Lawyer of the Day: Deferred Associates Claim Brooklyn ADA is a Meanie

Deferred associates spending a year in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office claim that Brooklyn ADA Ama Dwimoh is an abusive boss.

At first blush, one assumes that kids who have been coddled at the best schools and top firms simply weren’t prepared for the rough and tumble world of actual lawyering.

But the Brooklyn D.A., Charles Hynes, is seriously looking into the allegations and has suspended Dwimoh. Can she really be that bad?

The New York Daily News reports that the deferred associates claim Dwimoh is a screamer:

District Attorney Charles Hynes has suspended Assistant District Attorney Ama Dwimoh amid allegations she constantly screamed at the intern lawyers – and threatened to fire them for little or no reason, sources said.

I really don’t get the people who feel the need to scream at their underlings, especially in a legal practice. One of the best things about my time at Debevoise was that nobody, ever, raised their voice to me — or anybody else. The partners at Debevoise understood that nobody gets smarter or better just because you yell at them. Some of my friends at other firms weren’t so lucky.

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And while it’s understandable that a Brooklyn D.A.’s office is a little more rough than the white-shoe halls of Debevoise & Plimpton, there’s no reason for any professional to run around yelling and screaming at people.

The Daily News is scant with details on exactly what Dwimoh allegedly did to these kids. So it could still be a case of wannabe Biglaw lawyers getting spanked by the real world:

The young intern attorneys all come from private law firms, including some of the city’s most prestigious partnerships.

Under a special arrangement, they work full time for the 50-person crimes against children bureau. Their firms pay half their salaries and the DA’s office pays the other half, sources said.

After months of enduring Dwimoh’s office rage, the interns decided they had had enough, the sources told The News.

Let’s remember Dwimoh is famous — well, moderately famous, in NYC — for prosecuting child abusers. Certainly the people complaining about Dwimoh right now are using the word “abuse” quite differently than the way it’s usually used in that office.

If you’ve got any more information about what was going down in the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, send us a note at tips@abovethelaw.com.

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Assistant DA Ama Dwimoh suspended as interns claim abuse, saying she yelled, threatened to fire them [New York Daily News]