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Mentor
I don’t think this has to do to your gender or ethnicity. It is common practice to run things by your seniors before showing them to other people, even those other people are members of your firm. That being said, he was rude and this was not an appropriate way to tell you how things should be done but if the other people on the call were other partners. He was probably nervous that they would think your PPT was reviewed and approved by him first, so if wrong he would look bad, not you, given that you are still very junior and so in the heat of the moment he overreacted. Again, not justifying the rudeness, but I would also be pretty annoyed if someone junior to me that is part of my team on a certain matter unilaterally decides to prepare and show other people a document that wasn’t requested and reviewed by me. FWIW I am a somewhat senior Latinx female.
Subject Expert
A2 has it right. And it does sound like you went above and beyond and the partner handled the situation terribly. If I was the partner here I would have said something like “really appreciate your proactivity with preparing a PowerPoint for this! However please run it by me first next time as we want to have consistency and senior review with items that are being shown to the entire department and need to know in advance what’s on the agenda so we can plan accordingly with timing, other presenters etc”.
You gender and ethnicity have nothing to do with this. Don’t present work without review of a senior internally or externally. We are responsible for you and your work and likely cover your behind far more than you appreciate. Also consider whether he is reacting to the fact that you decided to take time to prepare an unnecessary presentation instead of focusing on billable, pressing work. Again, whether you like it or not, also something that is not your decision.
Community Builder
You need implicit bias training seriously!
I’d love to see the reaction if you had said “You seem to be getting really emotional. Perhaps we can discuss offline.”
Coach
What’s the relevancy of your gender/ethnicity?
I can’t speak to your experience, but as a straight white male in big law I have had my fair share of unpleasant experiences with workers senior to me and am fairly certain this same type of behavior predated biglaw firms hiring anyone other than white males
Mentor
If you have the courage, it might be good to politely ask him not to yell at you next time this happens, pointing out that no one else speaks to you like this and you find it disturbing.
Coach
continued: The PowerPoint was short and to the point and was factually correct (it wasn’t a complicated development). I’m just wondering if this kind of thing happens to other people or what would be going on that he’s so triggered by this PPT.
That's... Insane. Once I made a PowerPoint without explicit approval by my partner for a client call and he was happy. No need to berate for something so asinine.
3rd year here and I have given (internal) PowerPoint presentations several times without senior or partner review. Why are you hiring people if they can’t give a simple informational presentation to coworkers without multiple levels of review? If the partner is asking juniors to present on an issue, you’d think they would have considered that some might make PowerPoints. Obviously if they had explicitly asked for a review first this would be out of line on the associates part, but they did not. Maybe associates at your firm have less autonomy, but it would never cross my mind to have multiple levels of review on the short informal presentation that *I* was asked to take care of.
OP, What you did in my mind is be proactive and thoughtful. I can see how some control freak partners would not appreciate you showing something to the client without their approval, but I hope this does not stop you from continuing down the path of being a great lawyer.
Coach
Thank you 😊
Community Builder
I disagree with the above comments. As a woman of color, I would felt bullied too and assume he might not yell to another white male junior associate in the same way.
A3, we know they are notorious liars and will say anything to stay in power. Their greatest achievement is crumbling capitalism and making money off free labor. There are way more deserving and qualified POC & women that are never given a chance. The few that do break through are mostly overqualified for the roles they hold bc they have to work twice as hard to get there. We know this bc of how hard the people in power fight against equality. Competition will be the end of the reign. It will be great for everyone but them and they know it. They are already losing their minds women aren’t into marriage anymore and being free cooks/cleaners/therapists/childcare when we can just get jobs instead. No wonder they stopped us from getting bank accounts until the 1974.
Is this a boomer? They have brain damage from lead pipes.
That’s so sad to not have a medical excuse! He must be so threatened by technology. Poor guy. He would have been so much more successful if he just learned how to use basic computer programs. Take your 2022 skills to a modern firm.