Evidence of Associates Being Treated Unfairly? Forum

[Tempo]

I'm writing my final undergrad paper for my poli sci major, and it's for a class on unions. I'm entertaining the idea of corporate associates unionizing (which may have a lot of issues, but it's simply for a class paper). Does anyone know some good sources that show that associates in certain firms are treated horribly? I've seen a lot of anecdotes here, of course, but I don't think I can cite TLS. Has anybody seen articles about this anywhere online? I've been looking for a while with no luck.

edit: I actually just found a great article "Lawyers, Not Widgets: Why Private-Sector Attorneys Must Unionize to Save the Legal Profession" by Melissa Mortazavi, so this might have a bunch of stuff in it too.

[deepseapartners]

Above the Law loves to post "departure memos," and most of them tend to focus on how much their lives have been taken over by their work to an extent that they could no longer function mentally/emotionally.

[HonestAdvice]

I forget the name of the article, but in writing a paper I read a few articles that discussed the kind of work black associates got vs. the work that white associates I got at the same law firms. I could pull it up, and grab the citation if it would be really helpful, but you could find it too plugging in scholar.google.com searches on the subject. One thing to bare in mind that in most cases your boss is a more senior associate so I'd be curious as to how a union could work in this regard. You would also need to define fair. In any business, some people will be treated better than others - what reasons are fair, and which aren't?

[Tempo]

I forget the name of the article, but in writing a paper I read a few articles that discussed the kind of work black associates got vs. the work that white associates I got at the same law firms. I could pull it up, and grab the citation if it would be really helpful, but you could find it too plugging in scholar.google.com searches on the subject. One thing to bare in mind that in most cases your boss is a more senior associate so I'd be curious as to how a union could work in this regard. You would also need to define fair. In any business, some people will be treated better than others - what reasons are fair, and which aren't?

I can probably find it, thanks for the heads up. As far as "fair" goes, I'm not sure how to define it. That's more of a philosophical question. I just mean instances that seem intuitively unfair; I can let my reader decide for theirselves if it's truly unfair.

Above the Law loves to post "departure memos," and most of them tend to focus on how much their lives have been taken over by their work to an extent that they could no longer function mentally/emotionally.

Good to know, thanks!

[HonestAdvice]

I forget the name of the article, but in writing a paper I read a few articles that discussed the kind of work black associates got vs. the work that white associates I got at the same law firms. I could pull it up, and grab the citation if it would be really helpful, but you could find it too plugging in scholar.google.com searches on the subject. One thing to bare in mind that in most cases your boss is a more senior associate so I'd be curious as to how a union could work in this regard. You would also need to define fair. In any business, some people will be treated better than others - what reasons are fair, and which aren't?

I can probably find it, thanks for the heads up. As far as "fair" goes, I'm not sure how to define it. That's more of a philosophical question. I just mean instances that seem intuitively unfair; I can let my reader decide for theirselves if it's truly unfair.

Above the Law loves to post "departure memos," and most of them tend to focus on how much their lives have been taken over by their work to an extent that they could no longer function mentally/emotionally.

Good to know, thanks!

People are always being discriminated against, the question is just whether it's fair. It's impossible for you to like 2 people the same amount. You might seesaw, but at all times you prefer one top the other.

[pancakes3]

you'd probably have an easier time writing a better paper about doctors unionizing.

[TLSDookie]

People are always being discriminated against, the question is just whether it's fair. It's impossible for you to like 2 people the same amount. You might seesaw, but at all times you prefer one top the other.

Not disagreeing with you but care to elaborate on why would it be impossible? If a senior associate is in charge of two summer associates (we could make the number bigger but just to illustrate a point, say he only oversees the work product of two), they both produce the same quality of work, in an equally timely manner, from the same school with similar GPAs, and the senior associate is so busy he doesn't bother learning more about them than their names (if that.) He distributes work that comes across his desk to them at random, simply alternating based on whom he emailed last, since it doesn't matter in the slightest to him. From his handful of encounters with them outside the office, they both come off similarly: not awkward, but neither of them are very personable, or even memorable.

At the end of 10 weeks, he can't like both of them equally? Surely he doesn't even know the difference between the two.

And if we're going to split hairs about implicit biases, we can make them the same gender, race, general attractiveness etc. as well.

[HonestAdvice]

People are always being discriminated against, the question is just whether it's fair. It's impossible for you to like 2 people the same amount. You might seesaw, but at all times you prefer one top the other.

Not disagreeing with you but care to elaborate on why would it be impossible? If a senior associate is in charge of two summer associates (we could make the number bigger but just to illustrate a point, say he only oversees the work product of two), they both produce the same quality of work, in an equally timely manner, from the same school with similar GPAs, and the senior associate is so busy he doesn't bother learning more about them than their names (if that.) He distributes work that comes across his desk to them at random, simply alternating based on whom he emailed last, since it doesn't matter in the slightest to him. From his handful of encounters with them outside the office, they both come off similarly: not awkward, but neither of them are very personable, or even memorable.

At the end of 10 weeks, he can't like both of them equally? Surely he doesn't even know the difference between the two.

And if we're going to split hairs about implicit biases, we can make them the same gender, race, general attractiveness etc. as well.

He'll still prefer one. Maybe he read one's brief right after playing tennis so he has more serotonin running through his head, and read the other when it was raining outside. There is an infinitely long spectrum so no two things can ever be equal.

[Br3v]

I think there was a Supreme Court case about public defenders trying to unionize/boycott

[qlinault]

I think there was a Supreme Court case about public defenders trying to unionize/boycott

trial lawyers antitrust case?

[anyriotgirl]

you'd probably have an easier time writing a better paper about doctors unionizing.

off the top of my head I think it would be hard with attendings, but a decent case for residents

[HonestAdvice]

The main thing I saw when researching the topic was merit discrimination. People assume if a White and Black associate wind up at the same spot, the black person must have weaker credentials. This has a domino effect: if you're not given equal responsibility, then you don't have the same growth opportunity and if you're mostly doing first-year crap by year-three, you get fired. But keep in mind the firm model limits the impact any one person has so assuming most people aren't racist, it's conceivable it's not really impacting anybody.

[pancakes3]

unionization/labor law arise from competing interests and expectations between workers and employers usually in safety and/or cultural norms - not discrimination.