Small Law Firms

Being A Jerk Can Permanently Affect A Lawyer's Reputation

Legal practice is a small community, and acting like a jerk can have far-reaching consequences.

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Although there may seem to be countless lawyers in your jurisdiction, the legal community is often much smaller than people believe. Indeed, lawyers usually know each other, or know someone who knows another attorney, and a person’s reputation can stay with them for a long time in the legal industry. Attorneys who act like jerks may be perceived negatively by other lawyers, and this can harm them for years to come in a number of ways.

Lawyers use their reputation for a various reasons throughout their careers. Attorneys usually change jobs several times, and they may rely on their reputation, and what people say about them, to advance in the employment process. In addition, lawyers often use their reputation to get referrals from other attorneys since lawyers typically only refer matters to other legal professionals they can trust since the referral may reflect on the referring attorney. Lawyers may also need to have another lawyer vouch for them if they are applying for admission to a new bar or some kind of credential within the legal profession.

Accordingly, it is usually important not to be a jerk, so that your reputation is preserved within the legal community. Indeed, I have witnessed several times during my career when the reputations of lawyers impacted their ability to do their jobs into the future.

For instance, I once worked at a law firm that was centrally involved in a massive matter that also involved numerous other law firms. I did not handle this work myself, but I knew which attorneys at our firm worked on the matter and other details. One time, I was sitting in court waiting for a court conference to begin, and I started chatting with another lawyer on my case. When I told him where I used to work, he immediately discussed how he was also involved in this massive matter that my previous firm had worked on.

The other lawyer asked if I worked with a particular partner at my previous firm, and I related that I did. The attorney then proceeded to tell me that this partner was a jerk and had pissed off a bunch of lawyers in the matter. Apparently, my former boss promised a bunch of co-defendants that he would be interested in sharing experts, which many lawyers already know, is a huge help in litigation. Sharing experts ensures that lawyers can shoulder responsibilities among themselves, and their clients do not need to take the huge financial hit of securing experts individually. Apparently, my former boss later backed out of the arrangement to share experts, and the lawyer told me that this made things harder on him and other attorneys.

I thought this was a one-off exchange, but a little later in my career, I met another lawyer who worked on that massive matter my old firm had worked on. This lawyer also asked if I worked with this senior partner at my former firm. I said that I did, and this other lawyer started discussing how my former boss backed out of a deal to share experts, and it left a bunch of lawyers and their clients holding the bag. I could not believe that these lawyers were still talking about something my former boss did years earlier, but his reputation had taken a substantial hit and people remembered the situation years later.

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Many times in my career, I also encountered associates who had bad reputations either because of their work product or because of how they acted in an office. I once worked with an associate who was not liked by many of the other associates. The firm at which we worked had a very political climate and people were assigned projects by partners. As a result, associates sometimes had to employ unusual tactics to get enough work to meet their billable hours requirement.

One associate got a reputation for telling partners that certain associates were busier than they actually were so that this lawyer could get assignments over other attorneys. Moreover, it was believed that this attorney got out of doing some of the nonbillable business development projects that associates had to complete from time to time at that firm. I heard anecdotally that the reputation of this associate traveled to this associate’s new firm, probably because the legal community is pretty small and people at the new firm knew attorneys at the shop at which we used to work.

When I began law school, the president of the Student Bar Association told the incoming class to treat law school like high school. Gossip travels fast, and people did not want to get a bad reputation in law school that could travel around with them for the rest of their careers. To a certain extent, legal practice is a small community, and acting like a jerk can have far-reaching consequences. As a result, lawyers should keep in mind that they should not let present-day goals or other motivations allow them to harm their reputations, which can impact their careers for years to come.

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

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