For exactly one month I worked for a sociopath. While I’m not a clinician, I am dead serious—I am convinced that my boss was incapable of empathy. And, it is amazing for me to reflect on how much one person, someone who is not your friend, not your family, not selected or elected by anyone can control nearly every aspect your happiness and misery.
I am telling this story for catharsis and in the hopes that you, the reader, may have some idea about how such an awful experience can be avoided in the future.
Please note that the names and places and identifiable facts have been changed, for my own protection.
First, a little bit about me. I am a second career professional who left a stable but unsatisfying job in the federal government to obtain a law degree. I went to a top-50 (but not a top 20) law school and graduated in the top 10% of my class. Unfortunately, work has been difficult to come by, and, after working for a year in an area of the law that was not my choice, the firm closed and I was let go. After six months of being unemployed I decided to visit my family on the east coast and explore employment opportunities there.
One day, I received an email from an attorney, “Ms. T” with whom I had previously spoken about a job. In her email she said, “If you’re still interested in work, I’d love to meet with you and chat about what you could do for me and I could do for you.”
I offered to meet with the attorney in 10 days, after I returned home.
Ms. T runs a small law firm—herself and one other attorney who works as an assistant. I had heard that there was a lot of turnover in the firm and knew another attorney who despised Ms. T, but, given my situation, I knew that I couldn’t be too picky.
The interview: The attorney wanted to know what I was looking for and I told her a full time position. Then she asked what my salary requirements were, and I told her my previous salary. My previous salary was on the low end of attorney salaries, but she seemed shocked. “Well, I can’t offer you that. But, if you stay and work with me you can make quite a bit. I give bonuses as a percentage of your billable hours.” She stated that new attorneys rarely bill more than 30 hours per week for the first few months. She then proceeded to offer me a base salary more than 40% less than my prior salary plus what seemed to be a very generous bonus schedule. I counteroffered with a somewhate higher base salary and a somewhat smaller bonus schedule.
Later that week, Ms. T agreed to give me the base salary I had asked for but stated that there was a 3-month “probationary period” during which I would not receive any bonus. I had misgivings that I would ever receive much of a bonus but I accepted. Later on, I read the list of “office policies” which appeared to state that I wouldn’t receive any time off until I had been there a year. I took a deep breath and tried to be positive.
Day 1, Monday: When I had asked what the starting time was, Ms. T was noncommittal and simply pointed out when everyone else in her office showed up. Deciding that it didn’t make sense for me to show up too much before my boss (since no one else would be able to show me what to do) I got there at 8:15. I was shown by Hilda, the office manager, to the conference room and was directed to a desk. The desk was covered in papers, a huge printer, and a photograph that I did not recognize. My heart sunk. Really, I didn’t even have an office? Or a desk?
Ms. T came in around 9:00 AM and handed me some files to review. Then in the afternoon we went to a hearing. She pointed out a parking garage that was right near the courthouse that that it only charged $1.00 per hour, which was reasonable for downtown.
On the way to the courthouse, she mentioned that Connie, a new employee in her firm had just that morning announced her resignation. According to Ms. T, “That’s just not right! She took this job when she still had other applications pending. She should have told them that she wasn’t looking for a job anymore. People don’t realize that their employers invest time and resources training their employees!”
After court, Ms. T gave me more work. She asked Pam to get files for her and when Pam didn’t get them immediately, Ms. T turned to me and said “she’s really stupid, you know.” I was fairly shocked.
Day 2, Tuesday: A deposition was held in the conference room, i.e. my office.
Day 3, Wednesday: While sitting in the conference room, I overhear Ms. T talking on the phone and hear the words, “No sir, you will not fuck me! I don’t think you will!” I want to laugh but was a bit scared too.
Ms. T tells me that she will be getting copies of all emails I send and receive so that she can make sure I’m saying the right things to clients. Although I know such a thing is legal, it’s still a bit upsetting.
Day 4, Thursday: While Ms. T is out, Hilda mentions that Ms. T tends to only be in the office 1-2 weeks a month. The rest of the time, she is on vacation and does work remotely. I’m a little worried about how that will work. In any event, Hilda notes that the office closes early on Friday and since Ms. T will have left for The Virgin Islands already, I’ll have to leave early as well. Hilda also stated that new attorneys such as myself don’t usually get keys to the office until they have been working there for about a month. I am fairly happy about that.
