The partner that I work closely with has a habit of asking me to do assistant tasks - saving docs to files, printing copies, etc. When I was a new associate, I didn’t push back on it. But now I am a 6th year associate with a full case load. On one hand, I am happy that he feels like I am his righthand. On the other, it’s getting old. Would you start pushing back?

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I tend to respond with “yes, I’ll get with (fill in assistant’s name) and ask her to do that.”

likehelpful

This has been my method of coping so far. Hoping he will get the hint because it seems so inefficient for me to ask staff to do something when he could just ask them directly.

To follow up on the gendered aspect to this, my experience has been that partners don’t consider female lawyer’s admin assistance as paving the way for partnership.

So you may think you’re their “right hand,” but doing this work is counterproductive. It will unfortunately cast you in the role of secretary. In reviews, you may be told you don’t take “ownership” and don’t “take the lead,” and so cannot become partner.

It is critical that your time be spent doing substantive work setting you up for partnership or building your legal resume, just like for the male associates.

likesmart

Often times when partners are "assisgning" tasks to associates they are simply getting them off their own plate. They do tend to lean toward the assumption that you'll utilize firm resources and appropriate staff to get the job done (and oversee as appropriate).

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Is there an office manager you could press that with? You might even be able to use the way this partner is leaning on you for administrative work as even more reason you need more support, and have this partner or another partner who likes you go to bat for you too.

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Does this partner ask male associates to do these tasks, whether they are junior or more experienced associates?

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Not to my knowledge.

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Delegate

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Just delegate it to a paralegal or legal assistant. I doubt the partner cares who does it, as long as it gets done. If he complains say you didn’t think your billable time was best spent doing admin tasks and that you want to maximize profits for the company 😉

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