JLU: Junior Lawyers' Union

Faffing about Friday - Tea lady cuts sick and other outrage

2007-05-04T09:23:00.000+10:00

Move over Junior Lawyers, tea ladies will be on the front line of the next revolution. Recently a Deacons tea lady, after spying a sink full of broken glass and toast crumbs, yelled at all all those in earshot "THIS IS DISGUSTING. I AM NOT HERE TO CLEAN THIS UP!" and walked off. And let it be known that there was no milk or biscuit replenishment for the rest of the day. Lawyers of the world take note, tea ladies are not to be messed with.

And yes, this is the best, non defamatory gossip, that I have been able to muster this week...

Oh and here's a youtube video from the Adelaide Uni Law Revue called "Snail in a bottle" , just in case you needed a torts refresher (hell, if that's not proof that we care, what is).

And another thing, as Kamahl would say, why are people so unkind?

"Re: Reminder : Computer Systems Unavailable - This Saturday Morning, 5th May 2007

I never knew IT people were so passionate as to suffer "outrage" when there`s an outage for maintenance!! And I guess the effect will be to affect both offices!!
[details omitted]
Partner

Maddocks
www.maddocks.com.au
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Help Desk
Sent: Friday, 4 May 2007 9:29 AM
To: Everyone DL
Subject: Reminder : Computer Systems Unavailable - This Saturday Morning, 5th May 2007
Importance: High
Due to some maintenance that needs to be performed, the computer systems will be unavailable this Saturday, the 5th May until 1pm.

The outrage will effect both the Melbourne and Sydney offices as well as remote access via webmail and citrix.

After 1pm the computers will be able to be used and remote access restored. If you need to access the computers this Saturday morning, please contact Help Desk to make alternative arrangements
Thank you.
Help Desk."

The dating game

2007-05-01T08:42:00.000+10:00

It's that time of year again, when the not-so-fresh-faced first year lawyers have to decide where they want to go rest of their lives.

This process reminds Tea Lady of the time she used to play dodg'em ball at school. All the grade 4 kids would line up in a row, against the toilet block wall, and we would be chosen one by one. I always dreaded this process of elimination, because I would inevitably be one of the last ones selected. Even Susie-Lee, with her scrawny legs and metallic braces, would be chosen before I was. Everyone wanted to be wanted, and no one wanted to be last. Similarly, every AC wants to be the number one draft pick.

The Tea Lady's advice to first years? Approach the whole experience as though it's an episode of *Perfect Match*. Flirt a little, be a bit coy, and never commit too early on.

Choosing a group is a lot like dating. We've all been guilty at one point or another of becoming interested in someone simply because they're quite keen on you. If you go to a group simply because they want you, their attitude towards you might quickly change once you're actually there. Similarly, it's also not recommended that you choose a group based on the people. With such a high turnover, chances are all the nice people will leave by the time the year's out.

And, just like in Perfect Match, you never quite know what's behind the corner. At least if you enjoy the work, you'll be ready for any nasty surprises.

This is WHY law firms need to do something about depression - Part II

2007-04-27T09:02:00.000+10:00

Another story from an ex-practitioner which speaks for itself...

Hi, I am so glad I found your blog. I now know I am not the only one who has been chewed up & spat out by a law firm.

I spent two years in legal practice, after being 'head hunted' from my previous job. The first 18 months or so were fine - I exceeded my budget, enjoyed the work, and got along well with everyone.

One of the partners told my husband I was the best graduate they had recruited in years.

Then, it all started to go wrong. I suffered a sporting injury and had to have some time off work. This was right at the start of the financial year, so I started behind the eight-ball.

At first, the partners seemed understanding. After a while, however, it became clear that I was expected to make up the billable hours I had missed. I worked my backside off, and started to catch up. Then my supervising partner began to have some personal problems, and she took out her anger on everyone who worked for her. I became increasingly stressed and felt like I couldn't do anything right. I became very depressed and began to lose interest in my work. My billable hours dropped even further. I confided in another partner. He seemed to be sympathetic, and told me 'everyone knows' Partner X is a bully. He said if he had his way, he would sack her. Behind my back, however, he told a Workcover investigator that he didn't want anyone who was depressed working at his firm, and that everyone likes Partner X, and that I must have misunderstood him.

Eventually, I was 'counselled' a couple of times about my steadily decreasing billable hours. The managing partner told me he didn't think the targets were that hard to meet, and that they had made a lot of allowances for me. I started to envy people with 'simple' jobs like the checkout operators at the supermarket. A few weeks later, I made a mistake while nearly at breaking point, and they had the excuse they needed to sack me.

12 months later, and I am still on 3 different anti-depressants. I see a psychiatrist regularly and I have survived a suicide attempt. I still think about killing myself almost daily. I feel like a complete failure. On the bright side, however, I stood up for myself and put in a Workcover claim, which has recently settled in my favour. I have recently obtained another job which I really enjoy. The pay is crap, but there are no billable units, and I can go home at 4:30 every afternoon.

I just thought I would share this with you in case you needed another reminder of how widespread this problem is. I was only working in a mid-tier firm in a smaller city, so I can't imagine what it would be like to work in
a large Sydney firm.

Keep up the good work! That was a great idea to send the depression information kits to law firms. I can only hope that some of the information sinks in, and that others don't have to go through what I did.

Blue Letter Lawyers

2007-04-25T09:00:00.000+10:00

We're yet to hear of any law firm that has taken steps to address depression in the workplace and we would love to draw attention to any firm trying to address this issue. The apparent inaction of firms is startling given the media's current focus on depression and substance abuse within the profession. We rely on our readership to be our eyes and ears so please fill us in if you know anything.

Thank you to Helen from Blue Letter Lawyers for writing this article about her experiences of living with depression and working within the law.

BLUE LETTER LAWYERS

The story told by “Free at Last” struck a strong chord with me.

I am a lawyer who suffers from depression. The first firm I worked for was small and had a family feel, and so I was very open about my condition. Initially I had no qualms about my decision. The partners seemed sympathetic, and gave me paid time off during a couple of particularly bad bouts of depression. This seemed extraordinarily generous in comparison to the stories I had heard about the larger firms.

However, I soon realized that their tolerance only went so far. It became apparent during my final period of leave that, this time, I was expected to recover completely from my condition and ensure that it did not interrupt the workplace again.

Yet at the same time I realized that, more often than not, it was the behaviour of the partners themselves that was setting off or exacerbating my depressive episodes. I raised this with them, suggesting that a joint effort would be required. No such luck. After almost twelve months, with no sign that the partners would change their behaviour, I was forced to walk out, leaving behind a job that I otherwise greatly enjoyed.

I was brave or foolish enough to risk litigation in relation to my dismissal. Unfortunately, I was shocked again by the way in which the Equal Opportunity Commission of Victoria treated me in relation to my complaint. Without going into details, I can only say that my experience suggested that the Complaints Officers needed some serious training in dealing with depressed individuals.

I also sought assistance from the Law Institute, but there was very little they could do except refer me to a counsellor – and as I was already seeing a psychiatrist this was superfluous.

Law firms and lawyers are hopeless at dealing with depression. The perception is that a lawyer suffering from depression just needs to “buck up” and smell the roses. Unfortunately, many partners in law firms do not have a normal attitude to life. I have heard many stories of young lawyers trying in vain to explain to partners that they are depressed and lack motivation. This is met with total incomprehension, because the kind of person who “makes it” to partnership is the kind of person to whom career is everything.

A real commitment to work-life balance could alleviate the lack of morale felt by many young lawyers. But this alone is not enough. There should also be some recognition of the potentially destructive nature of legal work practices and culture. These observations are not targeted at any particular firm, but are based on a wide-ranging consideration of reasons why young lawyers of our acquaintance have left the law:

- Many senior lawyers have a total lack of management skills, because this is not the basis upon which lawyers get promoted to partnership, and therefore they have no idea how to manage junior staff;

- Office politics can have a soul-destroying impact on young lawyers when it is left unchecked. Why would any young lawyer wish to stay somewhere where those in command are fighting amongst each other?;

- When “support staff” are anything but supportive, this can impact very negatively on young lawyers (a good administrative assistant is worth his or her weight in gold);

- Many firms tolerate bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination as “natural”, and if you don’t like it, you’re some kind of “wuss” or “prude”; and

- Depression and lack of motivation is never discussed openly and if a person indicates that he or she is having problems, he or she must be “a lunatic” who is “not coping”.

No wonder depression is rampant amongst the legal community.

My experience made me realize that there was no support group for lawyers who were suffering from depression. What was more, I soon began to see that lawyers were a group who – more than any other – needed assistance and education in this area. This has been seen in many American studies, and is also displayed in a recent study conducted by beyond blue.

And so I created blue letter lawyers. Although at this stage it is little more than a name and a funky website (kudos to my sister and co-founder for the graphics), I am hopeful that it will become much more than this in due course.

The aim of the group is to promulgate information about depression in order to educate lawyers about the signs, impact and appropriate treatment for depression; to provide a space where lawyers can exchange their stories and tips for dealing with depression in the workplace; and to maybe even change the way in which the law itself deals with depression.

blue letter lawyers is therefore looking for people (or organizations) who are interested in helping us get our idea off the ground. Although we have passion in bucket loads, we also need the experience and know-how, or even just a couple of extra brains to get us really storming!

If you are interested in assisting, then please contact either myself (Helen) at helen@blueletterlawyers.org or my sister (Katy) at blueletterlawyers@yahoo.com.au.

This is WHY law firms need to do something about depression...

2007-04-21T09:26:00.000+10:00

We were worried that visitors to this website might not notice this post from an anonymous contributor named Free at Last so we have included it in its own post:

"When I finally walked out the door of the top tier firm that I worked for, I had no job to go. It was a leap into the great unknown - terrifying but ultimately liberating.

And, I don't regret it one bit. When I made the decision to leave the firm, I was taking 100mg of Zoloft a day and spent much of my office time wondering whether my desk chair was heavy enough to smash the window of my 18th floor office.

Prior to my departure, I disclosed my depression to the firm, thinking that since things had spiralled so far, perhaps, somewhere, there might be someone with a glimmer of humanity lurking around the firm who could help me out.

Instead, the firm demanded a medical certificate to confirm my depression. Once that was produced, two of the partners sat me down and advised me that I was being formally 'performance managed'. They told me that they expected me to get in earlier and leave later, be more 'enthusiastic' about the work I was being given and to increase my output. They then demanded that I say the words 'I want to be a commercial lawyer'. I kid you not.

Needless to say, a couple of days I tendered my resignation. The sad thing is that one of them seemed genuinely surprised by my decision.

Keep up your good work. I hope that even if it doesn't change the attitudes attitudes of those leading these firms, it will help more young lawyers out there to realise that they don't have to live their lives according to an ultimately corrupted and destructive moral code."

Faffing about Friday - Part 2

2007-04-20T09:29:00.000+10:00

There have been moments during my brief legal career where I have felt inklings of guilt for billing multi-national clients $300.00 an hour for hole punching documents for days on end (suggested time entry - "conducting bi-perforation of key documents to further progress discovery in this matter").

Fortunately I have discovered a cure for these guilty feelings and it's thinking about this man, Willie Gary. When you think that Willie is asking the modest sum of $11,000.00 an hour for his time in court, what's a bit of mildly expensive hole punching between friends.