Working on my first major assignment, I discovered a case that is right on point for our client. The facts of that case are definitely different from the facts of our case but there’s some good dicta that the other side will have trouble getting around. This ends up being the third argument that I write for a particular motion. I sent my work to Ms. T and she doesn’t edit or change my third argument at all. That makes me pretty happy. However, I notice that she added a bunch of facts to that section that simply weren’t relevant to that argument at all. Later, when I ask her what she thought of my third argument she says, “I didn’t really understand it.” That’s a bit disturbing, since she kept the entire argument in, and will be signing the motion herself.
Day 5, Friday: To maximize my billable hours, I don’t eat lunch, but get to leave the office at 3:30. I go home and play with my dog. I’m pretty happy about the new job.
At 6:00, I notice a voicemail on the home answering machine. It is an attorney from a firm in Denver that specializes in the area of the law that I’m most interested in. The attorney states that he wanted to see if I was interested in doing some work for them on a contract basis. I call back, but he is gone for the day and I leave a message saying that I have work for now, but I’m really interested in finding out more about the position.
Days 6-7, Saturday & Sunday: I enjoy the first real weekend I’ve had in months. I learn that one of the attorneys who used to work at my firm has just opened a firm in town as a sole practitioner. That’s surprising because Ms. T said he left because he got a great job at another firm in another state. Clearly someone is lying.
Day 8, Monday: I arrive at work and find a whole host of emails in my inbox from Ms. T who is now in The Virgin Islands. I’ve been assigned a new case and it is my top priority. About mid-day, Hilda comes in my room and hands me a key. “You’ll need this,”she says. “Ms. T says you’ll have to stay late to get all of the work done.” My heart sinks as I was looking forward to at least a month of normal hours.
Days 9-11, Tuesday - Thursday: I work exceedingly hard on the new assignment. I’m having trouble because the client’s explanation of what happened simply doesn’t add up. During a long phone call with Ms. T in The Virgin Islands asking her where she keeps getting the information she is telling me, she keeps referring to an email that she sent me. However, after I beg for forgiveness several times she says she’ll re-send it and then admits that she never sent it in the first place. Once I get the email I have more questions, and the client is very unresponsive to questions. I’m having trouble understanding who all the parties to the lawsuit are and what their relationship is. The client doesn’t seem to understand either. Ms. T states that A is an agent of B but the more I research it, the less that seems plausible. It seems like B is an agent of A. So, against her advice I go with the relationship that seems the most likely, concluding that she can change it when she reviews it. She never does.
At this time I attempt to make contact again with the attorney from the Denver firm. He responds that since I am fully engaged right now I should focus on that job. I immediately respond that, yes, I am fully engaged but I REALLY want to explore options with his firm. It takes him a while to get back to me and then he says he can’t speak with me until the following week. I worry that I have missed a golden opportunity.
Day 12, Friday: When I arrive to work there’s a message from Ms. T saying how I simply have to get the assignment done. I review her final edits and a red flag pops out but know that I simply won’t get answers from Ms. T or from the client, so I cross my fingers and sign the damn thing.
Day 13, Saturday: With great effort, I come into work on a Saturday and finish up a document I started during my first week. The one solace is that I'm the only one in the office.
Day 15, Monday: Although I thought Ms. T would be in today, she’s in fact still in The Virgin Islands. She wants to know why I haven’t been recording my billable hours. In fact, I had been recording my hours on a piece of paper but I hadn’t entered them electronically or uploaded them. I explained that I like to enter them electronically and upload them the following morning. That way, I can work as late as I need to and then just leave. Apparently, my method is unacceptable. I take a deep breath and suppress the urge to scream.
After downloading a case from “LexLaw” I get an email from Ms. T asking why I didn’t just find the case in the Research folder on the server. In fact, the Research folder on the server has hundreds of cases but they’re not indexed, not searchable and not completely up-to-date. I think of explaining this to Ms. T but realize that I would just get into an argument, so I don’t answer the email. Of course, the reason she knows that I’m downloading these cases is because she gets a copy of every email I send or receive.
Ms. T wants to know why I don’t respond to every email she sends. I am tempted to answer that my momma always said if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Instead, I apologize and promise to respond to all of her emails in the future.
Day 16, Tuesday: Ms. T tells me that she is merging her firm with another firm, effective next month. I ask her how that works. She’s not incredibly forthcoming. She does admit that she won’t be a partner at the new firm, just an employee.
Day 17, Wednesday: Ms. T comes into the conference room and closes the door. My heart sinks. Explains to me that “everyone here is equal” and I can’t insult Hilda by asking her to prepare case headers. A case header is the part that says “XYZ Law; Smith v. Jones; Assigned to Judge Thompson.” In most firms paralegals prepare case headers. In all of the other places I have previously worked, paralegals prepared case headers. Further, each law firm uses a slightly different format. And, this firm utilizes WordPerfect, as opposed to MS Word, so I’m not confident using the formatting.
