, if you need a lawyer in the firm,then find one. find an ammbitious one that is young or mid career that you like. find a guy (generic, could be either gender really) that is about to retire soon and might like to try something new while parking some money in an investment.
I am sure every lawyer will understand the business opportunity, although some for their own reasons and needs will not want to or be able to help. But keep looking and networking, and you are sure to find what you need. It is a tried and true path. Part of the reason partners can dump on you now is because they know you are replaceable - so much support has already been replaced by such teams.
In fact, it may be the very partners in your firms, who know this and also know they blew earlier opportunities to invest, that could turn out to be your greatest champion moving forward. You never know…
Not sure of your age, but I would bet someone in a field like that at, say their early 30s is going to live to see the days; when law firms are completely split apart and work is done among and across virtual collaborative teams that come together and split apart on whims as needed. I’d say there is a very real chance that that could happen well before 2020 across the board, it is already happening in many places I am sure.
Unless you are going to retire soon or leave the field altogether (doesn’t sound like it), what preparations are you making for the day when your job simply no longer exists anywhere?
Hence the “they will change their ways … or not”. It is a matter of relative indifference after you have left.