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LEGAL JOBS - Going back to a firm from which I was fired?
Zsetrek
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I.A.A.L. (I Am A Lawyer)
...although, at the moment I'm only doing part-time at a department store. I live in a sweet house with a couple who've become very close friends of mine. The dude is an employed lawyer, and he's very sympathetic to my situation - I pay less than a third of the rent.
Last year, whilst I was earning my qualifications, a friend recommended me for a paralegal position at his firm, which I got. I worked there from Jan to Aug.
It's a small firm by the standards of my city - one partner and two senior associates at the time I was there. The partner is a notorious douche, widely reviled and with good reason. To this day I've not been introduced, despite the fact that his office was a few paces from my desk. We excused each other when we passed in the halls, nothing more. He's very much a hands-off guy with his own key clients - although he controls the purse-strings and hiring.
The Senior Associate who was my primary supervisor is (in my opinion) one of the better solicitors in the city. That said, he was not the best teacher - more of the "I'll explain anything if you ask me, but if you don't I'll assume you know everything" school than the "let me show you how to do that" school.
The other Senior Associate was a fun guy, but a worry. He'd take me off client files to do errands for him. He was a rainmaker though, so his crap was tolerated.
Long story short, I didn't really live up to my full potential there. I spent a lot of time feeling lost and muddling through stuff I didn't fully understand, or being diverted from real work by the rainmaker. Some of it was my lack of initiative, some of it was a poor working environment. Despite that, I began to improve a lot in the last month or so.
After I became fully qualified, the partner met with the SAs to discuss hiring me on as a lawyer. From what I've gathered he felt like I wasn't fully committed to the firm - which, of course, I wasn't. Either of the SAs could have gone in to bat for me, but chose not to - probably deciding that I wasn't worth the fight.
Fast forward to the end of 2009 - the Rainmaker is head-hunted by a bigger firm, and takes a large chunk of the support staff with him. Evidently the workload is too much for them, and they need to hire again.
My name was mentioned. Apparently the partner is against it, or my supervisor expects that he will be against it. The "committment" issues came up again.
This firm is very heavily billing-focused. Rather than having salaries and budgets for junior solicitors, all solicitor's salaries are tied solely to the number hour hours they bill. That's really unusual for this city.
Apparently it wasn't my general lack of enthusiasm that bothered the partner, just the fact that I didn't work through enough lunches or stay late enough at night.
Anyway, my supervisor told my friend to check if I was interested:
"[The supervisor] is worried to recommend you unless you're going to be more committed than you were [last year], cos:
(a) he'd be going out on a bit of a limb; and
(b) he thinks it would be shit if you just got fired again."
SO
On one hand:
- I'm underemployed, and living from week-to-week
- I'm not paying my share of rent, and my housemate has told me that he'd like for me to get a job so that he's not supporting me (although he's still being really good about it, and I clean up around the house, so it's not a huge issue)
- I've been effectively unemployed since the middle of last year, and I'm concious that the longer I wait the harder it will be for me to get a job.
- Without the rainmaker there, my job will be a lot easier
- I'll be a solicitor as opposed to a paralegal, and I'll be doing more interesting work
- The original problem wasn't with my ability, or even my admittedly shitty focus, but with hours alone
- I'll be working under a contract, with all the protection that entails - although from what I understand the contracts at this firm are *very* open
On the other hand:
- I'm incredibly leery that with the partner against me, every lunch I don't work through will be ammunition he can use if he decides to get rid of me - in effect I'd be stringing the sword of Damocles over my own head. If you're offered a job, and one of the first things you hear about it is a warning that the boss wants to fire you, how enthusiastic can you afford to be?
- I *hated* the office politics the first time around, and I'd be walking into a highly charged environment
- If I'm 100% honest, not even sure I want to be a solicitor. I got quite badly burned.