Oh, and another thing, RollOnFriday has released its survey results for Australian firms. So if you've got itchy feet, you can now make an informed decision about where to go, weighing up the quality of another firms biscuits, toilets and "phwoar" factor. I'm not sure what "phwoar" is meant to mean, but I've often said "phwoar!" on walking into my firm's toilets...

Breaking the glass ceiling with a packet of Tim Tams?

2007-04-14T11:52:00.000+10:00

A wise friend once told me that the real secret to success in a law firm had nothing to do with skill, dedication or number of billable units.

It all hinged on your ability to suck up to the secretaries. Unfortunately, I never quite got the knack for that.

Sometimes, when a secretary decided that she does not like you, she can make your life hell. Another friend of mine, who made the unfortunate mistake of being rude to his secretary in his first week*, was entirely frozen out of his practice group. She forgot to email him invitations to 8am work group meetings, 'misplaced' important phone messages from his supervising partner, and worst of all, told him that he was responsible for his own filing.

My friend now works at another firm and regularly brings in Tim Tams, flowers and chocolates. For other helpful suggestions on how you should treat your secretary like a partner check out this article.

I've always had a problem with delegating work to "the help", as some partners call them. I don't want them to feel like the work that I give them is beneath me. That I think I'm better than them.

It's also hard delegating work to women that are old enough to be my mother. Women that have been working here a lot longer than this young upstart who thinks she now owns the place.

Women seem to have a tough time telling other women what to do. I cringe every time I hear myself apologising at the start of each request. "If it's not too much trouble, do you mind sending this fax?" Or "Partner X asked me to ask you to help me with this, if that is ok."

Sometimes I almost envy the freedom of my male colleagues, who simply shout out "Sally, get me my lunch. Now." "Rachel, where is that address label I asked for five minutes ago?"

In firms, it is taken as read that secretaries (primarily women) serve lawyers (who were once always men). Why do women, who "occupy" the roles of men, still have to be treated as though they pose a threat to the natural order of things?

The Tea Lady is all for equality and respect. And it's definitely not beneath her to do some good old-fashioned sucking up where necessary. But surely the sucking should go both ways?

* My friend's mistake was to invite a handful of other lawyers from his new practice group out for coffee. It never occurred to him to extend the invitation to the secretaries.

Introducing "Faffing about Friday..."

2007-04-05T08:00:00.000+10:00

Nothing is quite as perfect as a Friday afternoon with no work on the horizon (ok it's not really Friday but it may as well be). To celebrate this all too rare occurrence, the JLU introduces Faffing about Friday, an intermittent rag bag of time wasters and the esoteric to fill an empty Friday afternoon. Today's theme is different side of the world, same old crap.

Here's a column called Annonymous Assistant, a column published on the Times Online website - the JLU gives it a post nuclear 10 thumbs up (the links to the column are down the bottom of the page).

If you are after something a little more weighty, why not try this article from New York Magazine and this one from the New York Observer. Suggested time entry: "perusing article related to harassment/discrimination claim made by lawyer against senior partner in top Manhattan firm and considering legality of boiling hard-drive prior to commencement of legal proceedings" - 6 units (thanks to the Anonymous Lawyer website for putting us onto this one).

If you come across anything worthy of being included in Faffing about Friday, please email it to us.

Happy long weekend. Hope you don't have to work.

JLU Mental Health Campaign

2007-04-04T08:02:00.000+10:00

Today the JLU emailed managing partners from all major law firms in Australia asking them to do something about mental health in the legal profession. Here’s copy of the email we sent out:

“Mental illness is a disease which often goes unnoticed or uncared for in workplaces across Australia. Worryingly, it is lawyers that suffer from the highest rates of depression of any profession in Australia.

The Junior Lawyers’ Unions understands that junior lawyers are particularly prone to depression as they adapt to working within the rigours of the law.

We encourage you to do something about improving the state of mental health in your firm and ask you to consider in-house training for management and staff to help them recognise and assist those suffering from depression.

We have attached a brochure and other information for Beyond Blue, which offers suitable courses.

Regards

Junior Lawyers' Union”

If you would like us to send this e-mail to an HR manager or lawyer in your firm that we might have missed, please send us their e-mail address and we will send the e-mail for you and maintain your anonymity.

If your firm actively starts to address depression in your workplace (or is doing something about it already) please let us know and we will heap praise upon them through this blog.

Gadens Part II - How the LIV let us down

2007-04-01T11:09:00.000+10:00

The Junior Lawyers Union's post about the allegedly dodgy hiring practices of Gadens was picked up in the Fin Review on Friday. Here's the article from the Legal Hearsay section in case you missed it:

"Last week The Australian Financial Review looked at the "intensifying of the war" to capture the best legal graduates. It now seems that the war may be turning dirty. Already, Allens Arthur Robinson has been caught out breaking the Law Institute of Victoria guidelines by sending out offers early.

And now the website of the Junior Lawyers Union, which describes itself as "asserting the rights of junior lawyers", has run a story alleging that at least one firm has breached the guidelines for making offers to law students.

According to the story, during the recent 2007 round of graduate recruitment, Gadens Lawyers acted outside the LIV guidelines, including putting one candidate under significant pressure to sign a contract and demanding another offer be accepted within a 24-hour period.

The LIV said it had made some inquiries about the allegation and Gadens said that as far as it was aware the protocols had been followed. The LIV said that without a formal complaint it could not take the matter further."

In fact, the JLU believes that up to eight informal complaints were made to the LIV about Gadens' recruitment drive in 2007. What is truly frustrating about this situation is that it is impossible to expect an article clerk candidate to make a formal complaint against a sizable law firm. By making a formal complaint, they risk being labelled an upstart and a whinger before they even start a career in the law. Surely eight informal complaints deserves a formal investigation where the complainants have so much to lose from having their identities revealed.

The LIV must rise to this challenge.

Dating, Depression and the Firm

2007-03-28T00:11:00.000+10:00

The Tea Lady has only once flirted with the world of online dating. It reeked of self-conscious insecurity and deceit - full of air brushed photos taken a good five years before the present and plumped personal CV’s jam-packed with lies of omission. Truth is the first casualty of self-promotion... The Tea Lady never once came across Ben from [insert a suburb near you] who could change his underwear more often, smokes in bed and has unresolved issues with his overpowering mother whom he must call nightly when Neighbours is on.

Before you began as an optimistic AC, your firm probably sold you a dream too. No doubt, the partnership promised work life balance, “interesting work”, an environment dedicated to continuing learning, a corporate culture of openness, a love of long walks on the beach and watching the sunset, making italian food at home and cuddling....

I have only worked in one law firm but after speaking to fellow comrades, I suspect law firm HR departments are little different from the desperate and dateless so eager to gloss over the truth. One rule of thumb seems true, if a law firm says one thing when they are wooing you, the inverse is usually true. Work life balance is in fact code for cab vouchers and fast food on the firm. “Interesting work” means discovery locked in the dungeon from the Princess Bride and openness means taking instructions from your supervising partner while they are seated in a toilet cubicle because it’s the only moment when they have time.

But, during the courtship of those heady pre-articles days, perhaps their greatest lie of omission was that you were about to join the most depressed profession in Australia. I still find the statistics hard to believe: 25% per cent of lawyers suffer from elevated feelings of psychological distress - inadequacy, anxiety, social isolation and depression - up to 11 per cent of lawyers contemplate suicide monthly... But then I think about the people that work around me - the eyes that refuse to meet yours as you pass in the corridor, that haggard, focused look, the colleague that drinks themselves into oblivion at every opportunity. It all seems to fall into place.

Everyone has their own reasons for feeling depressed. Firm culture plays its part but then there’s the personalities of those that are attracted to law - we are often driven to perfectionism and like to be in control. [This paper by Dr Gautam is an outstanding investigation into depression in the legal profession.]

So enough of my trite whinging. Instead, from this day on, the JLU officially declares war on depression and on the corporate culture that allows it to fester.

Stay tuned for the campaign.

Let [s]he who has not sinned cast the first stone

2007-03-19T21:16:00.001+11:00

Gadens, like many other law firms, has signed up to the Law Institute of Victoria Articles Guidelines. These guidelines allow participating law firms to make 'priority offers' to paralegals and to law students who have obtained vacational clerkships with the firm. Firms can make priority offers before the normal date for regular offers. Once made, a priority offer must remain open for about a month.

The JLU has recently been informed that Gadens, during the recent 2007 round of graduate recruitment, has acted outside of the LIV guidelines. The JLU will not give a detailed account of the allegations in order to protect the individuals involved. However, one of the allegations involves Gadens putting a priority offer candidate under significant pressure to sign a contract with the firm. Another involves Gadens' demanding that a priority offer be accepted within a 24 hour period, contrary to the guidelines.

Gadens, through some fairly ironic viral marketing, seems to be trying to distinguish itself from firms that mistreat their employees. The problem with acting holier than thou is that people will demand that you meet your own high standards.

Sometimes lawyers say the darndest things...

2007-03-15T22:49:00.000+11:00

The unexpected never ceases to amaze. Hail in summer. The TV anchor who lets fly a string of obscenities when they think they are off air. The 70 year old man who was doing chin ups on my train home last night. And then there's this article from the lawyers weekly about the Sydney Careers Fair. If you haven't seen it already, look at the section devoted to Gadens.

It begs the question, was it just a tongue in cheek stunt or maybe a well aimed parting shot from a disgruntled employee? Whatever the motive, the Junior Lawyers' Union salutes you.

Tea anyone?

2007-03-15T22:17:00.000+11:00

We chose this profession because we thought we might want to be lawyers. This Tea Lady never realised that it meant sacrificing her life on the communal alter of a top tier firm.

And it shouldn't have to be.

The fact is, while junior lawyers are supposedly part of some kind of up and coming intelligentsia, for many of us, our choices have left us feeling powerless in the face of working in the law.

The sad thing is, for this tea lady, the JLU is the closest thing she has had to a legal union. But, it is in places like this that as junior lawyers, we can begin to express our dissent.

We deserve reasonable working hours.

We deserve to have a life outside of work.

We deserve basic respect in our work places.

Tea ladies may be a dying breed but this tea lady isn't giving up without a fight.

Milk?

Sugar?

JLU Under New Management

2007-02-25T22:34:00.000+11:00

The JLU clearly struck a chord with junior lawyers around the nation, as I received a number of emails from members and supporters who expressed their disappointment that the JLU's guns were to fall silent.

Well, fear not, dear comrades. After some brief negotiations, I have agreed to hand over the day-to-day editorial control of the JLU to a most suitable and worthy successor, one who will continue the fight and agitate for the founding principles of the JLU.

While I intend to maintain final, "buck stops here" oversight and may even continue to contribute from time to time, the running of the JLU has now been assumed by a fellow junior lawyer to be known simply as The Tea Lady.

As those of you who work in firms that still employ tea ladies would be well aware, The Tea Lady hears all and knows all. She is a wise soul who understands the machinations and inner workings of law firms better than most. Please make her welcome.

The Tea Lady can be reached via email at juniorlawyersunion@hotmail.com (Hotmail). I can still be reached at juniorlawyersunion@gmail.com (Gmail) if you so need.

