PT-LawMom

The latest ABA Journal has a piece on Mark Herrmann’s new book, “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law“. As a long-suffering (ha, ha) legal secretary, I really enjoyed his advice to future associates (Note -”quoting” from memory, so may not be word-for-word):

“I’ve seen associates come and I’ve seen associates go. I’ve been a legal secretary longer than you’ve been alive. I know you think you are smarter than me and that there’s nothing I can teach you. Get over it…

If you want me to be part of your team, you need to treat me like a member of your team. If you treat me like office equipment, I will act like it. And considering how often the equipment breaks around here, that’s not a good idea!”

I am constantly amazed at the hubris of young associates. Most of them probably went straight from undergrad to law school and have never worked in the real world. But seriously, don’t just draft a document like you learned in law school. Take the time to look up the partner’s past documents (there will surely be a similar one out there) and figure out what he/she likes and the language they use. I’ve worked for several partners in different areas of law and every one of them has a unique style and at least one formatting/wording choice that is in direct conflict to what one “knows” to be “correct”. Correct does not matter. If the partner has to spend three hours reworking your document to fit his style, you can bet he or she will be less likely to utilize you on future projects.

As for befriending your secretary, I recommend it - to a point. I think it’s important to be respectful and friendly, but a bad idea to be overly friendly. One of my coworker’s associates had a crisis one time and called me from the client’s office (she was out) to search his office for a document, scan it, and e-mail it to him. He thanked me and then when he returned to the office later that day, he was bearing a chai latte and a cookie. You know I would now do anything for that man. I had a former associate at another firm who was close to my age and was always coming by my desk to chat me up. I really liked her but that got me in trouble because my partner would see us “goofing off” and it ultimately hurt both of us. I also think that, like it or not, there is a hierarchy and when you really need something done, a true Friendship may get in the way. That said, BE NICE!!!

DO: Let your secretary in on your whereabouts. Nothing sucks more than getting a call from an important client or corner office partner and having to fudge because you don’t know where the person is. It’s also disrespectful. We start to feel like the aforementioned office equipment and get resentful when we have to call other secretaries to find out where you are and hear “Oh, he and [her partner's name] flew to Zurich this morning for client meetings.” (Been there, done that, eventually requested a transfer off that guy’s desk)

DON’T: Forget secretary’s day or your secretary’s birthday. An e-card is fine. Completely ignoring it? Not so much…

DO: Tell your secretary if you’re sick but want clients to think you’re just out on business. If you have been kind to your secretary, she’ll cover for you. Otherwise she may not say you’re home, but she may not cover for you in the way you’d like. “Oh, I’m sorry. He’s not in the office AGAIN…”

DON’T: Forget that your secretary has access to your e-mail (if you’ve given it). This is a very important tool for managing your calendar and can really help your secretary become more of an integral part of your team. She can read through your e-mails and calendar items, remind you of pending issues, respond on your behalf when you’re out, etc. I highly recommend it. However, when last night’s girlfriend sends an ode to your naked body, it becomes a bit embarrassing. Also a bad idea to talk negatively about your secretary or others with others via work e-mail…. (And remember that your secretary probably has access to her partner’s e-mail. Obviously any secretary worth her salt will be discreet about almost everything, but you should avoid discussing HER with her partner via e-mail. DUH!)

DO: Give clear instructions and say please. We need to learn your style so you need to be explicit in your instructions. If we don’t do it right, tell us nicely. What may be “totally wrong” for you may be the preferred style of our partner or of the firm generally. We’re willing to learn/adapt, but less so when the message isn’t delivered in a respectful way. Don’t treat us like we’re stupid.

DON’T: Go to our supervisor without at least trying to speak with us first. Also, don’t blindside us in evaluations or give a “3″ (out of 5) on everything because you’re stingy - that affects our compensation! I had a coworker whose associate would never directly address her from day one and sent one-word responses to her request for elaboration on his work requests. He e-mailed her documents to print or format and that was it. He never gave her feedback of any kind (even when she solicited it) and then gave her straight 3’s on her review (out of 5). When she asked him for constructive criticism so that she could improve, he said “You’re doing just fine” and then he repeated the straight 3 review the following year….

DON’T: Use the spacebar to make tabs, ignore styles, hand-mark a bazillion different format changes on a document and then expect us to turn it around in 5 minutes. A little Word training never hurt anyone. If you need help setting up a document shell, let us know. Or write it out on a legal pad and let us enter it. There’s a reason we type 80wpm+. Fixing your screwy document takes a lot longer than setting it up right in the first place. Oh, and when you, your partner, three other associates and a paralegal are all simultaneously reviewing a brief that needs to be e-filed by 11:59 p.m., don’t bring me 6 sets of contradictory edits at 11:15 p.m. and then wonder why I fall off my chair laughing.

That’s all I have for now.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Legal Secretaries . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.