Some Fun With Blind Items: Bad Bosses
The Justice Department’s Shanetta Cutlar isn’t the only idiosyncratic manager in the legal profession. The WSJ Law Blog offers up some interesting blind items about bosses from hell challenging supervisors in the world of private practice.
From the main post:
[Wall Street Journal columnist Carol Hymowitz] interviewed Gary Hayes, a psychologist and consultant, who says he worked with a New York law firm where a senior partner flung heavy law books across the room at an associate.“The associate told me it was all right since the partner intentionally threw to miss — not hit him,” says Hayes. “But the associate soon moved to another firm.”
It’s okay to hurl F.3ds at your underlings, as long as you have crappy aim.
And from the comments:
“In the eighties there was a story making the rounds about a partner at a major firm (yes I do know which one) who punctuated a heated discussion by ripping a telephone out of the wall and flinging it across the room at another partner. Does partner v. partner mean it’s ok?”“There is a certain partner at a certain well-known firm who is reputed to have hit her secretary in the head with a phone.”
“It just happened to me on Monday. A partner started yelling at me, reaching a high-pitched crescendo, because I handed him a photocopy of the wrong e-mail in an informal discussion. I almost started laughing, which infuriated him even more. The guy was on the verge of a stroke. I pity the man. He is a punishment to himself.”
If you’d like to enlighten us about these blind items, or speculate as to the individuals involved, you may do so — at your own risk — in the comments.
We will remind you, as we’ve done before, that under Section 230, YOU are responsible for any defamatory comments you post. We are providing the forum for discussion, but YOU are the speaker or publisher of your own remarks.
(And only YOU can prevent forest fires.)
The Scream [WSJ Law Blog]
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As someone who attends a toilet school and has no hope of a good law job, I don't sympathize. I would gladly put up with a "bad" boss for an opportunity to work in biglaw.
99% of these crazy partner stories revolve around Dennis block! and they're all true~!!!!
particularly the phone hitting the secretary. and the spilling coffee on a secretary. those are both verifiably true.
From back in the late 1990's... there was a male partner at a venerable NY firm in midtown who was notorious for weilding a baseball bat around when associates were around. Even worse, i recall a male paralegal who sought to emulate this partner by doing the same thing to poor temp lawyers he supervised in a basement.
"YOU are responsible for any defamatory comments you post. "
Unless of course those statements are true.
In the mid-90s, I worked for a partner at a small-ish firm (now merged into biglaw) who had been at a succession of biglaw firms in the preceding 20 years. This partner would routinely try to fire people (associates and secretaries) who had taken vacations that had been previously approved in writing, even when there were no deadlines. All while committing malpractice. And these were the nice things you would say about him/her. This partner eventually narrowly escaped the WTC attacks and then was found to have cancer. Perhaps there is a god.
ann 2:48: if the statements are true, then it's not defamatory (in the legal sense of that word)
I worked for a large Chicago firm before I went to law school. There was a partner on my floor who I once heard yelling the following into his speakerphone (with the door open):
"You know how the JEWS have been waiting THOUSANDS OF YEARS for their Messiah? Well that's how I feel about you and this F&CKING LICENSING AGREEMENT!!!"
An infamous partner at my old non-biglaw firm was known for a complete inability to keep a secretary for more than a few months at a time. As the story goes, one time he dictated a letter to his secretary... a letter which was from the partner to the secretary with the subject line "you're fired."
Yeah...
There are more stories than are told. A top Houston law firm had a partner who went through secretaries. Finally, the firm told him he could interview one more; after that he had to do his own recruiting.
Word was the last interview he did, he asked the candidate: "So, if I hire you, do you realize you would be the XXth secretary I've had in a year?"
She replied: "So, you're proud of the fact you can't get along with people?"
He hired her. To my knowledge they are still "together."
Some guys just need a mommy.
Here's a Dennis Block story: one time he was in the car on the way home, needed a cell phone, borrowed the driver's, got mad at whoever was on the other line, threw the driver's cell phone out the window.
I also have heard the one about the partner hitting the secretary in the head with a phone. I feel bad about saying who I've heard it is, but I'll narrow it down to Fried Frank...
Are people that tied to their big law salaries that they have completely lost all of their dignity. Do people realize how possible it is to make $160,000 per annum doing other things you love?
I wish a partner in a firm would throw a phone at me. It would be the last time he touched a phone in his life. As a matter a fact he would curl up into a corner everytime he heard a phone ring!
from the shanetta cutlar school of hard knocks.
Yes, why is it that more associates don't stand up for themselves when being abused by partners?
I would, seriously, slap the shit out of somebody for doing anything like that to me or, frankly, in my presence. What on earth could be at stake to make somebody behave that way? It's pathetic to have to resort to physical/verbal abuse when you already have so much power.