In-House Counseling: The Terrible Twos

Ed. note: This post is written by Will Meyerhofer, a Biglaw attorney turned psychotherapist, whom we profiled. A former Sullivan & Cromwell associate, he holds degrees from Harvard, NYU Law, and The Hunter College School of Social Work. He blogs at The People’s Therapist.

You pass through a stage when you’re about two years old – the famous “terrible twos.” It’s often marked by stubborn refusals to obey orders, and sometimes downright tantrums. The infant is growing into a person. For the first time, he wants control over his own life.

It’s called personal autonomy. You go where you want to go, do what you want to do, and refuse to do what you don’t want to do. A crucial phase of human psychological development, it marks the inception of an independent identity, a sense of purpose – and a sense of self.

This week I worked with a young second-year from a big firm. She related a hellish story of law firm life.

This past Saturday morning she was at the airport in line with a boarding pass, heading to her best friend’s wedding, when her cellphone rang. It was a partner. He needed her in right away.

She explained that she was about to step on a plane.

He asked, “Well, are you actually in the wedding?”

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She said no.

“Then you don’t have to be there.”

You’ve heard stories like this. One of my clients admitted to a partner that it was actually his step-grandmother’s funeral he was leaving the office to attend. This old woman had been married to his grandfather for 30 years and was the only grandmother he’d ever known, but he lost on a technicality. He couldn’t be at that funeral because she wasn’t family. Some court filing was more important.

Young attorneys at big firms don’t have personal autonomy….

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Even for a two-year-old, it is degrading to be treated like an infant. But at least a two-year-old can throw a tantrum. You don’t have that option. You have to contain all that anger, and often it gets turned inward, triggering low self-esteem and depression.

You know this problem exists – we all do. The question becomes what to do about it.

I have two suggestions:

First, lawyers can treat one another like adults instead of infants.

Virtually nothing that has to be done by Monday really has to be done by Monday. That is a law firm myth.

I remember, in the business world, my boss demanding that a contract be re-drafted by our outside counsel for Monday morning. It was Friday afternoon. I interrupted the call to say I wanted to take a look at the current draft before then, and that I’d get it to the outside counsel by Monday morning so she could sign off on my changes.

I was lying. But I could almost hear her body collapse in relief. I knew the outside counsel. She was 27 years old and had been planning to go skiing that weekend with her boyfriend. I’d worked as a lawyer at a big law firm. I knew she would be devastated if we trashed her weekend. I also knew it wasn’t that important – so I did what I had to.

I approached my boss, a Vice President of Marketing, a few days later, and talked to him about it.

“Don’t you realize how much they bill us an hour for her time?” he said. “She should work on weekends.”

When money is made more important than people, someone always suffers. I didn’t care what they billed us for her hours. I was worried about her. She was a person.

I’m making a plea here for lawyers who have had their weekends ruined to do whatever it takes to make sure someone else’s weekend isn’t ruined, too.

That means partners can try to make things more transparent, so associates have a heads-up sooner.

That means instead of pulling in some poor junior who’s going to his grandmother’s funeral, call in a paralegal, who’d probably love the overtime and can do most of the same work anyway.

That means realizing that other people are people, too, and they deserve to have some control over their lives.

My second suggestion is for you lawyers out there whose autonomy is being taken from you….

Read on at The People’s Therapist.