Labor / Employment, On The Job

Top 4 Causes Of Biglaw Injuries (My Best Guesses)

What types of substandard conditions, injuries, and close calls have you seen or heard about in Biglaw?

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So, I was enjoying my latest issue of must-read Tulsa World with a cup of coffee last week when I noticed a short article about an entrepreneur who started a mobile app after his father fell from an oil derrick and was killed when his safety harness snapped. The app lets people report, in real time, three workplace safety problems: workplace injuries, “close calls” at work, and substandard workplace conditions.

He said that his key motivation for this enterprise is that “[w]e really want to understand what happened because we don’t want the next employee to be injured. … I knew that with better communication, with a better understanding of your workplace environment, that we could prevent workplace incidents.”

Sounds like a good idea to me.

As a litigator who does a good deal of employment-related work, that piece also nicely dovetailed with my review of a bar chart known as the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index (“Safety Index”). It’s a chart of the top 10 most disabling workplace injuries.

For example, #4 — “struck by object or equipment,” or #5 — “other exertions or bodily reactions.”

You get the drift.

Anyway, I got to thinking back to my times at Biglaw — and what types of substandard conditions and injuries I saw or heard about on the shop floor. And the causes.

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And the “close calls.”

What if there was a central place — a Biglaw app, such as the Tulsa one, where Biglaw workplace incidents, “close calls,” and substandard conditions could be reported in real time. And what if there was a “Biglaw Safety Index” — the two could be joined and we could get a more complete picture of the varying degrees of safety risks at Biglaw.  And don’t kid yourself — there are plenty.

Hmmm …

Well, I am not aware of any “Biglaw app,” but a phone hotline will have to do in the meantime (or email). And there is no Safety Index just for Biglaw. (Maybe one of you Millennial geniuses can come up with an app and a safety index?)

Anyway, I took a guess as to what the top 4 Biglaw workplace injuries might be — based very scientifically on some of what I’ve heard second hand or experienced over the years — and was wondering whether witnessing or experiencing a workplace injury at Biglaw, and phoning it in, might go something as follows.

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  1. “Struck or Compressed By Object” (Safety Index #4 and #8)

Associate: Hi — is this the Biglaw App, I mean hotline? A partner at my firm just chucked a heavy paper weight at me and missed my head by inches. Does this count as a “workplace incident” or a “close call?” (NB: Based upon a real incident reported to me from a credible source some time ago).

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator: Maybe both. Did a non-fatal injury occur?

Associate: Yes. After the paper weight whizzed by my head, I was so angry that I grabbed the partner by his collar and threw him against the wall. He was slightly injured, but it wasn’t fatal.

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator: OK. Let’s break this down for statistical purposes. It was indeed a “close call” with the paper weight, but not a disabling injury under Safety Index No. 4 — “struck by object or equipment” — because he missed you.  Sorry.

On the other hand, if the paper weight had hit you in the head, you would have sufficed as being “struck” by an object, and maybe — depending upon how hard he threw it — you might have also qualified as having your head “compressed by an object.”  But that’s merely a hypothetical, of no moment to us.

However, your assault on the partner is indeed an “incident.”  Good work, you made the list.

  1. “Workplace substandard condition”

Associate:  I want to report substandard conditions in my workplace. I have been effectively locked in solitary confinement in a windowless room little bigger than a closet for 14 hours a day (or whatever works out to 2,400 billable hours per year). I am let out only once a day for a bathroom break and a quick walk around the floor, and then locked back in. They give me food after 10 p.m.

I feel like screaming!!  Can this be considered a #5 — a “bodily reaction?”  Is it a substandard condition?

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator: Hmmmm. … It surely is a “bodily reaction,” but a “substandard condition?”  Nope, don’t think so.

“Substandard” means “deviating from or falling short of a standard or norm.” What you describe is well within the Biglaw “standard or norm.” In fact, it is the norm.

Your cell (I mean office) is climate controlled, right? You got food, right?  Some exercise?  You fall well within the U.S. Department of Prisons Guidelines and the UN Human Rights Protocols.

And only 2,200 hours? Why are you complaining, you’ve got it good. There are people cross town clamoring to take your job.

  1. “Workplace ‘close call’”

Associate: Please help!! 911!!!

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator: This is not 911. It is the Biglaw substandard workplace condition hotline. What’s up?

Associate: I want to report a “close call.” A really close call. And it involves a “bodily reaction” and an “exertion” injury, I believe.

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator: Go ahead.

Associate: After two months without a single day off, little sleep and no exercise, I was preparing to take off a day for the Memorial Day holiday weekend to visit my spouse and kids.  Right before I was to leave, the thought of taking a day off made me feel incredibly sick, and I had to bolt to the rest room. Surely a “bodily reaction,” right?

Upon my return, my officemate told me that the assigning partner was looking for me and like a shot I flew down three flights of stairs and hid in a closet for an hour. That was quite an “exertion” since I haven’t been to a gym in months — and a “close call,” huh?

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator: OK, I’ll give you a “bodily reaction.”

But a “close call?”

Forget it.  A “close call” would be if as you were boarding a plane for Fiji for your first vacation in seven years you saw the assigning partner running towards you and as you feverishly tried to assist in closing the cabin door you almost got your fingers caught in it.

  1. “Workplace incident”

Associate: One of the known-bully partners was screaming at a young associate mercilessly — he stood there stoically and after this withering tirade, he went home — where he suffered a stroke. He’s OK, but boy, what an incident!!

Doesn’t this count — for something?

Biglaw Hotline Safety Operator:  Nope. Sorry, pal.  Didn’t take place in the workplace. Doesn’t count.

He should have had the stroke before he left the office — then, maybe, we could talk.

richard-b-cohenRichard B. Cohen has litigated and arbitrated complex business and employment disputes for almost 40 years, and is a partner in the NYC office of the national “cloud” law firm FisherBroyles. He is the creator and author of his firm’s Employment Discrimination blog, and received an award from the American Bar Association for his blog posts. You can reach him at Richard.Cohen@fisherbroyles.com and follow him on Twitter at @richard09535496.

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