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Accepted an offer at a new firm and am now waiting for conflicts clearance. Partner approached me on Friday and said we have a new deal starting up next week that he wants me on. Wondering how this should be handled; when he assigns me work, I can't exactly tell him "no thanks, I'm leaving" if the conflicts haven't cleared yet. But I also don't want to do a bunch of work and then abandon the project when he could've assigned another associate the work instead. Plus it's another potential conflict. Anyone have experience with this? I could obviously just say no, I don't have time. But then again I do have the time...

I had this situation come up and I just said I was super busy. You are going to be leaving soon anyway, and you can come clean to him then. Obviously you can then explain that you had to turn down the work since you didn't want to take it on, only to toss it right back to him incomplete (i.e. it was for his own benefit that you turn it down). And of course, anyone would understand why you couldn't have come clean at the time, since you absolutely cannot be making announcements before conflicts clear.

Anonymous User wrote:I had this situation come up and I just said I was super busy. You are going to be leaving soon anyway, and you can come clean to him then. Obviously you can then explain that you had to turn down the work since you didn't want to take it on, only to toss it right back to him incomplete (i.e. it was for his own benefit that you turn it down). And of course, anyone would understand why you couldn't have come clean at the time, since you absolutely cannot be making announcements before conflicts clear.

The problem with saying I'm too busy is our office is relatively small and no one is particularly busy right now. Hence, probably not believable and I'd imagine it would have a negative effect on our relationship. In the (unlikely) event I don't pass the conflicts check, I'd want to make sure this person still wants to work with me as most of the other partners are...not ideal to work for.