And so begins Chapter 2 in the life of the JLU. Onwards and upwards, comrades!

The JLU says farewell

2007-01-16T01:52:00.000+11:00

Four weeks have passed since I ended my career as a lawyer.

While it is true that, in that time, I have been busy preparing to embark on a new career in a new city, it is also true that I have not possessed the urge to post to this site.

Having escaped the clutches of big firm practice, I am no longer an insider. I am no longer in a position to tell tales from the trenches. I am also no longer motivated to push back against the constant stresses and pressures of the law firm environment.

Critics of the JLU have occasionally suggested that, if I couldn't handle the heat, I should get out of the kitchen. While I dealt with the flaw in this argument previously, I'm no dogmatist and, since I was never going to change law firm culture, I wasn't going to die trying.

While this means I am now looking forward to life free of the tyranny of the timesheet and the petulance of the partner, it also means that I am no longer in a position to offer junior lawyers a voice. As a result, I am drawing the curtain on the Junior Lawyers' Union.

Of course, the spirit of the JLU and the underlying reasons for its existence live on. Though it will not continue to actively raise matters of concern to junior lawyers, I hope the JLU has, in its short lifespan, managed to serve one of its primary purposes: making junior lawyers aware that they are not alone in their angst and frustration about their jobs and the state of the profession.

Finally, thanks to all the loyal members and readers of the Junior Lawyers' Union blog and particularly to those who left comments or contributed ideas. Your support and enthusiasm turned a kooky idea into a truly worthwhile enterprise.

In place of the ongoing wit and wisdom of the JLU, and for your regular diet of insightful thought and comment, I would recommend a blog I have recently come across called Mid(dle Austr)alia. Click on the link and have a look. Worth a read.

To all those who remain in the law: good luck - and never forget that you have far more power than you are led to believe.

Yours ever loyally,

Shop Steward

Firm offers unexpected pay rise

2006-12-21T00:07:00.000+11:00

I am torn today about how to report this breaking news. So let me begin with the facts and then offer two alternative analyses.

Facts

In an unexpected move, a top-tier law firm has this week advised its first and second year lawyers that they are to receive a pay rise. The firm's long-standing policy is to review junior lawyers' salaries annually on 1 July only but, citing unexpected increases in market rates, the firm has increased lawyers' annual salaries by $2,500 as of 1 January 2007.

Analysis #1

Despite the spin the firm in question has attempted to put on the pay rise, this is the same firm that we reported failed to increase salary bands in its annual pay rise in July of this year. Consequently, rather than coming six months early, the pay rise could easily be viewed as coming six months late.

Moreover, in recent months, firms generally - and this firm in particular - have suffered from especially high "attrition" rates. As we have noted previously, law firms expect to lose some staff. They budget for it. However, of late, it could fairly be said that the firm in question has been haemorrhaging talent.

Realising that it is losing good people at an alarming rate, this firm has been driven to desperate measures - offering lawyers the pay rise they should have had back in July and packaging it as an act of generosity. After all, the firm itself admits that the reason underlying the pay rise is that it had begun to lag behind prevailing top-tier market rates.

Analysis #2

The JLU recently called on law firms to stop poaching lawyers from elsewhere and start actively trying to retain them.

Having criticised firms (as recently as the latest post) for failing to adequately reward junior lawyers or ensure that they feel genuinely valued, the JLU is obliged to commend the firm in question for rising above the plummeting expectations junior lawyers have of their employers. Rather, this firm has demonstrated a degree of goodwill - sorely lacking among commercial law firms - as well, crucially, as a desire to recognise the contribution made by its junior lawyers.

I leave it to you to choose an interpretation. Or could it possibly be that a firm has begun to realise (like BP) that high employee morale can actually benefit a firm's bottom line?

The Grinch who stole Minters' Christmas

2006-12-16T00:03:00.000+11:00

As a follow-up to the post on the "come straight from work" Christmas party, it is worth noting that the Hearsay column in the Legal Affairs section of yesterday's Fin Review reported that, to the chagrin of staff, Minter Ellison has cancelled its firm-wide Christmas party entirely!

Meanwhile, on the page directly opposite, the latest reported figures show Minters to be by far the largest firm in Australia. More partners and more lawyers than any other firm in the country.

What is it with law firms and morale? They just don't get it, do they?

The research he was born to perform

2006-12-15T01:12:00.000+11:00

You have got to be kidding me. Check out the name of the expert quoted in this article, part of which is reproduced below. Is it April 1st already?

(With the exception of the obvious joke about them all being d*ckheads, I know this has nothing to do with lawyers. But then, from the end of next week, neither will I.)

Male circumcision halves HIV infection rates

Washington
December 14, 2006 - 11:47AM
Circumcising men cuts their risk of being infected with the AIDS virus in half, and could prevent hundreds of thousands or even millions of new infections, researchers say.

Circumcising men worked so well that the researchers stopped two large clinical trials in Kenya and Uganda to announce the results today, although they cautioned that the procedure does not make men immune to the virus.

Public health leaders hailed the results as pointing to a potentially powerful way to reduce HIV infections in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS.

"It does have the potential to prevent many tens of thousands, many hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of infections over coming years," Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the World Health Organisation's Department of HIV/AIDS, told reporters.

Makes sense, I guess, to ask de cock what he dinks about de circumcision.

The Christmas minefield

2006-12-13T11:58:00.000+11:00

It's Christmas party season and, all around the Jesus/Santa-worshipping world, law firm employees are getting drunk and telling each other what they really think of one another.

As a general rule, whether this involves "You knowwww, I've always secretly rooly loiked youuu" or "Jusht becaushhh you're faaat and ug-ly, doesn't mean you havta be a BITCH as well", in the cold hard light of the following day, discretion would almost certainly have proven the better part of valour. This is one area where truth offers little defence.

Actions that may have appeared heroic after an evening of having your glass regularly topped up will almost invariably not seem so clever when you find yourself staring at the object of your affection/loathing at your weekly workgroup meeting on Monday morning.

Leaving aside the vitriolic side of things for the time being, there is a genuine question here. Since hitting on your workmates is a clear and distinct no-no, what do you do when you have spent the entire year lusting after someone you work with?

Those of us without superhero good looks may easily be tempted to view the Christmas party, where everyone (including the colleague you've spent all year checking out) lets go of their inhibitions, as the opportunity to make our feelings known. Of course, when this ends in rejection, you've ruined everyone's night. And possibly just committed sexual harassment.

This can hit pretty hard and I imagine that Friday nights in December are peak season for suicide watch on the Harbour Bridge or the West Gate. I distinctly remember one colleague storming out of an after-party, cursing girls generally and threatening (albeit in jest) to top himself.

Then again, sometimes the only thing worse than being rejected is not being rejected. Apart from the standard morning-after "Oh no... I did what with who?" that I associate more with being a teenager, the workplace Christmas party offers the potential for a whole new dimension of regret.

Consequently (and in order to protect their own arses from sexual harassment liability), in recent years, firms have adopted the practice of sending around sexual harassment "reminder" emails in the days leading up to the firm Christmas party.

Back when I was a vacation clerk, on the morning of the firm Christmas party, an office-wide email came around "on behalf of" the Managing Partner from his secretary, gently turning our minds to the sexual harassment policies and suggesting everyone "look out for one another".

As things transpired, one interpretation of events later that evening is that the (married) Managing Partner and his (married) secretary were closely "looking out for one another" on the sticky dance floor of the after-party bar. Nice work.

Come as you are

2006-12-13T11:41:00.000+11:00

We received details of our firm Christmas party a little while ago.

Some of us were looking forward to a theme and the potential to dress up - Pirates of the Caribbean perhaps, possibly 1920s gangsters or even come as your favourite Justice of the High Court. (I would've gotten stuck into the bean salad and come as Windeyer J.)

Then we saw the invitation. It read (in part):

Time: 7pm
Dress: business attire
Location: [venue immediately around the corner from the office]

In other words, "We've arranged it so that you can come straight from work. You don't even have to get changed. That way you can stay at work until 6.45."

Unbelievable!

Talk about squeezing every last drop.

Comments temporarily lost in the ether

2006-12-11T12:44:00.001+11:00

Apologies to all JLU members and readers who left comments over the past few weeks. They appear to have been caught in some sort of blogger ether. I wondered for a while why everyone had gone so quiet.

The JLU site has just been switched over to "beta" (whatever that means - is "beta" better than "alpha" or is alpha what I'm aspiring to?) - and the comments suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Now that they have belatedly been published, I will go through them and, where applicable, offer a response. I can make such promises because, since I'm finishing up next week, I now have virtually no work. How luxurious!

Smelling the roses, and the law that does nothing

2006-12-07T18:01:00.000+11:00

When I resigned back in October, I agreed to serve out my contractual notice period of three months. What I was really hoping for by giving such an unnaturally long period of notice was for my workload to diminish to the point where there was no reason to keep me around, at which time the firm would suggest I enjoy a period of "gardening leave".

This, of course, was pure fantasy.

"Gardening leave", for those unfamiliar with the expression, involves being sent home (notionally to tend to your garden) on full pay for the remainder of one's notice period. It is not an uncommon practice among corporations that wish to prevent executives from working for a competitor but, I dare say, it is completely unheard of in relation to junior lawyers.

The weeks immediately following my resignation were possibly the busiest I've had, as the firm excised its juiciest pound of flesh yet while I remained a captive employee. Since then, however, things have quietened down and I've had a chance to ponder various schemes for getting myself sent on gardening leave for my last month or so.

Then I spotted my sick leave balance. I have almost 20 days of personal leave accumulated. Man, that's four weeks. I could basically take off a month for some cosmetic surgery (that I so desperately need) and have the cost covered by my sick leave. (Well, maybe. What does cosmetic surgery cost these days?)

Just as I was contemplating rhinoplasty, Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews announced new laws enabling employees to cash out their personal (sick) leave. How good is that?! Instead of throwing sickies, you can just take the cash!

Admittedly, the end of the sickie would mean the demise of a long and culturally-accepted tradition, which would be decidedly un-Australian. But it sounds like a bloody good deal to me. Could it really be so?

No, of course it isn't.

Upon closer inspection, employees can cash out their personal leave down to the point where they have 15 days remaining. Ok, so I can cash out a week. Not so bad.

Well, actually, any request to exercise the right to cash out sick leave must be made in writing to your employer and is subject to your employer's agreement.

Wait a minute. So I can cash out sick leave if my employer wants me to? In other words, the firm will give me money if it feels like it. What are the odds of that?

Upon learning of the new law, one partner here put it best: "Why on earth would any employer agree to that?"

Indeed.

Thanks very much Mr Andrews. Looks like I'll be having that nose job after all.

Rudd to open the bowling, McGrath for PM

2006-12-04T12:11:00.000+11:00

A day that shall live in infamy. And one of contrasting lessons.

A Fairfax/ACNielsen poll comes out showing ALP leads the Coalition by a whopping 56-44. Yet, ignoring its yawning 12 point lead and displaying both utter short-sightedness and irrefutable evidence that it has forgotten how to win, federal caucus decides it's time for a change. Beazley out, Rudd in.

