Biglaw, In-House Counsel

Why The Easiest Job -- Reporting What’s Happening -- Is Hard

Sometimes, even a relatively easy thing requires both judgment calls and seeing the future.

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Suppose you’re handling a mass tort involving 200 cases.  Or the general counsel is overseeing a legal department that includes 200 people.  In any event, there are a whole bunch of moving parts, and there’s a whole bunch of on-going activity.

The partner overseeing the mass tort, or the general counsel, makes an easy request.  If it’s the partner, the request sounds like this:  “Keep me abreast of everything that’s happening in the cases.  If the client calls, I can’t look like an idiot.  I have to know what’s going on.  So make sure I know everything that’s happening in the cases.”

If it’s the general counsel talking, the request sounds like this:  “Keep me abreast of everything that’s going on in the Law Department.  If the CEO mentions an issue to me, I can’t look like an idiot.  I have to know what’s going on in the department.  So make sure I know everything that’s happening.”

Easy, right?  That’s pretty straightforward.

Actually, no.

Because the boss isn’t really saying what the boss means.

Suppose you take the boss literally and tell the boss everything that’s happening in the cases:  “We got an extension of 30 days to answer in the Smith case.  We moved the deposition in the Jones case from Houston to Dallas.  We produced some documents in the Doe case.”

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Of course that’s not what the boss wanted to know.  And the boss will tell you so:

“What the heck’s wrong with you?!  I don’t want to know every penny-ante thing that’s happening in the cases!  Who cares if the deposition is in Houston or Dallas?  I want to know the stuff that matters!  Don’t be an idiot.  Report the important things to me!  Don’t bother me with trivia!”

Exactly.

All of a sudden the easy task just got much harder.   Because the job isn’t –- and never really was — to “report everything that’s happening”; you have to decide what’s important and what’s not.  You’re going to choose not to tell the boss about some things.  That poses a problem, because you can’t predict the future.

You’re a pretty smart person.  You know what counts and what doesn’t.  So you tell the boss only the important stuff.

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Then the client calls the boss:  “The deposition in the Jones case is moving from Houston to Dallas.  That creates a problem.  The deponent isn’t able to travel, so we really can’t have the deposition taken in Dallas.”

Oh!

A triviality just got important.  Who’d a thunk it?

The boss naturally marches down the hall:  “Why didn’t you tell me that the deposition was moving from Houston to Dallas?!  I gave you a simple instruction — tell me everything that’s happening in the cases!  Now, the client called, and I didn’t even know that there was a deposition, let alone that it was moving.  I looked like an idiot!  I told you not to let that happen!  What’s wrong with you?”

The truth is that even a relatively easy thing — “tell me everything that’s happening” —  requires both judgment calls (which many people can do) and seeing the future (which is a little trickier).  Things that seem trivial become important for unexpected reasons, and no one can know, with 100 percent accuracy, what will become important in the future.

What’s the lesson?

First, even some easy jobs are harder than they look.

Second, bosses must be reasonable.  They shouldn’t think that requests that sound simple are always as easy as they seem.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now responsible for litigation and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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