I’m an employment lawyer for my company for several years. My whole job is advice and counsel. My new manager (not employment) is asking the team give a weekly update of our current projects. I don’t really have any projects as my entire job is responding to emails and taking meetings. So now I am being asked to write down every time I have a meeting or respond to an email and summarize what they’re about. Just wondering if this is typical at other companies bc I’m uncomfortable with this.

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Having been in a similar situation, my guess is you’re going to need to go through this exercise for at least a few weeks. Over time, your manager will develop a better understanding of what your day-to-day practice involves, how your work meaningfully differs from your peers outside of L&E, and where/how you add value. Consider also whether you can group similar issues / areas of counseling you’ve been handling - are there trends or broader initiatives you can describe that sound a bit more like a project?

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Thanks for the advice. Not sure if you’re in employment, but do you have examples of trends/broader initiatives? I’ve not identified any as each employment situation is so individualized and unless it’s something like a need for management training or something. Even then, that would venture into the realm of the HR function. In the past I’ve created trainings for them and reviewed similar for them to implement. But beyond that, I’m not sure what trends look like in the employment context.

Seems a bit like micromanagement to determine whether you’re worth keeping. I’d detail as much as possible until your manager understands your value to the company and that the advice and counsel does keep you busy and is essential to the business.

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Seems your new boss has zero insight into what you do (or your value-add). It’s absolutely essential that you demonstrate it to them ASAP so they leave you alone and don’t tinker.

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Are you actually being asked to “write down every time I have a meeting or respond to an email,” or is that your inference of what “summarize projects” means? Because it doesn’t seem crazy to me that you would summarize your ongoing matters.

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I was asked to fill in a spreadsheet with all of my matters. When flagging that I do not really have any ongoing matters, this is what was suggested. I filled in the spreadsheet that was provided to me with that information and received feedback that I need to be more descriptive. I do not have any current open litigation that I’m managing, no negotiations, no open employment investigations. Most of my matters (right now) are complete when I give the advice. In the rare event that I’m unable to complete the advice on the spot I will spend some time researching but even then, my advice would be complete by the end of the day or the next day at the latest.

I would write up a summary but include in the email something like - “what do you think of the above summary? I’m conscious that my work is slightly different in LE and want to keep you updated but I’m open to tweaking the format”

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Thanks I’ve somewhat tried this! I included a week’s worth of meetings but in the email explained (for the third time tbh) that l&e is different.

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