Meanwhile, at the Adelaide Oval, Australia fights a rearguard action to save the second Ashes Test. Why? Because England has declared on 551 after the three-and-a-half man Australian bowling attack could only manage six wickets in two days of cricket.

Example 1: A team so used to losing that change seems the only way to win.
Example 2: A team so used to winning that change would only rock the boat.

Having been to four of the five Ashes Tests in England in 2005, your loyal Shop Steward learnt some lessons from that fateful tour and stated last week that an unfit McGrath had no place in the team for the second Test. Moreover, an Australia without McGrath, having made 10/800+ on its previous outing, would need five bowlers on the flat Adelaide track more than the extra batsman. Consequently, I proposed the following line-up:
1. Langer
2. Hayden (with Phil Jaques to play the third Test if Hayden failed against England again)
3. Ponting
4. Martyn
5. Hussey
6. Gilchrist (with Haddin potentially ready to go by the fourth Test)
7. Lee (better batsman than Warne)
8. Warne
9. Bracken (better variety to complement Lee and Clark)
10. Clark
11. MacGill

Unfortunately, however, the Australian selectors opted to stay with the same team - including a hobbled Glenn McGrath - while the parliamentary Labor party opted for change and dumped the man I consider to be the best Prime Minister Australia's never had.

Though frustrated, I'll continue to support the Australian cricket team. I'm not so sure about the ALP.

The JLU does not insist upon uniformity of opinion and the above reflects only the views of Shop Steward and not the JLU as a whole. That said, you can rest assured that there will be no leadership spill at the JLU.

Traineespotting

2006-12-03T23:31:00.000+11:00

So the summer's first batch of doe-eyed vacation clerks has arrived and they are currently doing their thing at firms around the nation.

"Their thing" broadly entails:
(a) nodding over-zealously and looking far too interested when engaged in conversation;
(b) pretending to anyone who'll listen that they're desperate to become life-long commercial lawyers;
(c) displaying an abject inability to distinguish between the people who have the final say as to whether they end up with articles and the people who clean the toilets; and
(d) drinking.

As a result of the above, you'll easily be able to identify the vacation clerks at your firm. They're the ones standing in the library, earnestly telling a research assistant how much they enjoyed Equity and how fascinating they found Corporations Law.

Most of all, though, the vacation clerks are distinguishable from the sullen rest of the firm because they still possess that sweet bird of youth long since extinguished in everyone else. We others are worn down by day upon wearying day of air conditioned offices, fluorescent lighting and constant brow furrowing. In contrast, the vacation clerks glide around looking decidedly nubile.

A few other brief observations about vacation clerks:

1. They're uni students so they wear the same suit every day for four weeks. Thus, while they might be better looking than us, we're far more sophisticated.

2. Older partners often find much amusement in chortling, "Having looked over your profiles, if I were applying for articles now, I'd never have got a job here. Ha ha ha."
That's because, in addition to supreme marks and extensive co-curricular involvement, each clerk is now expected to have saved the world at least twice by the age of 21. And most have too. (Or at least that's what their CVs say.) Such breadth of experience is ideal preparation, of course, for a year or two of discovery.

3. HR conveners of vacation clerk events appear to have assumed that entertaining the vacation clerks involves plying them with vast quantities of alcohol. Every event includes drinks. This approach may hold some appeal for the battle-hardened lawyer masses who leap at opportunities to drown our sorrows but the vacation clerks seem to know better. Shame really. They'd be so much more entertaining completely sozzled.

Mrs Shop Steward?

2006-11-28T17:43:00.000+11:00

To all those who asked: no, this is not me. I would love to meet the author, though. Sounds like my soulmate.

(I'm talking about the "I loathed my 'imprisonment' in a top law firm" letter, not the "I loved my gig in the sex industry" one. But I suppose either would make for an interesting date.)

Anyone know Ms Gurner?

Lawyers accept judge's call to "get a life"

2006-11-27T23:19:00.000+11:00

A lot of people have sent us the link to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled "Judge Tells Lawyers to Get a Life".

The gist of the article - click on the link to read it yourself - is summed up in the first paragraph:

The rudeness, aggression and demands of senior lawyers are leading too many young lawyers to burn out and leave the profession disillusioned, a Supreme Court judge has warned.

The judge, Palmer J, was quoted as saying, "Just in the last month, I have heard of two young lawyers who became completely disillusioned after working for a year or so in a large firm, and have left the law for good."

I have no idea if his Honour has been reading this blog but it is apparent that a number of JLU members (and sympathisers) saw a connection. Some emailed the article to us accompanied by the suggestion that they would be looking forward to the JLU's usual incisive and cynical commentary on the state of the profession.

The fact is, however, that, since resigning, your loyal Shop Steward has mellowed. It's hard to rail angrily against a vile system you've opted out of. It's next to impossible to raise the same level of passion about an oppressive culture you're soon to be free of. Although I will continue to serve out my notice period until the end of this year, I am only present at work in body. In spirit, I am liberated.

A young lawyer quoted in the SMH article argues that the "the fact that these sorry souls are leaving the profession is merely an act of Darwinism at its purest; an act of self-selection that can only make the profession stronger."

I'm sorry to hear such stuff and nonsense from one of our own because, in truth, the exodus of junior lawyers - the creative, interesting and well-rounded ones - leaves the profession colder, harder, meaner and unhappier.

Since news of my resignation became (relatively) public knowledge, I have had - on average - two junior lawyers a day tell me either that they are envious of my impending freedom or else that they are likewise actively making plans for their own departure.

The profession is in trouble. Young lawyers are leaving, as the judge suggests, to "get a life". The solution is for firms to let them have one.

WorkChoices here to stay

2006-11-14T11:00:00.000+11:00

And so the bourgeois High Court has upheld the tyrannical federal government's WorkChoices legislation by a majority of 5-2. Don't say we didn't warn you.

(We actually predicted the exact result - right down to the dissenting judges - back in May.)

The charm defensive - part 2

2006-11-13T01:17:00.000+11:00

The big firms proudly make a practice of hiring graduates they consider to be well-rounded and interesting. Sure, they must have a solid academic record. But, it is stressed, they must also have a breadth of life experiences, a variety of community or extra-curricular hobbies and they must be personable and perform well in an interview.

Then they arrive and are put in a small room with no windows and thousands of documents and are expected to spend 14 hours a day answering two questions: Privileged? Relevant?

After inflicting this mind-numbing torture on its bright young things, firms have the gall to tell their junior lawyers that the firm must always come first, that it must be the most important thing in their lives. They must abandon any outside interests - and cease being well-rounded.

God knows why the big law firms hire such interesting and creative law graduates - the best, brightest and most talented - if they intend to treat them like document drones. Perhaps it's to make sure their competitors don't get them.

Earlier this year, I was put on a matter that the senior legal support guy described as having a "100% mortality rate". Everyone who worked on it, he told me, "has either left the department, quit the firm or had a mental breakdown." Apparently there was a fairly even split in outcomes between the three categories.(1)

And so lawyers (like me) leave. They leave the big firms and they leave the profession.

On the whole, firms shrug their shoulders and call it the "natural attrition rate". The biggest firms take take 50+ graduates/ACs a year in each of their Sydney and Melbourne offices and simply expect to lose them over time. They factor this into the number they hire.

Time and time again, they talk about the most important asset of the firm - the clients. They talk about how the clients are to be treated as "God", that clients' needs must always come first.

However, there are two things without which a big firm would not exist, without which it could not function: its clients and its lawyers.

And so, with the constant stream of lawyers leaving big firms turning, in recent times, into a veritable flood, the firms have become increasingly desperate. Not to retain their lawyers, mind you, but rather to poach them from elsewhere.

I am reliably informed that one top-tier firm recently upped what it calls its "star search" reward (from what I am less reliably informed was previously the choice of a packet of chips, a weekend away for one in a Warrnambool motel or a $50 Coles Myer voucher) to a cool $10,000 for the recruitment of a suitable employee who makes it through the probationary period.

It makes you wonder: wouldn't it make more sense for the firms to keep the lawyers they spend so much time and effort hiring in the first place than to have to plug holes by pinching lawyers from other firms?

So why doesn't anyone ask "Is there anything we can do to make you stay?" before you hand in your resignation?

Privileged? No. Relevant? Yes.

(1) I, incidentally, managed to perform a Houdini-like escape from the matter by conflicting myself out of it - but that's another story for another time.

The charm defensive - part 1

2006-10-26T17:45:00.000+10:00

I resigned last week.

Under my contract, the firm requires me to give three months' notice and, as I need the money, I agreed to work out the notice period in its entirety. The beauty of this situation, of course, is that the charade is over. I am now effectively dead man working.

Except for serious misconduct (such as the maintenance of this blog on work time), I cannot be fired. That's quite a liberating feeling. Rather than having to pretend I care, that I genuinely would take a bullet for a client, I am free to conduct myself according to my own priorities and sense of reason, not the firm's.

In the period since I submitted my resignation, I have had one moment when a partner sought to impart the usual subtle pressure by suggesting that he was "disappointed" I hadn't seen fit to come in before 8am on a particularly busy morning. I heard him out, said nothing but "Sorry" and shrugged. There was a momentary, glorious flicker of recognition in the partner's eyes that he had lost his intimidatory power.

By resigning, I had completely messed with the existing power dynamic of the relationship. There was no more need to dance the dance.

Earlier, when I informed my responsible partner of my decision to resign, he transformed from a frowning, full-throttle, stormy machine, too busy to waste words on compliments or niceties, to a previously-unseen genial bloke, with all the time in the world to discuss my strengths, interests and future plans.

Then, when I told a more senior partner, who had played a key role in hiring me all those years ago, there was genuine disappointment. "Is there anything we can do to make you stay?" she asked.

This was the perfect opportunity to set out the JLU's manifesto in its entirety: fewer working hours, respect (not just lip service) for work/life balance, a sense that employees are valued and appreciated by the firm, proper mentoring by partners - including a genuine interest in junior lawyers' professional development, proper diversity of work (beyond slaving away endlessly on Project Rectal Exam), etc, etc...

And, of course, it was a chance to get a few extra bucks. Maybe $10K.

Instead, I stoically shook my head. "No," I said. "I've made up my mind."

Accounting for your time... on the loo

2006-10-19T00:05:00.000+10:00

The first question that non-lawyer mates (if you've got any left) ask you about time recording is invariably, "If you have to account for every six minutes, how do you account for your time on the toilet?"

They think they're being clever but, in truth, it's a rather mundane question with a pretty obvious answer: "If I'm staring at a spot on the wall above the urinal, thinking about what I have to do when I get back to my desk, it's considering. If I'm doing a number 2, I take reading - so it's reviewing."

Non-lawyers should be minded to wash their hands after handling legal documents. There's no telling how many lawyers have "reviewed" the document you're thumbing through.

My clients should, at least, take some comfort in the fact that I restrict my reviewing to the good bathroom. By the "good bathroom", I mean the bathroom on the reception floor, which has all the client meeting rooms. There are no lawyers' offices on this floor and, consequently, no lawyers who frequent this bathroom. Except for me.

When I was a kid, my mum always told me off for using the "guest bathroom", the "guest soap" and the "guest hand towel". Perhaps that's why I take great pleasure these days in taking a dump in the "client bathroom".