Anyway, Ms. T tells me I can’t demean Hilda by asking her to prepare my headers for me. I really want to explain why I did what I did but I can tell she doesn’t want to hear. But Ms. T goes on and on, explaining how she does everything for herself, and never asks anyone to get her coffee.
Later that day Ms. T and I sit down and discuss upcoming deadlines. In going through the files she notices an email that Pam sent to a client with information regarding a case. The problem is that it’s the wrong client. Ms. T is pissed, “Pam is really stupid,” she tells me. “She could get us in trouble if we send an email to the wrong client.”
Day 18, Thursday: Ms. T sends Pam to the grocery store to buy her three honeycrisp Apples. While Pam is gone, Ms. T talks to Hilda and Alexa about finding a replacement for Pam because of her continued mistakes. “Write me a job announcement,” she tells Hilda, “make sure it says we want someone with no tattoos.”
I spend part of the day working on a response to a routine motion. We have no problem with the court granting the motion, in fact we agree to it. However, the last line of our opponent's motion has some general language about our side doing terrible things to their side. So, Ms. T states that I need to respond to that part of the motion. "Do we really need to spend our time responding to a motion that we agree with?" I ask.
"They criticized my firm so we need to respond to that," she responded.
Somewhere in my memory I remember something from law school about not needing to argue every point because it can irritate the judge. But instead I write, “Plaintiff consents to Defendant’s request for … but objects to the defamatory language used to characterize plaintiff.” Of course, it wasn’t technically defamatory, but Ms. T likes it.
Then, while I'm waiting for Ms. T to sign it, Hilda comes in the office and points out something that the Defendant said in a previous motion but unrelated motion, that “just wasn’t right.” Ms. T turns to me and says, “Put that in too.”
So, I put that in too. “Frivolous” is becoming my middle name.
At lunch time I finally speak with the attorney from the Denver firm. He seems really reluctant to pull me from my current job and I try, as best as I can without saying “I hate my job,” to convince him that I’m really eager to work for him, even if there is no long term commitment on his part. He says that the original plan was to offer me two weeks of work. I tell him that if he can give me a month of work, I will leave my current job. He seems reluctant but agrees to look into it.
Day 19, Friday: While chatting with Hilda, Alexa, and Pam, we all overhear Ms. T shout, “What the hell is this?”
We all look up. Ms. T brings over a square of paper towel from the kitchen. She points out a drawing printed on the paper towel. It is a decorative design of garden beans. “They’re beans, I say, Ms. T.”
“They’re sweet peas, Ms. T,” says Alexa.
“Why the hell would anyone put a sweet pea on a paper towel?” says Ms. T.
We can’t answer her.
Later that Day Ms. T comes in to the conference room to ask me why, when she sent me to the court last week, I didn’t park at the $1/hour garage she showed me. I explained that I had been in a major rush and the one-way streets were confusing to me. I apologized for parking where I did and explained that the garage where I parked used to charge $1 per hour but must have recently switched to $5 per day flat fee. I said that if it was a problem, she didn’t have to reimburse me. Walking out of the conference room she says, under her breath, “I can’t charge the clients for this!”
Day 21, Sunday: Coming in on a Sunday, I decide to finally move all of the papers off of my desk that aren’t mine. Although there is simply no counter space anywhere in the office (you have to move the garbage can to get into the refrigerator), I find a file cabinet for most of the papers. That leaves two in-boxes, which I wedge into a cabinet above my desk that looks like it’s filled with the firm’s financial records.
Day 22, Monday: Pam comes into my office with a looseleaf binder and opens the cabinet with the financial records. Apparently, they need more room in the cabinet above my desk for more financial records. There is no room for the inbox I moved there on Sunday, so the box has to be moved. Pam suggests that I put it on the conference table. “Sure, why not?” I say.
This is the day we’re supposed to sign up for insurance at the new firm. No one gives me any paperwork. I’m a little upset but figure that, since I’m still on “probation status,” it will come later.
Later that day, two partners from the new firm come into the office to discuss the merger. Ms. T does not introduce them to me. I end up introducing myself. One partner is my age and, while the senior partner talks with Ms. T, the younger partner and I chat. He tells me how hard of a time he had finding work as an attorney in the town we live in.
Pam, the receptionist, gives me an invitation card for a party next month to celebrate the merger of the two firms.
