How do you deal with a manager / junior partner who is always nitpicking and questioning why you did what you did, or telling you what you did is the wrong way to do things? It’s generally prefaced with them only doing this to help you grow, but has the exact opposite effect on me. And then when you try to explain your POV, you’re tagged as being defensive. Generally ends me with saying I’m sorry. No other partners at the firm have ever raised any concerns on my communications or work product.

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Are you a junior associate or working with a partner you don’t normally work with? If you’re a junior or don’t have a long history with the senior, they have to nitpick your work because we don’t know that you know what you’re doing yet (if you’re a junior, you don’t) and it is easier for us to tell where we need to spend more attention if we understand what you did. Thank them for the correction. It’s not necessary to explain why you did something a certain way every time, but reacting with “ahhh, I understood X. Will remember that for next time.” If you make a big deal about defending how you did something, you will absolutely get tagged for being defensive.

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Lead with “I’m sorry. I initially understood it to be ____ but now that you’ve clarified, I understand it should be ____. I will fix it and get it back to you ____.”

FWIW, even if you’re right, there are some partners that just won’t listen because you’re “less experienced.” I had one guy who refused to listen despite a week of me telling him Y is better than X. When the judge rejected X and ordered him to do Y, his response was “Well I know [me] had suggested Y before. It wasn’t the right thing to do then, but it is the right thing to do now.”

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Accept feedback - no manager likes to deal with people who react to feedback. Have you been having trouble implementing this partner's feedback?

I don’t think so. But also, it just seems crazy that you have to simple accept any and all feedback and providing any context to your actions is looked upon as “defensive” or not okay. How is that even productive!

uplifting

You need to get used to this because by the time you’re the direct contact with clients, it’ll be the same story. If your supervisor wants something done a certain way, that’s how you gotta do it.

Honestly, that is just the way it is. I had one partner who was (and is) like that. Big micromanager. As much as it sucked, that person was right about a lot of it in retrospect, and the fact other partners were not busybodying me like that wasn’t dispositive.

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