That - and the fact that the regular bathrooms on each working floor are crowded, dirty and, unless you walk in within 30 seconds of the timed deodoriser spray doing its thing, unbearably pungent.

The good bathroom is much more peaceful. You can really get some good reviewing done. There's no-one rushing in and out or making noises in the stall next to you that sound like they swallowed a French Horn.

You can also spread out a whole file in the more spacious toilet stalls. Trust me - a Second Further Amended Statement of Claim will wedge nicely above the toilet paper holder.

I don't think any of this is going too far. With the constant pressure on junior lawyers to meet their billing targets, toilet time need not be dead time.

That said, the day someone takes a dictaphone into a toilet stall will be the day there's an undeniable need for a Legal Secretaries' Union.

What are we afraid of?

2006-10-11T12:35:00.000+10:00

Better not leave before 6pm. Better not leave before this gets done. Better not tell the partner that you and your (soon to be ex) girlfriend/boyfriend have dinner plans and tickets for a show tonight. Better not stand up for yourself.

Better not? Why not? Why not, comrade?

The greatest magic of law firms is how they manage to compel obedience from their junior lawyers without any defined threat. It is simply a vague pressure: the law firm "culture". That's just the way things are.

But why? What if they aren't? What happens then?

Let's look at the end game. What are the carrots and sticks?

Money

In most Australian law firms, in contrast to US firms, bonuses (whether discretionary or based on achieving certain targets) are non-existent. Likewise, salary banding doesn't usually kick in until at least third year, by which time you could've had three good years billing 80 hour months while your mate bills 200 hours a month and walks away with the exact same salary. So forget the financial incentive.

Promotion

If you genuinely and desperately aspire to climb the greasy pole to senior associateship and partnership, you're not reading this blog. But, in any case, it's roughly five years to senior associateship and five more to partnership. So, at the very least, you can bum around for three, get your act together by the time you get to third year and still cruise into senior associateship by impressing with your new-found enthusiasm and "can do" attitude.

For most JLU members, however, junior lawyerdom is not a stepping stone to greater heights of drudgery and paper shuffling. The majority of junior lawyers flee law firms before promotion to senior associate becomes an issue. So the threat that, somewhere distant down the track, you will be passed over for what is effectively the worst job in the firm - and certainly not one for which you hold any aspiration - is no threat at all.

Disciplinary measures

No lawyer actually knows of any lawyer being fired for poor performance.

Sure, stories abound of how unnamed lawyers have been quietly informed that they are unlikely to progress to senior associate or else have found themselves "managed out" by having their workload dried up. But is that a threat?

Might get boring - but it's not exactly like you're a fast-talking movie cop being taken off the beat and assigned to a desk job (the ultimate movie cop punishment). No, sir. Yours *is* a desk job. And reading the paper certainly beats due diligence. Or you could even start a blog.

References / Reputation

Most law firms inexplicably have a policy of not permitting partners or senior associates to provide departing lawyers with written references. So you can work your rear off for years and years and leave with... well... nothing. Or you can slovenly waltz in and out during daylight hours and leave with... nothing.

In any case, if you want a verbal reference, just make sure you're friendly with a couple of people a year or two above you. Buy them a beer. At least one will make senior associate and will be so flattered when you ask them to act as a referee that they couldn't care less how hard you worked for the slave-driving partner.

Conclusion

In practice, the carrots and sticks are limited. The result is that, for the junior lawyer, there is nothing to be gained by sacrificing your personal life for the firm and there is nothing to be lost by digging your heels in.

So next time you're thinking "I'd better get this done or else...", finish the sentence.

Or else what?

In the meantime, the very vagueness of the "or else" renders junior lawyers complicit in their own subjugation. And we're supposed to be smarter than that.

Top tier salaries revealed!

2006-10-03T21:37:00.000+10:00

The long-promised results of the survey of what junior lawyers are paid are presented below.

It was hoped that a table could be produced that outlined the salaries paid by specific firms to lawyers at various levels of seniority. Due, however, to reticence, disinterest or possibly a desire to abide strictly by contractual terms of confidentiality, an inadequate number of responses were received to produce the sort of comprehensive chart that was intended.

Consequently, we present the following figures as a sort of average for top-tier firms for financial year 2006-7. The figures include superannuation - simply because the numbers are rounder - although the JLU objects in principle to the quoting of salaries inclusive of super.

These salary levels also take a few months to kick in. In other words, you may be a second year lawyer as of March in terms of experience but you'll still be on a first year's salary until the following July. (I guess, if you really wanted to, you could discount the salaries by a third of the difference between the salary levels to produce a more accurate figure.)

The final thing to bear in mind is that this survey turned out to be rather Melbourne-centric. Sydneysiders should expect about 10% more, everyone else less.

Now for some numbers...

Law graduates / articled clerks: $53,000
1st year lawyers: $67,500
2nd year lawyers: $79,000
3rd year lawyers (standard discretionary bracket): $90,000
3rd year lawyers (highest discretionary bracket): $97,500
4th year lawyers: $105,000

A smattering of figures received from lawyers at mid-tier firms suggested that you can subtract about 20% for salaries at mid-tier firms.

The JLU hasn't the faintest what junior lawyers at small firms are getting - although we'd be willing to bet our superannuation that you're getting less still.

Please feel free to post your comments, clarifications or condemnation of any of the above.

the power of sex

2006-09-21T08:12:00.000+10:00

the first great moment in my legal career was jumping naked out of a cake at the sixtieth birthday of a well-respected barrister.

well… it could have been… three months into my articles, the opportunity was offered to me at one of the many alcoholic Christmas functions. I laughed loudly along with all the others at the table, and politely declined.

but several questions lingered on long after the event. was this harassment? and if so, to what extent had I been a co-conspirator in inducing or encouraging this kind of conduct?

I had been talking about my amateur acting career – not unusual, as many lawyers like a bit of drama on the side – and in particular I was discussing a show I had done several years earlier which had required full frontal nudity. I was commenting on the sensation of exposing oneself to strangers and friends – potentially provocative words? – but I cannot recall at what point the conversation diverted into a proposed performance at the sexagenarian’s party.

and why be upset? it was, after all, merely words, words, words, the kind of thing one must expect from such old men because they’re from a different generation and they don’t know any better – right? besides which, I would have hated to be labelled as humourless and uptight…

and when it comes down to it, I am as aware as anyone that sexuality can be a powerful weapon for many women – particularly in a male-dominated world like the law.

an example: male members of a client corporation recently confessed that they would willingly make up legal problems just so they could obtain legal advice from one of their other panel law firms, whose assets happened to include a six-foot barbie doll. while I would need considerable stretching and enlargement to provide this kind of added service to my clients, clearly simply being physically (sexually) attractive can be a bonus, and is something that can be used to a woman's advantage much more readily than a man's.

however, my word of warning is that this kind of sexual power is a weapon that is liable to blow up in your face at any time, as it can attract the wrong, as well as the right kind of attention. and neither the law, nor the legal fraternity, are always going to be there to get your back.

sexual harassment always comes down to drawing a line. if my boss tells me I look attractive, is that OK? what if he says this while patting me on the arse? what if the words he uses are “extremely f***able”?

the last is sadly a real world example. the defence raised by the partner to the ensuing claim for sexual harrassment was that the comment (although denied, of course!) had been made in the context of an end of financial year party, and the girl in question had been dressed provocatively in fancy dress (at the request of the partners) and clearly enjoying herself – in fact, photos of her outfit were submitted to the equal opportunity commission of victoria (EOCV), presumably as proof that she was “asking for it”.

I am told that this kind of antiquated view is relatively common in the defence of sexual harassment claims, and I guess it should come as no surprise that it has particular strength in the legal community (or, at least, that lawyers had no qualms in raising it).

but perhaps what was most disturbing is that the EOCV dismissed our young comrade’s sexual harassment claim without reason – clearly having taken the view either that (a) she had been untruthful about the comment, or (b) she had indeed been "asking for it" and therefore the conduct was not unwelcome sexual conduct. when requested to comment on the decision, the relevant persons in the commission were consistently “unavailable”.

I was recently offered another role involving full frontal nudity - but this time I turned it down. after all, you just never know who might be watching…and what kind of judgments might be made about you further down the track.

You'll never work alone

2006-09-20T17:39:00.000+10:00

At many places of work, employees will offset the risk of burn out by taking "mental health days" - ie. sickies. At law firms, however, junior lawyers are expected to be on deck, servicing clients and running up those billable units, come hell or high water. Usually hell.

The simple question implicitly posed to junior lawyers is "If you take a sick day on those random days when you're actually sick, how is the work going to get done?" There are, after all, people depending on you and unscheduled sick days do not allow for handover memos or extensions of deadlines and that's... well... that's just unprofessional.

Surely, though, in extreme cases, junior lawyers can be excused from work. Right?

Well, let's consider two examples from the past few days.

Example one.

On Sunday, several large law firms engaged in battle - on the rugby field - at the inter-firm Flett Cup. In the hurly-burly of the repeated collision of bodies built to sit behind desks, two individuals from one particular firm each managed to fracture a wrist.

One JLU member forwarded to us the match report that was sent around that particular firm the following day. Matter-of-factly, the match report concluded: "Of the two injured players, both John and Howard were at work today, with John having been operated on overnight. We wish both the very best for their respective recoveries".*

We wish them the best for their respective recoveries... as long as they front up for work?? I mean, sure, they can still use a dictaphone, right?

Dude, they broke their wrists. One had an operation only a few hours before. And they're turning up to work? This goes beyond admirable dedication and arrives at raving lunacy.

Example two.

This morning news flashed around the globe of the military coup (is there any other kind?) in Thailand. Two things went on as normal: tourists continued to drink uninterrupted at seedy local bars and expat lawyers turned up to work to push papers around.

The mentality of law firms, as comrades would well know, is that absolutely nothing could possibly be as important as pushing papers around. The serious impression imparted on junior lawyers is that the world will stop turning if we fail to show up and push said papers around our desks.

Part of the reason for this is that, if lawyers aren't convinced that what we're doing is of utmost importance, it is hard to convince clients of that fact. Allowing clients the impression that they could largely do without us is the equivalent of suggesting to them that the emperor (or in the case of Thailand, his Majesty the King) may be strolling around stark naked.

In order, therefore, to reinforce the sense of how crucial we are to the world's continued existence, lawyers are expected to show up in rain, hail or shine (be that acid rain, hail of gunfire or black eye shiner).

And so it was this morning in the Bangkok office of one Australian firm, which proudly advised that, despite the military-decreed public holiday, its lawyers had run the gauntlet, reported for work and were pleased to be ready to accept clients' instructions, should they be forthcoming.

There's something wrong with a culture like that. It is a culture that makes us at the JLU sick. Sick enough to take the day off. The work can wait.

* Names changed for privacy purposes.

Crikey!

2006-09-18T22:22:00.000+10:00

Influential media source crikey.com.au cited the JLU's last post (on morale) in the "Blogwatch" section of its daily missive earlier today.

Crikey was described in The Latham Diaries as "the most popular website in Parliament House", suggesting that the JLU now has the ear of those who matter. (Or at least those who legislate.)

Anyone remember morale?

