Working with your legal secretary
Since Evan Schaeffer has so kindly referred his readers to my “What to do when your assistant sucks” post, I’m also going to repost my “Curmudgeonly Legal Secretary” post (or what attorneys should do so THEY don’t suck!):
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.
I have one more from a recent Legality discussion about how attorneys are always taking the free food/office product giveways when they make more money than sin and don’t seem to realize or care that staff might really want those things (the tote bags are especially nice, even if they do have the firm name across the front). If your secretary bakes or brings in a cake for your birthday, reciprocate. Many large firms, including mine, have a “rule” that secretaries must do this for their assignments. We DO NOT get reimbursed for this, yet it is our duty. I’m not kidding. I’ve laid out $55 in the last two months for a goodbye cake and a birthday cake. 
I think this rule is just so wrong and the attorneys probably don’t even realize it’s coming out of our pockets but, seriously, THINK!
September 21st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I worked as a legal secretary/paralegal for 6 years before going to law school, I whole-heartedly agree with all of that!! Especially the part about gaining the loyalty of your secretary. The last attorneys I worked for as a secretary were incredibly good to me. My first week with the firm, I had stayed 30 minutes late one night to help my boss out with a problem. My last boss would have had a snide comment about me ONLY staying 30 minutes late (the ungrateful hag), but not only did my new boss THANK me for staying, he even bought me lunch the next day. We had a great relationship the two years I worked there, and he and my other boss wrote my letters of recommendation to law school/grad school. They even went to bat for me with management to arrange for me to leave early two days a week to go to my grad school classes the last year I was there, something the other firms I’d worked for would never have allowed (Ungrateful Hag even expected me to miss my evening classes that were after work hours). Those experiences are what made me want to go back as an associate, even though I could make more money at another firm. People really underestimate the value of employee loyalty.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:51 am
WTF? You are required to buy birthday cakes without reimbursement? That is so wrong. And as an attorney, I would feel so uncomfortable knowing that my assistant had to do this.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 pm
If it’s required it should be paid for out of petty cash. Use the same account as you would if you had to order your boss take-out for lunch! You can’t require someody to buy you a present, that’s ridiculous.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:11 am
You’d think that would work, but the supervisors that have to approve such requests will not do so. I’m at a very large firm and we don’t have petty cash — everything goes through a request system.