I’m working with a senior associate, and we are just not gelling. They are very nice, but our work styles are completely different which is causing noticeable tension. It’s getting to the point where I get anxious every time I see an email from them. Part of the issue is that they are never available for an actual call—so I’m left guessing what they want or playing email back and forth. So exhausting!!! Is this normal? How should I cope with it?

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Adapt to the way the senior works. This is true of every boss you will ever have.

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A sixth year having tons of questions for a more senior associate? How many associates are possibly above you and why can’t you figure it out on your own? I’m of a similar vintage and I work directly with partners, not more senior associates. A sixth year should be mostly independent. If you’re not, you’re not developing on pace.

Are there other associates who have worked with this Senior that you could consult? It may be helpful.

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Reach out to the senior and have an honest request for what you’re looking for

I may be completely off the mark here but if I may be so bold... Might the senior be pushing you to ask questions in email form to get you to really think about what the issue is, boil it down simply, and maybe in the process discover it's a non issue or you have fixed/solved it already? As opposed to calling them every time you have an issue and expecting them to resolve your question?

Now that may be giving the senior associate too much training/management credit, but maybe? I've certainly gently nudged some second year associates to try to figure it out by asking them to clarify what they're asking, etc. and often gotten them to "oh nvm I read it wrong" or "I looked at precedent XYZ and figured it out". (I'll rarely do this to first years because they need to be handheld more!)

I second this. And frankly it’s not a bad (albeit, somewhat inefficient) way to train a junior - putting the onus on the junior to take a stab at figuring something out and posing a question in a thoughtful way. That said, this approach may not be helpful in every practice (esp transactional), where some particularities (like client quirks, deal processes, or other granular minutiae) simply cannot be deduced or googled and require a clear explanation. OP - if the miscommunications are over substantive matters, like understanding a purely legal concept and applying it in a particular way, I agree that searching for precedent documents on your firm server (or WL or google) may help somewhat. If it’s procedural or client- or task-specific, you’re in a more nuanced position and maybe as others suggest you can ask a mid year or even a partner who works on your team and is familiar with the subject matter.

Another possibility as to why the Senior prefers email is that email leaves a paper trail as to what was asked, answered, directed and explained and helps both the Senior and the junior track the discussion and give the junior a source for future reference (I still save “info emails” from everyone on my team periodically and often refer to senior and partner explanations re: certain concepts that I was given years ago!). Of course, this approach is only helpful if the senior is being helpful in the explanations. Here it sounds like the lack of clarity is the crux of the problem, so I agree that adapting to the senior’s style/approach to elicit clearer direction and better responses (try a dichotomous approach to asking questions?) may be the best fix.

Lastly, as to the Senior never being available for calls or not liking calls - this may just be a practical timing reality. More than half of my team - me included - is on back to back calls or out of office meetings day after day. That makes it literally impossible for taking calls with juniors (or anyone else) sometimes. I agree that asking the senior to give time slots - perhaps after standard business hours - may be the only option, but if you need answers on time sensitive questions, I think the best approach is to pose dichotomously framed questions as succinctly as possible to get what you need. And also ask the Senior to provide precedent that you could refer to, if possible/applicable.

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