2006-09-17T22:37:00.000+10:00

Morale is not the name of the immigrant who comes around and cleans your office at 8pm when you're still at work trying to finish something off. No, it's a long-forgotten concept whereby individuals feel valued as successful members of a team or collaboration. Not that today's generation of junior lawyers could be expected to know.

In the stressed, time poor environment of the modern law firm, the absence of pats on the back for a job well done (or the hours dedicated and personal life sacrificed) are but the tip of the morale-busting iceberg.

For the junior lawyers of the 21st century, law firms are cold, sterile, mean places. But it wasn't always so.

There once existed the era of the boozy Friday lunch, where the work could wait until mañana (and that didn't mean Saturday) and value was given to client schmoozing and group bonding.

Unfortunately, that era has passed.

Much of the reason for this is that the old-fashioned partners, who recognised that monthly billings are not the be-all and end-all, have been pushed out in the name of efficiency, as the new breed of greedy, ambitious partners strive for ever-greater earnings.

Sadly, the recent trend has been for the true characters - partners who tended to drink too much, tell bawdy jokes and never touch a keyboard - to be forced to unload their equity. The firms they once built, meanwhile, have become national, soulless monoliths in the hands of their successors, who insist that no profit is ever enough.

The upshot of this for the junior lawyer is that every benefit, every ounce of law firm generosity that once existed is now seen as budget waste and is progressively stripped away.

Those boozy Friday lunches have long become a myth descended from the '80s. Nowadays, not only are junior lawyers expected to zip back to work from firm lunches by 2pm - but they're also expected to pay their own way.

Earlier in my career, at a farewell lunch for a colleague about to begin maternity leave, I ordered a steak and assumed it would be on the firm. Once the meal was completed, the partner (annual income: $1m) was handed the bill. He contemplated it, cleared his throat and proceeded to read out what each of us owed. ("Porterhouse: $24.50.")

This is a culture where profits are not wasted on anything that could possibly improve morale. It is a culture where firm "retreats" begin on Friday evenings and end on Sundays, ensuring that no potential billing time is lost. I am unclear why these weekend work events are termed "retreats". Weekends are retreats: retreats from work and from my "firm face" (ie. the need to smile banally at partners I disdain). Why would I want a "retreat" from my weekend?

The culture of law firms has become a culture of cheapness, of cost-cutting and of squeezing lawyers for every last drop of their soul.

Gone are the days of long lunches paid for by the firm. Here, in their place, are lawyers who feel the need to check their Blackberries at the firm Christmas party. If there is one.

The art of drafting

2006-09-05T20:36:00.000+10:00

A partner at the firm I work for recommends a form of catharsis whereby, before drafting a letter to a client or another party, you draft the letter you genuinely want to write to them. Then, feeling purged, you delete it and write the letter you need to write.

This same partner, for example, recently punched out a quick client letter in my presence, advising how tremendously pleasurable it was to present said client with an enormous bill each month for doing very little. He signed off the letter "Love and kisses". He then deleted the bulk of the letter and replaced it with a solemn advice on the various steps we were currently taking to continue generating large fees while running on the spot. "Love and kisses", however, inadvertently remained.

It was left to this junior lawyer to quietly replace "Love and kisses" with "Kind regards" before the letter went out.

Despite that incident, your loyal Shop Steward has adopted the approach as best practice. So taken with it am I that I have drafted and redrafted my resignation letter several times. Most recently, I decided to put the whole letter in square brackets and move the opening bracket one word to the right each time something evil happens at the law firm at which I work - until the entire letter is revealed, at which point in time I intend to submit it.

That bracket is creeping ever closer to "Love and kisses".

Perhaps I should have written a longer letter. Or joined a better firm.

Law firms depriving annual leave of meaning

2006-08-26T23:53:00.000+10:00

I recently took a couple of days of annual leave. When my grandmother called and discovered I wasn't at work, it was like I had committed some grave sin. Previously, my absence from the office on the Queen's Birthday public holiday had caused her to shake her head as if I was lazy. In her mind, Monday to Fridays are for work and that's that.

"We get public holidays off," I told her. "And twenty days' annual leave a year."
"Twenty days?!" she exclaimed. "You LUCKY thing!"
"Grandma, it's the statutory minimum."
"You're very lucky."
"They get a minimum of twenty-five days in the UK."
She looked away and dismissed the thought of such extravagance with a wave of her hand.

As I disconsolately front up to work this weekend, however, it occurred to me that annual leave is effectively being deprived of meaning. What is the purpose of mandating twenty days' leave from the workplace if you're spending at least twenty days a year in the office on weekends? Put simply, annual leave is being neutralised.

Australian governments - of both political persuasions - have accepted that four weeks' annual leave is a right that needs to exist in order to preserve the health and welfare of all employees. So law firms reluctantly honour this requirement. But they also manage to work around it. You'll work nights and you'll work weekends - but, hey, you get your twenty days a year off. Even if they're the only days you get off!

But what government really meant is that employees are entitled to at least twenty days away from work in addition to nights, weekends and public holidays. This is why public holidays are gazetted and the working week has been capped at 38 hours.

Yet, with law firms' interpretation of the "38 hour week" (which essentially is that any additional hours required by firms of their junior lawyers are "reasonable"), junior lawyers could theoretically find themselves working up to 345 days a year. With weekends, public holidays and annual leave, even our government only intends for us to work a maximum of about 232 days per year.

Your twenty days of annual leave are completely deprived of meaning if you're working many more than that in days that you're supposed to have off. And, at most firms, uttering the phrase "days in lieu" will, at best, result in a confused look and, at worst, outright amusement.

Comrades, we junior lawyers who work weekends are not paid overtime. Instead, as the firms express it, our remuneration package is "all inclusive" and "takes into account work that may be performed outside normal office hours". (As to why we happen to be working weekends, see here.) But, worse, we're not actually accruing any annual leave for these additional days we're in the office. So it turns out to be cheaper for the firms to have us in on weekends than during normal office hours.

And, comrades, that can't be right. After all, even my grandmother doesn't expect me to be at work on the weekend.

STRIKE TODAY!

2006-08-25T00:30:00.000+10:00

Just a reminder, comrades, of today's strike. It is imperative to our struggle for better working conditions that all junior lawyers down tools for a full hour at lunchtime today.

Viva la revolution!

Call for junior lawyers to strike

2006-08-10T13:59:00.000+10:00

Comrades,

Over the past three months, the JLU has sought to raise the awareness of the plight of junior lawyers and create a sense of solidarity among them with a view to their empowerment and a remedying of the power imbalance that exists in law firms.

This has been all talk. The time for ACTION has arrived.

The JLU is therefore calling for a day of mass protest on Friday 25 August 2006. COMRADES, WE'RE GOING ON STRIKE!

Since the JLU recognises that lawyers are a conservative, timid bunch, however, our strike will take the following form: on Friday 25 August 2006, every junior lawyer is to take his or her full lunch break! Imagine it: no junior lawyers working through lunch!

On this day, there is to be no "I just want to finish something off" or "I'm really under the pump". On this day, the JLU urges all junior lawyers to take their full contractual entitlement to an hour away from the office.

Email it to your Blackberry. Slap a post-it note on your forehead. Save it in your Outlook as "Must Attend".

Perhaps even take the opportunity to reacquaint yourself with some of your old articles buddies over lunch. After all, one of the key ways in which law firms ensure the submission of junior lawyers to the system is by quietly discouraging them from taking lunch - from socialising - where subversive, treacherous discussion may take place and lawyers may find that there are others just like them: oppressed, disheartened, discouraged.

Comrades, we must walk before we can run. But that doesn't mean the JLU doesn't have lofty goals. Today - a lunch break; tomorrow - leaving the office at the end of official office hours; next week - a recognition of outside commitments.

Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, even tell your responsible partner (from a safe distance). But most importantly, on Friday 25 August 2006, tell the staff at your favourite lunch place that you'll be having that focaccia to eat in!

Partners who put the "ass" in harassment

2006-07-31T10:53:00.000+10:00

Shop Steward can only recall having his bum pinched once - and that was by a gay gent wearing sparkles on Halloween in West Hollywood. While initially unnerved, once the perpetrator identified himself with a smile and a wink, Shop Steward quickly found himself flattered. After all, gay men have taste and style (even if they wear sparkles).

The issue of harassment - sexual, verbal or physical - in the workplace, however, is a serious matter in any industry and lawyers, who should know better, often don't. This is especially true (in both respects) in the case of partners. So used, are partners, to being treated with deity-like deference that many, being overstressed, overworked and overpaid, take out their pent up egotistical stresses on junior lawyers.

Stories abound of articled clerks at whom copies of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) were flung, partners whose wandering hands lingered slightly too long on a certain pretty young lawyer's thigh at the firm Christmas party and so on and so forth. The JLU may, at present, be a somewhat mythical union - but it deplores the abuses of power and position that are all too real in the law firm environment.

Are Lawyers Human?

2006-07-29T23:31:00.000+10:00

Q: what do a sperm and a lawyer have in common?

A: they both have a one in three chance of being human

every speck of popular culture has its origins in truth – and no less the “myth” that lawyers are inherently evil.

but rather than just laughing it off, do we ever stop to think about why people say this about lawyers?

like so many other worker bees around me, I slaved (relatively) hard to enter the legal industry with (mostly) good intentions – only to find out that the legal culture was riddled with injustice, cowardice, prejudice, harassment, discrimination and immorality – and that was just in the articles application process!

gather a group of young lawyers together in one place and the unfortunate truth is that you will be hard-pressed to find even one that hasn’t directly experienced some form of bullying, harassment or discrimination. the legal profession is supposed to engender concepts of justice and fairness, but there aren’t many lawyers who wouldn’t laugh at the thought.

lawyers spend their lives manipulating the law, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of them come to believe that the normal rules don’t apply to them – that they are quite literally above the law.

I was unfortunate enough to be bullied and harassed by my former employers to the extent that I had to leave (or, on another view, was dismissed). I was either brave or foolish enough to turn to the law to take on my former employers. the context, the experience and the outcome would need to be a blog topic in and of itself. but needless to say, it was not particularly enjoyable, and I am still of two minds as to whether I would encourage others to follow in my lead.

but what I would encourage is young lawyers breaking the silence that traditionally surrounds these kinds of issues. there is a strong belief that by standing up for yourself you’re actually shooting yourself in the foot. I don’t believe this is true. I sued my former employer and lived to tell the tale. I am still employed as a lawyer, and I intend to remain a lawyer for as long as I can while also remaining sane.

the longer we remain silent, the longer these issues are swept under the carpet. if no complaints are made then the size of problem remains unknown and nothing is done about it. and what’s more, if something is going to be done, it’s up to us to do it.

I cannot agree more with the Steward’s previous post. in my view the LIV don't even manage adequate ethical regulation of the legal profession. the LIV had nothing to offer when I reported my former employers to them. god forbid that a lawyer should send a bill out without providing a 10 page explanation of how the client can refuse to pay it – but it's fine for a partner to routinely bully or harass their employees.

I don’t have a solution, I don’t even really have a master plan. but what I do know is that the more awareness there is of the problem, the harder it will be for the perpetrators to get away with it.

one idea I have had is to collate the stories and experiences of young lawyers - both good and bad. I am hoping that common threads will appear and potential solutions can be found.

so I invite people to either write to me or post a comment on the site about their experiences working in the law - and maybe together we can work towards a better profession!

