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Best big law firms for white collar defense?
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Many years ago, I was a contract employee with an agency. My specialty? I got sent in to either rehab the attorney or set the attorney up to be shown the door. I pretty much ran the desk with the exceptions of giving legal advice, appearing and setting fees. No can do there. I’ve seen this scenario more times than I care to admit. You’re the fall guy. The other partners are aware of what is going on and they turn a blind eye to it. You, in their eyes, are expendable. You are the buffer between bad things and not having to pay out on behalf of the partner.
In your defense, your notebook is invaluable. Keep recording and tracking. It will come in handy when the investigation commences, and there will be one. Find another job OR start taking on pro bono gigs. You will have excellent references from happy clients.
Finally, you are your own client. How would you advise your client when it is apparent there is going to be a race to the door? I have seen associates get nervous when I showed up. They knew. And I’m going to tell you what I told them: One of two things is going to happen. Both are inevitable. Just make sure you are not the example by which someone else uses as an excuse.
Good luck and sincere wishes that this experience is your happy ending and the partner’s worst nightmare.
Correct. Memo To File.
Sounds like you should look for a new job. Your boss is going to blame you for the low billables no matter what you can prove to them. Partners like to act like just because they give you a target that must mean there’s enough work to hit it. They don’t like to admit they did something wrong.
I have started keeping track of when I am asking for projects and how much of my target time I am missing (I try for a target of 32 billables a week) and plan to bring this up if I fall short at the end of the year. Is this reasonable? Edited to add: when I say target time that I am missing, I mean as a direct result of not being provided work.
Sad and this will continue to effect you. Time for you to get out and have a more responsive team
Can you ask another partner for work?
Okay, so maybe more background and an answer to the question about asking for more work. Yes, I can ask for more work and I have been asking. He will give me small assignments. Asked me to do a bunch of intake calls the other day. We are usually pretty busy and get cases referred to us a lot. I guess he isn’t the partner, because it’s only him. He is the owner. There are two associates and a contract employee (and a paralegal). Everyone is feeling like they don’t have anything to do right now and this happens. We had two associates leave in the last 1.5 years because it was so frustrating for him to be gone so much. I don’t think he’s “showing me the door.” I think he will be understanding when I say “here are 2 texts and 3 emails asking for work on xyz week and here’s how many hours in the workday I achieved nothing as a result”. I’m just wondering if my method of providing evidence of the disparity is sufficient. I expect to be about 15-20 hours behind for this last week and next week if this keeps up.
Define “owner”. Sounds like he is not an attorney. Is he the supervising attorney? This sounds a little fishy.
@paralegal 1 no, I get the bulk of the work.