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Hello All, I have offer in hand of 27.5 LPA+15% variable from ZS Associates as a BT Solutions delivery consultant and now my current company is ready to retain me by matching the offer & assuring that they will send me onsite to UK in couple of months. Now I am in a dilemma of what to do as I have been looking for onsite opportunities for my entire career so far. Kindly share your thoughts. Tech stack- ETL, abinitio, aws YoE 9 years CCTC 18.2+10% variable Capgemini
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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.”
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.
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).
Rising Star
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.
Does this partner ask male associates to do these tasks, whether they are junior or more experienced associates?
Not to my knowledge.
Delegate
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 😉