The JLU and the LIV

2006-07-23T14:40:00.000+10:00

The LIV does not represent lawyers -- it regulates them.

The Law Institute of Victoria and its counterpart bodies in other states are not concerned with lawyers' interests but, rather, have have fashioned themselves as regulators, existing to issue practising certificates, monitor compliance with token CPD (continuing professional development) requirements and generally ensure things run as they always have.

As such, the LIV is, in fact, a key plank of the legal establishment and is not interested in the genuine concerns of lawyers or the issues they face on a daily basis.

Where, for example, is the LIV on the systemic overwork of lawyers? What is the LIV doing about the glass ceiling that leaves lawyers with a choice between seeing their children and career progression? How is the LIV addressing a documented lack of job satisfaction, leading lawyers to abandon the profession in droves? Why isn't the LIV standing up for its members and working to guarantee improved conditions in the legal industry?

That some lawyers mistakenly perceive the LIV to be a representative body is evidence of a disturbing false consciousness. When combined with the absence - until now - of a genuine representative body, this becomes all the more insidious.

The JLU recognises that it is junior lawyers who possess the least bargaining power and who are most likely to find themselves exploited, even if they have been inured to believing that it's just the "nature of the industry". Where the LIV fails lawyers, the JLU will stand up for them.

Debunking the "take it or leave it" myth

2006-07-09T14:01:00.000+10:00

A lot of the posts thus far in the JLU's existence have railed angrily against the oppression of the junior lawyer in private practice, the injustices in the system and the culture of fear and pressure that pervades Collins St, George St /Martin Place, etc.

It would be fair, then, to ask the obvious question: If you resent working in a law firm so much, and feel it amounts to virtual slavery, why would you remain in private practice?

After all, one might add, there are a myriad of other options open to the junior lawyer: Go in-house. Go work in the public sector and enjoy flexi-time. Go live on a commune. Go do something - anything - that doesn't involve the rigours of private practice you seem to despise.

The response to this is two-fold.

Firstly, working at a law firm is not all doom and gloom. Much of it may well be - but it also obviously has many benefits. But two of these benefits are:

(i) the occasional mental challenge posed by legal work; and
(ii) being paid above the average wage of someone with the equivalent experience in another field.

Occasionally, and depending on one's employer, a feeling of doing good for someone or society generally may also arise. (This is rare.)

Despite these benefits, the JLU would serve no purpose if it acted primarily as a cheer squad for the legal industry. (What, with a range of awards and self-aggrandising hype, the industry performs this role well enough itself without the assistance of the JLU.)

Secondly, the "take it or leave it" argument doesn't wash. Employment laws generally would be redundant if this constituted a valid argument against unsatisfactory working conditions or environments. Consider some logical extrapolations - both in the legal industry and elsewhere:

"This is our unsafe workplace. If you don't like it, you can find a job elsewhere."
"We've decided to reduce annual leave to two weeks per year. Other employers have done the same. Take it or leave it."

If you argue that working obscenely long hours is just the industry norm and, if you don't like it, you should do something else, you're telling lawyers to shut up and accept what stonemasons, coal miners and manufacturing workers rejected over a hundred years ago.

The 8 hour day, which generations before us fought so hard to enshrine as a basic standard - and which has been respected for 150 years - goes out the window, as well as minimum wages, sick/annual/long service leave and other basic rights that have accrued over time.

Simple supply and demand is not the solution to labour issues generally, nor should it be in the legal industry. Rather, certain lines need to be drawn in the sand and, in the case of the plight of junior lawyers, the JLU exists to agitate on the issues that are relevant to its members.

Profits and work/life balance not incompatible

2006-07-04T20:13:00.000+10:00

BP is a company that makes a profit of over one million pounds per hour.

You'd imagine, then, that such a profitable company, mindful of its responsibility to its shareholders, would have achieved this sort of success by squeezing every ounce of "productivity" out of its employees.

It is not unusual, after all, for emails containing an exhortation to lawyers to "Bill, bill, bill!" to be circulated around certain large law firms by certain Managing Partners. Last Friday, for example, at one large national law firm, a JLU member reported receiving no fewer than thirteen emails reminding him to enter as much time as possible into Keystone in order to ensure as much money as possible was charged to clients prior to the end of the financial year. This, coincidentally, was the very same law firm that had, only two days earlier, failed to increase the salary bands of its junior lawyers.

It would seem a fairly obvious equation: the more time firms can make their lawyers work, the more time is billed to the client and the more money the firms - and, by extrapolation, the partners - make. It therefore comes as somewhat of a shock to discover that BP makes over a million pounds an hour by strictly enforcing a policy of work/life balance among its employees, insisting, in an internal BP policy document leaked to the JLU, that employees:

"make quality time for family and friends";
"leave work at a reasonable time regularly";
"keep Saturday and Sunday as work free days";
"work from home periodically";
"take some time off in lieu and spend it with your family" if "you work long hours on a project or task"; and even
"leave work at 4pm on children and partner's birthdays".

Attached to this statement of suggestions for ensuring work/life balance is a "Home / Work / Life Personal Assessment". This questionnaire rates employees' work/life balance and imposes penalty points for such behaviour as weekend work, being in the office after 6pm and eating lunch in the office.

If a company such as BP, which boasts the second-best bottom line in the world, can get serious on its employees' work/life balance, why can't the law firms which service it?

Lawyers as mushrooms: what junior lawyers are paid

2006-06-29T13:30:00.000+10:00

I once heard a partner complain that a particular senior associate running a large transaction was "treating us like mushrooms". Confused, the other junior lawyer present and I glanced at each other, before hesitantly asking the partner to clarify what he meant.
"She's keeping us in the dark and feeding us shit," he barked back.

On the question of pay, law firms have adopted a practice of treating its junior lawyers like mushrooms. A term of our employment contracts, of which we are repeatedly reminded, is that we keep our salaries confidential.

The law firms themselves, meanwhile, know not only what their employees are being paid - but also what other firms are paying. Firms have for years now jointly commissioned a leading research organisation to provide them with a formal report on the matter. As an eminent Trade Practices partner once half-joked, "Technically, we make enough noises and are sufficiently aware of what the others pay to be considered to be acting in concert."

So the law firms know what the others are paying and could be said to be engaging in anti-competitive behaviour in order to ensure salaries don't get out of hand. Yet these same law firms attempt to keep junior lawyers in the dark by insisting that they do not discuss their salaries with others.

The JLU objects to the cloak of secrecy that surrounds lawyers' pay. While the JLU is not interested in knowing what you, as an individual lawyer, are being paid, we would like to provide our members with this useful information: what are law firms paying its junior lawyers?

Please email juniorlawyersunion@gmail.com with any information you may have. It will, of course, be treated anonymously. Alternatively, feel free to leave an anonymous comment on this post with information. We aim to reveal what lawyers (below the level of senior associate) are being paid for FY2006-7. Where there are bands, we will focus on the average or middle band for each year level.

Once we have collected a reasonable amount of information, we intend to collate and publish it on this site.

BREAKING NEWS Top tier law firm freezes salaries

2006-06-28T20:19:00.000+10:00

In a JLU exclusive, the JLU has learned that one top-tier national law firm has frozen the salary bands for its junior lawyers.

The firm's junior lawyers who progress to a higher pay band on 1 July will not receive an increase on the amount their colleagues on that band received last year, as the pay level for each band has remained unchanged. In real terms, then, this reflects a decrease in salary paid to lawyers on each band.

Traditionally, the salaries at each pay band increase at or above CPI.

Two years ago, in a much-hyped exercise, the same law firm held firm-wide departmental meetings with staff to announce that pay band salaries would not increase. This move created a mood of disappointment and demoralised staff. Consequently, the firm appears to have eschewed a policy of transparency on this occasion, calculating that it is preferable to downplay the bad news or even hope it goes unnoticed.

More information as it comes to hand.

Performance reviews and what you're worth

2006-06-14T18:23:00.000+10:00

"There's a -- uhh -- perception that you tend to be gone by six o'clock," a partner recently told a JLU member in his performance review, again highlighting the dissonance between law firm culture and community norms.

"Well, uh, yeah," the surprised junior lawyer responded, buying time while mentally formulating a defence to what appeared to be some sort of criticism. "I don't see any need to stay for appearances. I get the work done and then I go home."

"I suppose that makes sense," pondered the partner, head tilted to one side. "After all, you might as well just leave a blow-up doll at your desk otherwise." The partner paused for a moment to scribble a note on a form, suggesting the lawyer's prospects within the firm were seriously limited.

It is performance review season in many law firms around the country and that means the faux "firm smiles" stiffen to breaking point and the corporate euphemisms are bandied about with vigour.

Partners find new ways of telling lawyers to work harder and longer and lawyers find new ways of disguising their contempt for partners. Lawyers usually fail dismally. Partners know lawyers despise them and lawyers know partners know. But the door is closed and everyone smiles and makes polite conversation.

Then, at the first lull in conversation, the partner reaches for a checklist, makes like he or she is performing the review under sufferance from "the partnership" and says, "I've been told I have to run through this form -- you know, formalities..."

In some ways this is true. The partner doesn't like having to remind the lawyer to work harder - that's the job of the culture of the firm.

At the conclusion of the performance review, or shortly thereafter, an envelope is handed to the lawyer. The envelope contains a letter and the letter contains a number. All the words and punctuation surrounding the number are entirely irrelevant, save for the dollar sign before the number, which indicates that the number represents the amount the lawyer is to be paid over the coming year. That, comrade, is your value.

Or, put another way, the number represents what is left over once the partners have met, calculated the firm's receipts from the past 12 months, projected the firm's receipts for the next 12, subtracted expenses (office leases, support staff wages, equipment supplies, etc), deducted hefty partnership distributions and determined the scraps to be divided among the lawyers. That number, comrade, is your share of the scraps. It is handed down to you from the table in monthly instalments. Or it would be - if law firms didn't follow the sneaky practice of including superannuation in your "remuneration". So about 91% of it is handed to you. (Minus tax. But you can't blame law firms for that.)

You are then discouraged (and usually contractually barred) from discussing your salary with your colleagues - let alone others in the legal fraternity - lest you discover you might be worth more and decide to take your profit-making skills elsewhere.

Just in case you were wondering, though, Michael Page Recruitment Consultants publishes an annual guide as to what lawyers are getting paid. Its brackets are so broad that they are almost meaningless - but, hey, it's something. Not exactly empowering but perhaps a gap in the shroud of secrecy woven by firms.

You can find it here: http://www.michaelpage.com.au/pdfstore?src=2006_Legal_SalarySurvey.pdf

If you have any performance review stories, let us know at juniorlawyersunion@gmail.com. Also, a quick reminder that, if you wish to join (for free) and receive JLU updates direct to your inbox, send us an email (at the same address) and we'll add you to the list.

Best of luck with your reviews - and, more importantly, the envelopes.

Dilbert joins the JLU

2006-06-01T21:00:00.000+10:00

Comrades,

A JLU member sent in the cartoon, below. In a few short panels, it encapsulates why our industry, more than any other, so desperately needs our union. Enjoy.

