What kind of partners or work do you avoid? Forum

[Anonymous User]

The “preparing for retirement” partner who can’t be bothered to care about anything. Lazy, comes into your office and talks to you for 3+ hours about “life,” and comes in at 11 and leaves at 4.

Gives you work and directs it to another partner because they don’t want to deal with it.

Vanishes randomly to go on vacation and tells you to “relax,” because everything will work out.

In theory, it’s great to work for the partner, but, in reality it is actual hell because you have to manage up on everything you do.

Kind of like the reverse fire drill partner

Edit: anon because I don’t want people to connect it back to my partner.

[Raiden]

The “preparing for retirement” partner who can’t be bothered to care about anything. Lazy, comes into your office and talks to you for 3+ hours about “life,” and comes in at 11 and leaves at 4.

Gives you work and directs it to another partner because they don’t want to deal with it.

Vanishes randomly to go on vacation and tells you to “relax,” because everything will work out.

In theory, it’s great to work for the partner, but, in reality it is actual hell because you have to manage up on everything you do.

Kind of like the reverse fire drill partner

Edit: anon because I don’t want people to connect it back to my partner.

Lol wut. Talks to you three hours about life? This sounds like a lovely person.

[shock259]

"Drive by micromanager" sums up most of the partners I've worked for. But honestly, it's pretty tolerable. Just negotiate the hell out of whatever dumb provision caught their eye this time around and then you can do whatever you want with the rest of the transaction. Other types that have been mentioned in this thread are much worse, I think.

[Person1111]

The reverse fire drill: this partner is so slow and inefficient that she makes you miss the fire drill partner. She can’t be bothered by deadlines, even court deadlines, treats the FRCP like the federal suggestions of civil procedure, and leaves you scrambling at the last minute to fix her mistakes. She ignores your email reminders and pulls rank on you any time you tell her something must be done that day. Something needs to be filed in two hours? She still wants to talk about possible arguments that don’t exist. The only thing she’s really good for is reminding you to appreciate your other bosses.

I've worked with this type. You just have to give her a bunch of lead time, be clear about what the deadlines are (both so that she follows them and so that you are protected in case she tries to throw you under the bus later), and accept that it's ultimately not on you if she chooses to blow them.

I mean, that strategy looks nice in theory, but it doesn't work that great in practice. You can't force the Reverse Fire Drill partner to follow the deadline no matter how clear you are and how much lead time you give him. You also can't stop him from throwing you under the bus regardless of how much documentation you have. What can you do - blow the whistle to the client (Hey Client, I'm Associate and I recommend that you demand to work with a new partner!)? Report the matter to the practice group leader? Refuse to accept the critique at your performance eval?

^ exactly. She ignores my proposed deadlines and acts like she has everything under control. I’m convinced she would have blamed me for last week if the other partners didn’t already know. It’s frustrating enough that I’m considering lateraling.

The fact that the other partners know that this is an issue on her end is a sign that what you are doing is working.