My housemate suggested that I tie conditions to it - say: "Yes I'd like to come back, but only if you give me more support, don't give me files that are beyond my ability, etc"
Suggestions? Advice? Am I letting pride get in the way of practical need?
...although, at the moment I'm only doing part-time at a department store. I live in a sweet house with a couple who've become very close friends of mine. The dude is an employed lawyer, and he's very sympathetic to my situation - I pay less than a third of the rent.
Last year, whilst I was earning my qualifications, a friend recommended me for a paralegal position at his firm, which I got. I worked there from Jan to Aug.
It's a small firm by the standards of my city - one partner and two senior associates at the time I was there. The partner is a notorious douche, widely reviled and with good reason. To this day I've not been introduced, despite the fact that his office was a few paces from my desk. We excused each other when we passed in the halls, nothing more. He's very much a hands-off guy with his own key clients - although he controls the purse-strings and hiring.
The Senior Associate who was my primary supervisor is (in my opinion) one of the better solicitors in the city. That said, he was not the best teacher - more of the "I'll explain anything if you ask me, but if you don't I'll assume you know everything" school than the "let me show you how to do that" school.
The other Senior Associate was a fun guy, but a worry. He'd take me off client files to do errands for him. He was a rainmaker though, so his crap was tolerated.
Long story short, I didn't really live up to my full potential there. I spent a lot of time feeling lost and muddling through stuff I didn't fully understand, or being diverted from real work by the rainmaker. Some of it was my lack of initiative, some of it was a poor working environment. Despite that, I began to improve a lot in the last month or so.
After I became fully qualified, the partner met with the SAs to discuss hiring me on as a lawyer. From what I've gathered he felt like I wasn't fully committed to the firm - which, of course, I wasn't. Either of the SAs could have gone in to bat for me, but chose not to - probably deciding that I wasn't worth the fight.
Fast forward to the end of 2009 - the Rainmaker is head-hunted by a bigger firm, and takes a large chunk of the support staff with him. Evidently the workload is too much for them, and they need to hire again.
My name was mentioned. Apparently the partner is against it, or my supervisor expects that he will be against it. The "committment" issues came up again.
This firm is very heavily billing-focused. Rather than having salaries and budgets for junior solicitors, all solicitor's salaries are tied solely to the number hour hours they bill. That's really unusual for this city.
Apparently it wasn't my general lack of enthusiasm that bothered the partner, just the fact that I didn't work through enough lunches or stay late enough at night.
Anyway, my supervisor told my friend to check if I was interested:
"[The supervisor] is worried to recommend you unless you're going to be more committed than you were [last year], cos:
(a) he'd be going out on a bit of a limb; and
(b) he thinks it would be shit if you just got fired again."
SO
On one hand:
- I'm underemployed, and living from week-to-week
- I'm not paying my share of rent, and my housemate has told me that he'd like for me to get a job so that he's not supporting me (although he's still being really good about it, and I clean up around the house, so it's not a huge issue)
- I've been effectively unemployed since the middle of last year, and I'm concious that the longer I wait the harder it will be for me to get a job.
- Without the rainmaker there, my job will be a lot easier
- I'll be a solicitor as opposed to a paralegal, and I'll be doing more interesting work
- The original problem wasn't with my ability, or even my admittedly shitty focus, but with hours alone
- I'll be working under a contract, with all the protection that entails - although from what I understand the contracts at this firm are *very* open
On the other hand:
- I'm incredibly leery that with the partner against me, every lunch I don't work through will be ammunition he can use if he decides to get rid of me - in effect I'd be stringing the sword of Damocles over my own head. If you're offered a job, and one of the first things you hear about it is a warning that the boss wants to fire you, how enthusiastic can you afford to be?
- I *hated* the office politics the first time around, and I'd be walking into a highly charged environment
- If I'm 100% honest, not even sure I want to be a solicitor. I got quite badly burned.