Day 24, Wednesday: Reluctantly, I go into Ms. T’s office to discuss a case she wants me to file. It’s an odd case, and I haven’t worked on any similar cases so far. There also appear to be no examples of such cases in our files. So, I’m going to have to construct my own pleadings from scratch. “Don’t they teach how to do this in law school?” she asks. “Did you research LexLaw for the elements of these claims?” she asks.
“Yes, I spent over an hour and I just couldn’t find them.” I answer.
“Did you google it?” she asks.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You should always google it, she says.”
Then Ms. T proceeds to google the claims in question. She prints out a page from About.com and hands it to me. I am mortified. Seriously? She wants me to base my legal complaint on some text from About.com?
Day 25, Thursday: The LexLaw system is down so Ms. T calls customer service. She keeps using the words “my law clerk” when I am clearly a lawyer. After the phone call she comes into the conference room and explains that she told LexLaw that I am a law clerk and that I need to make sure they don’t find out that I’m a lawyer. Apparently she saves about $30 per month that way. “I want to minimize the costs of this firm before the merger,” she explains.
I take a deep breath and hope that I won’t have to outright lie to anyone.
I receive an email from the Denver firm telling me that they simply don’t have a full month’s worth of work for me. I want to offer to still work for them for two weeks but I worry that will make me seem too needy.
Day 28, Sunday: I come into the office on Sunday and bill 8 hours. I finish a complex memo to a client which required me to research many areas of the law. Ms. T had suggested some of the areas of the law but then insisted that I read through the “research” folder on the server. After spending an hour or so wading through unidentified, unsorted cases, I go on LexLaw and find what I’m looking for. I finish the memo and feel relatively satisfied, even though I’m leaving work at 10:00 PM on a Sunday.
Day 29, Monday: The morning is relatively quiet, except for a little commotion regarding a letter that Ms. T had sent to the wrong client. “Call them right away,” said Ms. T. “Tell them to throw out the email, it’s not meant for them.” I wonder whether when Ms. T sends a letter to the wrong client it’s still Pam’s fault.
Around noon I ask Ms. T if I could take part in a deposition that is scheduled for tomorrow. “No you have work to do.” Actually my workload is pretty low right now. I ask her if she had a chance to look at the memo I wrote. “Yes, did you get my email?”
I apologize, since I hadn’t. After checking for a few moments she realizes she never got it.
“Well, what did you think of the memo?” I ask.
She complains that I didn’t format it as a letter, since it needs to be sent to the client in letter form.
I apologize again. But how should the letter be formatted, I ask, since I’ve never prepared a legal analysis in letter form? Do you have an example?
She doesn’t.
I go back to my desk and start reformatting. Is that her only comment? Doesn’t she have substantive comments on the memo? Then I start wondering why I thought that she wanted me to write it in memo format. I find the original email regarding the assignment. It states, “I want you to write a memo, so that we can prepare a letter for the client.” I take a deep breath and reformat it.
It’s after hours and Ms. T is reading the letter. All of a sudden, she’s at my door, “You start sentences with ‘and’?” she asks.
“Sometimes,” I say.
“You can’t do that!” she answers.
“If you don’t want me to start sentences with ‘and’ I won’t do that in the future,” I say.
“It’s not what I want. It’s incorrect!” she says, exasperated.
“Judge Stevens, who you like, starts sentences with ‘and’.” I reply.
“It’s wrong!” she answers.
“Ok,” I answer, trying to stay calm.
For the next 20 minutes I look for proof that you can start a sentence with conjunctions such as ‘and’, ‘but’ or ‘yet.’ The intertubez says you can. I decide not to say anything. Ms. T leaves a few minutes later, not having given me any other feedback on my letter.
Day 30, Tuesday: The response to the motion I filed on Day 12 has been received, so I’m working on the reply. The adverse parties did some research and found that our client almost lost his professional license due to falsification of documents. This is potentially fatal to our case. Our case requires that we prove three elements. The first and the last element are easily provable. The second element is based on our client’s explanation of how he acted in a particular situation. The only evidence we have of how the client acted is his own testimony on the matter. The fact that the client almost lost his license due to dishonest activity makes our client’s testimony much less believable. I go to Ms. T to share my frustration. She’s nonplussed.
“They’re unrelated” she says.
“Yes,” I say, “but this prior dishonest activity will very effectively impeach his testimony.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. Then she mentions a fact that relates to a different element of our case.
I want to scream.
For non-lawyers, let me clarify what just happened with an example. Say you’re trying a murder case. The accused admits to shooting the victim. The accused admits that he wanted to kill the victim. The victim dies. But the accused shot the victim in the knee and the victim dies of an infection contracted during surgery. What I did was point out to Ms. T how the victim didn’t likely die from the gunshot wound. What Ms. T did was go on and on about how the accused wanted him dead! It doesn’t connect!
