Do You Act Like A "Jerk" Without Knowing It?

The Complete Lawyer
Volume 4, Number 1
January 2008

I first met Lola at a women lawyers' leadership event. An African American Ivy League graduate, she had recently been recruited from the federal government to a large firm and accepted the offer in order to hone her expertise in international corporate transactions. As a newcomer to the firm, she arranged to meet with every partner in her area in order to learn about their practices and seek out good work assignments. Each time she asked a partner for work, however, she was referred back to the assigning partner, from whom she received assignments that primarily involved document management and administrative tasks. To several partners she explained that, as a senior associate, she needed more substantive projects in order to further develop her skills and advance in the firm. But each time she was told that the assignment system had been developed in order to ensure equitable work distribution and that she needed to work within that system.