Small Law Firms

You’ve Got A Friend In Me: Are Employee-Employer Friendships In The Law Office A Bad Idea?

Office friendships are important -- especially in the context of a small law office.

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I’ve known my paralegal Marison for more than 10 years — as long as I’ve been practicing law. She’s seen me terrified, elated, heartbroken, frustrated, and triumphant — and that’s just when I’m searching for a Diet Coke hidden in the back of the office fridge. We’ve traveled together, battled in court together, and consumed an obscene amount of sugar together, mostly from the candy stash she keeps in her desk drawer in the event of emergency.

I left the firm where Marison worked several years ago. But after I became a partner at my current law office, we brought her on board. Now she’s both my employee and my friend, and also an amazing magician at shrinking files down so they are small enough to email.

In fact, I’m good friends with everyone else in my office (or at least I tell myself that as they try to avoid me in the hallways). We have lunch together and comment on each other’s Facebook posts. We discuss everything from politics to periods. We’ve even napped together.

Someone recently commented that our office culture was weird — we’ve largely torn down the wall between professional and personal (ahem, not that sort of personal), and we don’t bow down to the typical hierarchical way of doing things. I know some people say that path may lead to a slippery slope, especially with respect to relationships between employers and employees. How can you fire someone who’s gone bra shopping with you?

But I disagree — especially in the context of a small law office. I spend many, many waking hours with these people. I want to know them, and I want them to know me. I love how when I walk into the office I know I’m spending another day with this weird assortment of pseudo-family members instead of a bunch of normal people who don’t exclusively use swear words to convey their feelings, even when happy. Now, we don’t go around group hugging or anything, but we do have a stuffed “Love Sloth” from Target with a smushed head that we put on people’s chairs when they are having a bad day. (My law partner Stephan decided to throw the Love Sloth out of his office, and no longer is participating in the Love Sloth Sharing program.)

Now, I’m not advocating that you start out Day 1 of your new job telling folks about your top five worst hangovers or describing the morning sex you enjoyed at 6:00 a.m. (I mean, those are conversation topics that should be held off until at least the second week of employment.) The threat of oversharing in the workplace is real, but I think it can be equally harmful to work in an environment in which you don’t feel like you can be yourself or that the people you work with don’t know (or at least pretend to care) who you really are and what’s going on in your life.

I understand the concern that office friendships could interfere with an employer’s ability fulfill her role as “the boss.” But I like to think that people in my office can respect me even though they know me well. I also don’t like to earn respect through fear, except on first dates. I’ve found that, with respect to employees, tough conversations are always going to be tough. It’s been no more difficult to address a hard subject with an employee who is a friend rather than one who is not. In fact, when you already have open lines of communication, it can create a less threatening environment for delivering potentially bad news.

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I’m also not worried about employees “exploiting” our friendship. Our employees work hard because we are a part of a team and we share the mutual goals of staying in business and not looking like idiots. I trust them. That’s why we pay them to keep showing up every day. Sure, my employees make mistakes, and I still point them out because I don’t want them to happen again. And I make mistakes too. Knowing that my co-workers always have my back makes it easier for me to come to them for help resolving a mess I’ve stepped in (hopefully figuratively, but they’d be there for me literally, too).

Would close friendships in the law office work within all contexts? Maybe not, especially if you start out as friends and then become co-workers. (Just think of some of those friends who became roommates when you were young and broke.) And certainly it’s not something that I encourage trying to shoehorn into your particular situation. If a friendship doesn’t happen organically, it’s not going to occur just by scheduling an obscene number of work social events, even if the office picks up the drink tab. Some people don’t want work friends — this is Seattle, after all. Leave those people alone. They ensure that there’s someone to talk about during happy hour.

I’m not naïve and I definitely don’t run on optimism. (In fact, I fill up on high-octane cynicism whenever my tank gets low.) Yes, it’s entirely possible our sociable model of firm culture will blow up in our faces. But at least I will have some office friends to grab drinks with and watch it all burn together.

Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at Allison.Peryea@leahyps.com.

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