Day 31, Wednesday: Prepared to continue to work on the reply brief, I come in to the office and am assigned a short motion to write. “It’s simple,” Ms. T tells me, “It should take you an hour. Use this sample document, the relevant rules of procedure are the same.”
I soon learn that the rules of procedure are inapplicable are different. Also, I can’t find one of the documents I need to use as an exhibit. In this office only certain people compile and fetch paper files. Those people are too busy to find it for me. When I find the relevant binder, the document is missing. There is no electronic copy either—I noticed that fact the first time I looked at the documents but that was back in my first week of the job and I didn’t think to scan the document and save it on the server. Two hours go by until the document is found. I write the motion and it’s filed at 3:00.
At 3:15, the day before Thanksgiving, Ms. T comes in the conference room and sits down. “Oh no,” I think. “Well John,” she says, “You know my firm is being merged with another firm come Monday. The new firm really doesn’t need another attorney but I just wanted to use you until the end. I just found out on Monday.”
I’m confused. “So how long do you want me to stay? Until the end of the year?”
“No, this is it,” she says. “I’m no longer a law firm on Monday. There’s no work for you.”
I’m dumbfounded, but I ask, “Well, I hope I can rely on you for a recommendation.”
“Of course,” she says.
That feels a little better, I guess. “Well I hope this is no reflection on the quality of my work.”
She says nothing.
“So just finish up everything and give it to Hilda before you leave,” she says as she gets up to leave the room. “You know,” she says, “On that last motion you wrote, you started a sentence with the word, ‘Or’.”
“Well, I would never do that. If I did it was definitely a mistake.”
“You did,” she said, “And you called the defendants ‘defendant’ in the text of the motion.”
“Well I made a point to check for that so I must have overlooked one or two.”
“That’s why you need to use the grammar checker,” she said.
“Good point,” I said.
She walked out of the room.
I called my wife. She couldn’t believe it, thought I was joking. “What about a severance?” she asked. I told my wife there was no way I was going to get a severance. She said I should ask anyway. At least I shouldn’t have to work the rest of the day.
So I walked into Ms. T’s office. I tried to catch my breath and think of something coherent. Of course I wasn’t really all together. I told her she should have given me a severance. Yeah, whatever. I told her she should have told me about me losing my job on Monday, when she found out.
“Well I didn’t,” she says.
I’m dumbfounded again, what can I say to this person. “Well I don’t know why I shouldn’t leave right now.”
“Leave if you want,” she says.
My mind is moving a mile a minute, “Well, if I leave, will you still pay me for the holiday weekend.”
“I don’t know,” she says, “I’ll have to think about it.”
I wanted to scream at her and tell her how evil she was. I wanted to explain to her all of the things she did wrong. I told her how, two weeks earlier, I was offered a two week assignment that I turned down because I thought I had a full time job.
“So?” she said, “if you took that assignment, you’d still be out of a job today.”
I couldn’t believe it.
Then I told her about how I worked evenings and weekends even though none of her full time employees did so for the first month.
“You know how much time I work?” she said.
“That’s different. You’re the owner!”
“You know how much time I work?”
I don’t know what to say, I’m just seething.
“You know what?” she says, just leave. “You’re obviously not going to get anything else done tonight.”
I left, still flabbergasted. I called my wife. I called my parents. My father pointed out that, if she was particularly evil, she would say she fired me and then use that as a way not to pay me for the holiday. I told him I would sue the bitch, now that I had all of this time on my hands.
That night, before I went to bed, I remembered that I had never uploaded my timesheet for the last day, I was too angry. So, I wrote Ms. T stating that I regretted ending on a sour note. That I thought she never appreciated me, “For example, did you really need to point out typos in my work AFTER you took my job away?” I also told her how many hours I worked on the different cases on my last day.
I had done all I could, I thought, and only time would tell.
Epilogue: Three days after I lost my job I got an email from Ms. T which began, “It is unfortunate that you construed my comments to you as criticism. I thought that you would be thankful to learn the correct way to prepare pleadings.” The email then repeated itself for 10 more sentences but then ended by stating that my paycheck had already been prepared so she wasn’t going to dock me. Of course, no admission that I deserved it.
Five days after I lost my job I emailed the attorney at the Denver firm explaining my situation and stating that I was eager to move forward with any opportunities that he had available. He responded quickly and told me that, unfortunately, there was no work for me at this time.