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That’s exactly how I would have described my judge. Abusive would have been way too dramatic I think but they were mean/toxic and always told us what we were doing wrong in a mean way. I got through it (title is old) and enjoyed my coworkers and the work.
I cannot relate, but I have a friend going through this same situation. She has treated her clerkship as a temporary learning experience and recognized that while she’s failing to get the mentorship experience, she’s still getting valuable substantive research/writing experience. Regardless, I really feel for you OP, that sucks.
Learning how to deal healthily with a toxic or mean coworker is a good life skill. It sucks when they're your boss
To be clear if they're toxic you should deal with them but also prioritize getting out of the situation as quickly as possible
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I dealt with something similar in my first clerkship. It was only after 9 months of my year long clerkship that I realized it wasn’t personal and my experience helped me grow as a young professional and lawyer. One of the biggest takeaways I had was that I could deal with a demanding boss, even if that boss at times seemed mean/thankless.
Looking back on it now, it truly helped me advance beyond my peers who weren’t challenged in such a manner.
Long story short, it’s a temporary position and being a clerk is not something everyone gets to do. You’ll get through it.
I'm dealing with a pretty cruel judge and as someone who had significant work experience before law school, I do not think that there's a silver lining of "important experience" here. If anything, the law is far too permissive of abusive bosses as a sector and I think that the lack of oversight of judge's treatment of clerks is a HUGE part of it. Don't listen to the people on this thread who think this is going to be helpful to you. If anything, it normalizes toxic behavior and presents bad models of mentoring.
My approach right now has been to keep my head down, try to ask the co-clerks if I can take cases that appear like a good fit for a writing sample, and suffer through the last 6 months. The best part of this experience is knowing that when someone treats me like this again, at least I'll be able to sue them.
Big support from clerk to clerk though--you will get out and it will give you opportunities down the line, whether or not you like your judge--mine refuses to give recommendations, either via written or via phone, but even so, I'm getting interviews at firms that wouldn't look at my resume before, so I think we just have to look at the finish line and survive for a bit!
I’m so sorry. I had a really bad experience in the federal judiciary and couldn’t get with the abusive culture. I had to go to therapy for a year.
Ironically, I ended up being appointed as a pro tem judge since there was a need for diversity on the bench. It’s no where near the prestige of a full time judge of course, but I make sure that I am the kindest I can be to staff and people in the courtroom. My full time judge who is my supervisor is also really kind and often vents about the abusive judges that are absolutely d*cks to their staff. I don’t know why so many ppl in the legal profession are such god awful mentors and managers. It’s downright embarrassing and toxic, and I hope there’s change. Judges should have the most patience and civility.
If it gets really bad please file a judicial ethics complaint if you are in the position to do so.
100% can relate. My judge is toxic and at times downright abusive. You’ll get through it though. Just keep your head down and take it day by day. You’ll get to leave that experience in the past.