(Click on the cartoon for clearer text.)

We reproduce this cartoon under one of the fair dealing copyright exemptions. (Don't ask which one.) Failing that, we note that we have reproduced it not for a commercial or profit-making purpose but for spreading the truth. Damages, for that reason, wouldn't be worth seeking. Right?

Junior lawyers paying for partners' disorganisation

2006-05-31T13:58:00.000+10:00

Comrades!

Have you ever had a partner stride into your office, as twilight fades outside, and found yourself taking instructions for work that is to be completed by the "close of business tomorrow"? The partner then retreats into his or her office and forwards you the initial email from the client - for the sake of background or further clarification - with a curtly added "FYI".

After cancelling your plans with your increasingly frustrated girlfriend/boyfriend and making yourself comfortable for a long night at the coal face, you read over the client email a second time. Your eyes, skimming across the lines of text, hover momentarily on a small piece of information: the date on which the email was originally sent by the client. It was sent last week.

Comrades!

I put it to you that such behaviour by partners is commonplace. While we, the workers, are expected to perform our tasks to the standard demanded of us and the deadlines imposed upon us, partners sit on instructions for days and even weeks at a time, before briefing us and declaring the matter "urgent". And then, comrades, we are expected, nay, required to put our lives, our relationships and our priorities aside to perform this "urgent work" for just such disorganised partners.

It is time for partners to be made to see that junior lawyers have lives and families outside work. One of the criteria for determining whether additional hours are "reasonable" under the revised Workplace Relations Act is the amount of notice given to an employee of the need to work the additional hours. No longer should junior lawyers be expected to work long into the night at the whim of partners who fail to properly manage their time.

It is time to take a stand!

Interim response received from OWS

2006-05-29T17:40:00.000+10:00

The JLU today received a response to its letter to the Office of Workplace Services (OWS).

In a telephone call, a representative from the OWS advised the JLU that the matter had been forwarded to the OWS' legal department in Canberra and that a formal response should be expected in approximately a week.

Unofficially, the OWS representative admitted that the OWS was unlikely to provide any guidance as to the meaning of "reasonable additional hours", as the 38 hour week provision remains untested in the courts. The JLU countered that, if the OWS intends to enforce the provision, it must have some idea as to how many additional hours it considers "unreasonable". However, the OWS staff member responded that any such view would be formed on a case by case basis, following specific complaints raised with the OWS. All such complaints, she added, would be taken seriously and raised with the relevant parties.

This presents a catch-22 situation. Junior lawyers find themselves required to work unreasonably long hours - with each month's payslip containing the fiction that they have worked 37 hour weeks. The law firm culture of silence and acquiescence prevents junior lawyers resisting or objecting to their work/life imbalance. However, in order to break this culture of overwork, junior lawyers would need to lodge formal objections with the OWS. Is anyone willing to lodge such an objection? Not so long as the unspoken pressure to just "bend over and take it" persists.

The JLU looks forward to receiving the OWS' formal response but does not expect it to contain any salvation for junior lawyers who have never seen the inside of their residences in daylight.

Letter to Office of Workplace Services

2006-05-25T17:18:00.000+10:00

Office of Workplace Services
GPO Box 9887
Melbourne VIC 3000

May 2006

Dear Sir/Madam,

Hours of work – "reasonable additional hours"

I understand from your website that one of your core activities is to provide "advice and assistance to employers, workers and organisations about compliance and enforcement under the Workplace Relations Act 1996".

Consequently, I am after some guidance as to what you would consider "reasonable additional hours" for the purposes of the 38 hour week provision (section 226) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth), given the following hypothetical circumstances:

Employee is a junior lawyer in Victoria at a large and highly profitable commercial law firm.
Employee is earning just under $XX,XXX [actual amount included in letter - SS] per year.
Employee is generally and implicitly expected to work in excess of 38 hours every week, with no specific notice given by the employer of the occasions on which the employee is required to work additional hours.
Employee has no spouse or dependants.

I understand that a more comprehensive examination of the circumstances may be required before you could provide me with a precise figure. However, if the Act is to have any coherence whatsoever, and if you will be enforcing breaches of this provision, I expect you must have some idea of the hours – ie. a range (such as 5-10 additional hours) – that you would consider "reasonable" in the circumstances.

I look forward to receiving your response and the resultant clarity.

Thanking you in advance,

Shop Steward,
JLU

The 38 hour week: making WorkChoices work for you!

2006-05-25T17:15:00.000+10:00

As would any good union, the JLU completely and utterly objects to the Howard government's WorkChoices legislation and wishes the states (and the intervening unions) well with their constitutional challenge.

Regrettably, the case is being heard by what is currently an ultra-conservative High Court and most analyses we have heard are pessimistic about the chances of the states succeeding in convincing more than two (Kirby and Callinan JJ) of the seven justices that the Commonwealth has exceeded its constitutional powers.

Nevertheless, every cloud has a silver lining. And so it may be with WorkChoices.

Subsection 226(1) of the severely amended Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth) (the Act) now states:

An employee must not be required or requested by an employer to work more than:
(a) either:
(i) 38 hours per week; or
(ii) an average of 38 hours per week [over a period agreed in writing between employer and employee]; and
(b) reasonable additional hours.

In other words, comrades, under the new legislative regime, employers are forbidden from so much as asking employees to work more than 38 hours a week plus any additional time that may be considered "reasonable". But, in the context of the law firm environment and "culture", what number of additional hours can be considered reasonable?

This is a question the JLU, on behalf of its stakeholders, put to the newly-formed Office of Workplace Services, the body charged with the administration and enforcement of the minimum standards contained in the Act. The wording of this letter will shortly be posted on this site.

"But wait a minute," we hear you say. "I'm a lawyer. I work for a law firm. And law firms, as we all know, are partnerships, not corporations. And, as it is the corporations power of our Constitution that has been so misshapenly stretched to provide a constitutional basis for the WorkChoices legislation, WorkChoices does not apply to me."

You make a valid point. WorkChoices only applies to corporations and law firms are not corporations. But you miss a key point. Victoria, in the Kennett years, referred its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth and, as a result, WorkChoices also applies to Victorian employees of entities other than corporations.

Therefore, dear Victorian comrades, the 38 hour week still applies to you - and, you can bet, if Victorian lawyers are benefitting from a cap on working hours, lawyers in other states would kick up a hell of a stink if their working hours far exceed those of their Victorian brothers and sisters.

In the 38 hour week guarantee, even the Howard government has recognised the need to enshrine the principle of work/life balance in legislation. While law firms often pay lip service to "work/life balance" in their glossy recruitment brochures, the reality is that a 38 hour week is a pipe dream for junior lawyers who are forbidden by the likes of Tom Poulton from playing cricket on the weekend when there is work to be done.

With the commencement of WorkChoices, the JLU asks: how long can law firms continue to operate outside the law?

Why do we need a union?

2006-05-24T17:15:00.000+10:00

The pressure placed on junior lawyers is usually unspoken and only ever implied.

For the most part, it consists of:

unrealistic deadlines;
"requests" at 5.30 on a Friday afternoon to have something completed by "first thing Monday" (when, then, is the task supposed to be done but over the weekend?);
references to having to work additional hours as the business requires it - when the truth is that the business almost always "requires" it and, even when it doesn't (and where a junior lawyer has spent the day reading the newspaper online or playing solitaire), the fear of raised eyebrows mean few junior lawyers dare leave their desks anytime before 6pm;
demands that lawyers bill 6 or 7 hours a day - while also finding time to do pro bono work, write articles, present papers and contribute to the precedent collection of the firm; and so on.

That the pressure is unspoken is a golden rule at large law firms in particular. It is for this reason that what Tom Poulton, Managing Partner of Allens Arthur Robinson, came out and said last year on the record to BRW was so unexpected. So imbued with the oppressive law firm "culture" and so out of touch with community values and expectations in post-industrial revolution Western society (let alone the twenty-first century), Mr Poulton openly gloated about the exploitation of his employees in the following terms:

"We don't run this place as a holiday camp.... We expect our people to treat the client as if they were God and to put themselves out for clients. You don't say 'Sorry I can't do it, I'm playing cricket on the weekend.'... You don't have a right to any free time."
(http://brw.com.au/freearticle.aspx?relId=12286)

Well, Mr Poulton, we at the JLU say that lawyers - even your lawyers - do have a right to free time. In fact, we have a very specific view of our members' obligations:

During standard working hours, the default position is that work matters are to take priority. Personal matters or appointments should intrude as little as possible into working hours. Outside standard working hours, however, work matters should likewise - and in practice, not merely in a rhetorical sense - intrude as little as possible into lawyers' personal time.

In short, Mr Poulton, you do not have a right to insist junior legal staff put aside their existing personal lives and commitments in order to put more money in your pocket.

Never forget, comrades, that partners at top-tier law firms each and every working day earn what you receive once a month in your desperately-anticipated pay packets. Imagine every day being pay day. Well, comrades, for the partners who so often treat you with contempt and expect you to work as hard as them (for a fraction of the reward), it is!

That said, Mr Poulton should be congratulated for openly saying what his partners only say by implication (even if the resultant uproar left poor Tom confused and saying, "What? [pause] What?? [pause] What did I say??").

In the meantime, we understand the fear that inhabits the hearts of junior lawyers - at the thought of walking out of the office, head held high, jacket on and bag in hand at 5.15pm, or telling a partner that you cannot meet an unrealistic deadline, or that you cannot and will not spend your weekend performing a dull due diligence.

We understand that junior lawyers leave jackets on chairs, bags by desks and computers on overnight just to maintain an appearance of still being in the office even when they have gathered up the courage to walk out of the office. We find this stupid and unnecessary. It takes two to tango and we advise our members not to dance this dance.

Our aim at the JLU is to harness the collective power of junior lawyers - a power many don't even realise they possess (can you imagine the panic among partners of top-tier firms if junior lawyers all failed to show up to work even for one day?) - to create an environment where junior lawyers work reasonable hours and partners ask, rather than expect, lawyers to work beyond these hours.

If the above sounds familiar and you wish to be a member of the JLU, it is free. Just send an email to juniorlawyersunion@gmail.com and request to be added to the distribution list. At this stage that just means you will receive JLU updates as and when they start flowing more regularly.

We don't have a privacy policy - so don't ask. But, rest assured, we understand the culture of fear that pervades law firms so membership is effectively anonymous. We will never advise anyone of your identity, release your details or use your email address for any purpose other than JLU communication.

Finally, the only way for people to know about our movement is word of mouth. Please help us out by forwarding the link to our website/blog to your friends and colleagues. (One day we hope to graduate to a real website.)

Thanks.

JLU founded!

2006-05-18T14:20:00.000+10:00

Whereas the individuals who occupy positions as junior lawyers, law graduates, articled clerks, vacation clerks or paralegals (collectively, junior lawyers) find themselves oppressed by a culture of unspoken pressure and fear, determine it necessary to unite to have their interests represented by a union hereby established:

Be it therefore proclaimed that they have formed a union that shall be known as the Junior Lawyers' Union.*

Hear hear, comrades!

*Borrowing slightly from the Australian Constitution.

The JLU has no official standing or legal personality, particularly in light of the current industrial climate, where we might find our heads pressed against the road by a large boot.