Biglaw, Health / Wellness, Partner Issues

How To Work For A Difficult Partner

Try shifting the focus from the partner feeling irritated at having to train you to helping you succeed so that the client can benefit.

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Jeena Cho

Jeena Cho

One of my favorite parts of writing for ATL is the emails I receive from my readers. I usually respond offline, but I thought I’d share this question as well as my response in a post because this is an issue I hear about often — how to work with a difficult partner. The email reads:

The senior partner in our group is very intimidating… And I’ve just had a lot of work with him recently where even the slightest irritated comment gets me really worked up and unable to focus properly or even eat regularly during the day. So, of course, where I feel like I’ve just pissed him off over what could just be normal first-year foibles, I dread coming into the office knowing that I have more work/hassling forthcoming from him.

I’d definitely like to know how to manage my workload so that I’m not one of these associates that bills 2300-2400 hours and doesn’t have time to do anything else, and also how to manage living a balanced life. I’d like to spend more time with my partner, and I’m also an avid cyclist and part of a team up here, but I barely have time to enjoy that either!

I’d like to start by stating the obvious: The practice of law is difficult. It is a hard profession. As a young lawyer, you have two goals that must co-exist:

  1. How to be the best lawyer possible; and
  2. How to learn to practice in a way that is sustainable, fulfilling, and enjoyable.

You have many decades of work ahead of you and figuring out ways of managing yourself — finding ways to deal with the stresses of law practice in a healthy and positive way — is critical.

Working With Difficult People: Regulating Your Emotional Reaction

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I can really relate to this email — working for someone who instills the sense of terror that seeps into every aspect of your life. First, remember what I said above. The practice of law is difficult. It’s difficult because clients come to us with really complicated problems and we’re responsible for fixing them. There’s an endless amount of information to learn, and the craft of lawyering takes years, if not decades, to master. (That’s why it’s called a practice.) It’s also difficult because of the adversarial nature of our system. And the law firm structure where it’s always about maximizing the billable hour just adds to the misery.

In your particular situation, there are two layers to what you’re experiencing. First, you mention the inability to focus or eat. This sounds like you are suffering from chronic stress. The bad news is that chronic stress can feel all-consuming. Your mind just wants to fixate on the thing that you’re stressed about — in this case, the senior partner.

Research on stress is pretty clear. While we cannot control the stressors in our life — for example, the senior partner’s reaction to your work product — we can control the impact those stressors have on our mind and body. That’s the good news. With practice, we can change how we respond to stressful situations.

There are many different ways of modulating our emotional reaction to a stressful situation, including self-compassion, exercise, meditation, relaxation, breathing exercises, engaging in hobbies or other enjoyable activities, increasing positive social interaction, and gratitude practice. The key is to choose tools that work for you and practice using them on a regular basis.

Change The Narrative

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One of the downsides of billing by the hour is that it disincentivizes mentoring and training young associates. If the senior partner spends an hour correcting or critiquing your work, that’s one hour he “wasted.” However, there is a larger picture that’s important to keep in mind. You and your senior partner have the same objective — to offer excellent service to the clients.

In your interaction with your senior partner, see if you can find ways of reminding him of this common objective. You can say something like, “I know this motion is really important to our client, and therefore important to you. I’d appreciate your suggestions on what I could’ve done better so I can deliver the best work product possible.”

Use words that emphasize the fact that you are a team, and you are in this together. This will hopefully shift the focus from the partner feeling irritated at having to train you to helping you succeed so that the client can benefit.

As for the second part of your question on how to not let work consume your life, that’s of course the 64-million-dollar question and one that many professionals, not just lawyers, struggle with. My short answer is this:

  1. Get clear about your priorities. Aside from work, what else is important to you? Having a loving relationship with your partner? Being a good friend? Being a good brother or sister? Hobbies like cycling?
  2. What do you have to let go of to make time for these priorities?

No matter how well you budget your time, there’s the basic truth that there are only 1,440 minutes per day, so start with those things that matter the most, then let the less important items fill the remaining space. I wrote a longer article on this topic — Three Words That Should Be Banned: Work-Life Balance.

Finally, practice being a good friend to yourself. Treat yourself with empathy, compassion, and kindness. What would you tell your best friend if she was struggling with these issues?

P.S. I am offering a CLE on skillfully navigating difficult conversations on March 30th. Details can be found here.

Jeena Cho is the author of the upcoming American Bar Association book, The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a Happier, Saner Law Practice Using Meditation (affiliate link). She offers coaching, and workshops on using mindfulness for cultivating a more balanced life, stress management, and sustainable law practice. Connect via Twitter @jeena_cho or email smile@theanxiouslawyer.com.

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