My housemate suggested that I tie conditions to it - say: "Yes I'd like to come back, but only if you give me more support, don't give me files that are beyond my ability, etc"
Suggestions? Advice? Am I letting pride get in the way of practical need?
Zsetrek on
0
Posts
That's something you need to figure out first. If you don't want to be a lawyer then you're going to be putting yourself through a fair amount of unnecessary grief by taking the job. Billing long hours is not easy and if you don't like what you're doing then it's downright soul-destroying. Further, law firms do not make money on recently qualified lawyers. I got told when I started off that no matter how good I was (and how little I was paid) the firm would lose money on me for the first 1-2 years, guaranteed. If you don't intend to really throw yourself into the job it would be in your own interests and the firm's to pass on the job.
However, if this is the career path you want to take then it's important you get some good experience under your belt as soon as possible. I don't know how it is where you are but around here jobs for recently qualified lawyers aren't exactly a dime a dozen. You need to snap up any opportunity you can, especially if it's a fairly decent job which is just falling into your lap. Not to mention the fact that it will probably alleviate your financial situation considerably.
Will you be working under the same associate again? If this is the case I think it will be a great experience for you. You should be clear with him that you need more support to work well in the job. People respond to different management styles and if you point out to him that a different approach might help then chances are good he'll be willing to work with it. That said, it's a two-way street. You'll need to put a lot of work in to building that relationship with him for it to succeed.
Finally, I wouldn't worry about the partner for now. I mean, it wouldn't be a bad idea to try an build a bit of a rapport with him but at the end of the day the person you need to prove yourself to is the associate directly supervising you. I doubt the partner would give you the flick if the associate was happy with how you were going.
you'd think law school would have taught you how to use acronyms :P
Excellent advice Badger.
Kali on his bb.
If you don't want to make a career out of it, don't.
Someone must have woke up late, or might still be hungover =D
As for the OP, I think you should do it. The more directly applicable work experience, the better you'll be in the future for when you go searching for a better firm. It sounds like you're having reservations about the work you'll have to do to be successful as a lawyer, despite going into law school knowing what kind of working conditions lawyers usually have. I think it'll probably be worth it to take the hit right now in terms of hours for the better pay, experience, and learning opportunities.
This is a law office. Lawyers are over-abundant right now, and it's never been a 40 hr/wk work field, especially this aspect of it.
The questions are A. Will you be happy with this kind of work? B. Do you want to skip more lunches and work later evenings? Those are the things you will need to do.
You need money. If they need you to work through lunch, work through lunch. If it's terrible, build your resume and look for other opportunities.
I understand the OP and am a lawyer myself, so am quite aware of how such offices work (in NZ/England that is, not the US). It is still possible to get 9-5 solicitor jobs, you just have to be willing to work for certain organisations, government solicitor roles for one, or other kinds of inhouse role. Usually you would need several years PQE though.
The fact that you're getting paid by the billable hour means that you're going to get paid more for doing so.
But, as people have said - having the Associate on my side will probably alleviate that.
1) The Partner doesn't like you / doesn't think you are cut out for the rule. Most of the time this is a death sentence;
2) The place doesn't have any training. Bad BAD BAD. You are a new lawyer and the only thing you should be caring about right now (far more than pay) is how good the training is at the place you are going to work.
3) Heavily billing focused = you will be taking on casework whether you like it or not and it appears as though you were having some trouble coming to terms with the parameters of your work - this will get much worse as a solicitor.
Office politics in most firms are shit, but if you add the above it just looks like a one way ticket to fucksville. On the other hand I can appreciate that you are worried about future employment / money.
My advice would be only to take this job if you were sure you wanted to work in this field as a lawyer and/or if you strongly felt work opportunities were picking up in the new future - take this job for like 6 months and then jump ship asap.
(yes i'm a lawyer too)
My wife recently got asked if she wanted her old job back for less money about 8 months after she was downsized. She had gone back to grad school so she politely declined. Might have declined even if she wasn't in school, because that's pretty shitty.