I was chuckling with a client the other day about the insanity of trying to please a partner with a piece of written work.
The trick, she said – I’ve heard this before – is to adopt the voice of the partner. That’s what he wants – something that sounds like him. It doesn’t matter if your style is better than his. He wants to hear himself.
My client can imitate the writing styles of five partners. That includes whatever quirks – run-on sentences, rudeness, biting sarcasm, unnecessary adjectives, circuitous explanations – capture that partner’s unique gift. It’s a piece of cake: assemble substance, add ventriloquy, and voila! – a happy partner.
She learned this trick after receiving mark-ups. Her heart would sink as she combed the scribble for a critical error. But there was never anything there – only her failure to clone.
This is an example of a more generalized phenomenon – partners, as a group, tend to be arrogant and narcissistic. They harbor absurd notions about their own abilities and tend not to notice anyone else’s right to exist.
Nothing new. But it’s interesting to ask why.
Law firms are abattoirs of self-esteem. If you think you might be a good, useful, capable person, give yourself a few weeks in the world of biglaw and you’ll come to realize you have no ability whatsoever, are in way over your head and were a fool to consider you might succeed at anything.
That’s the special magic of a law firm.
You are also entirely alone. Everyone else is flourishing. They’re doing fine. It’s only you. You are the problem.
How do they achieve this feat of psychic disassembly?
For starters, nary a kind word.
If you put dozens of pleasers in the same room, everyone tries to please everyone else. No one acknowledges he’s pleased. That’s not what pleasers do.
Everyone can’t try to impress. Someone has to be impressed. That person would do the hard work of thanking and praising the others – “You’re doing a great job. I appreciate your effort.”
You’ll never hear that sort of piffle at a law firm. In a world where everyone is starved for praise, no one has time to waste feeding anyone else’s confidence.
Two defenses, arrogance and narcissism, permit lawyers to survive in this hostile environment.
The simplest defense against self-doubt is arrogance. Inside you’re scared, so you pump yourself up for others to see.
The simplest defense against isolation is narcissism. You’re afraid no one wants to be with you, so you tune them out.
Arrogance always appears a bit comical because it’s so obvious. If you’re terrified you might not have what it takes, you put on a false bravado, but it doesn’t fool anyone. And once you’ve taken the leap into arrogance, you’re stuck – you have to maintain it, or risk humiliation.
Narcissism is more insidious, and less amusing. If you’re not receiving anything you need from anyone else, you shut them out – put up a mirror – and stare at a world that looks like you.
Maybe you must be an arrogant narcissist to make partner. That would certainly explain some things.
The downside is that you become an arrogant narcissist. The money’s good – but no one can stand you. You wind up correcting memos to sound like you wrote them. You don’t realize you’re doing it.
J.K. Rowling, in her Harry Potter series, presents a flawless portrait of a biglaw partner.
Lord Voldemort is an arrogant narcissist to the core. When The Dark Lord (as he’s known) arranges for a Death Eater associate to pen a memorandum, there’s no doubt he wants it to sound like something he wrote. And you can rest assured he’s not going to be Mr.-Supportive-of-Your-Feelings if it doesn’t.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named fears death because it challenges the reality of his omnipotence – the total control he wields over others’ lives. To guard against that eventuality, Voldemort employs black magic, shattering his soul into splinters which he secretes away in the form of small, magical items known as horcruxes. If you find one of these evil items, you must destroy it. Otherwise Voldemort and his insidious power will never die.
To wear the horcrux is to bear the weight of the Dark Lord’s wicked soul. He is with you through the horcrux, and his power threatens to overwhelm your spirit.
A partner at a law firm doesn’t call the evil splinter of his shattered soul a horcrux.
He calls it a Blackberry – the container of his arrogant narcissism.
To carry this cursed object is to bear a weight of pure malignancy.
A partner cannot die until each Blackberry is destroyed. Only then can you free yourself of his evil.
When an innocent junior first approaches the dark force of a partner, the arrogant narcissism might overwhelm, or even kill. You’ve seen juniors who mysteriously disappear in the first month. But on occasion, the spell is deflected, and the associate himself becomes a horcrux, a container for a fragment of the partner’s twisted passions. A link joins them, and he haunts the associate’s dreams like a terrible memory returned to life.
In trying to obliterate your mortal soul, the partner kills a part of himself. The evil within you must be destroyed before it metastasizes into the cancer of arrogant narcissism.
Don’t let him doom you to his own wretched fate.
You could make partner.
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This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.
If you enjoy these columns, please check out The People’s Therapist’s new book, Way Worse Than Being A Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning
I also heartily recommend my first book, an introduction to the concepts behind psychotherapy, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy
(Both books are also available on bn.com and the Apple iBookstore.)
The People's Therapist 
No, no, no – I am not writing memos for Partner X celebrating his love of the word “orientated” (as in “John Doe is success orientated.”). NO.
Unless I also get to, in the same memo, insert the word “edumacated” ( as in “John Doe is highly edumacated and has been success orientated throughout his career.”).
I have caved, though, and will add stupid BS parables to another partner’s docs (all along the lines of “as the ancients knew, a man will not be cheated by those he distrusts – a man will be cheated by those close to him. blah blah blah blah blah”).
You are awesome. That is all.
And you are my new favorite TPT reader. (Of course, if you want to see awesome, you should read my new book…)
Thank you. I needed to read this.
As a Harry Potter fan, I believe this post ROCKS! Really great writing, my friend!
Sadly, your post is a bit too spot on and is the reality for some folks 😦
Stop! In addition to insecurity, constant need for praise to continue functioning, epic self loathing, and an inability to put my BlackBerry down, now I have to find a tinfoil hat to stop you from reading my mind.
get thee behind me big law.
– BTDT
(PS Seriously though, wonderful blog. Any time I need to convince people ____ at my former firm really DID happen, I just send them here.)
You can’t make this sh*t up…Remember, I survived Sullivan & Cromwell myself…and I listen to about 40 lawyers a week telling me their experiences. And that’s all kinds of lawyers, from all over the country and the world, including law students, juniors, mid-levels, seniors, of-counsels and yes, plenty of partners, too – some of them from big international firms.
[…] Your Dark Lord I was chuckling with a client the other day about the insanity of trying to please a partner with a piece of written […] […]
The truly sad part is that I can see a little bit of my soul being chipped away every day. Every deposition, angry phone call, and confrontation with a partner/judge/opposing counsel just chips another piece away. I have become totally devoid of emotion other than frustration and anger. I have no emotional investment in any of my cases other than the fear of screwing it up.
Any tips on how to regain your soul?
Gad …. Maybe I lucked out by avoiding partnership until I really was grown up!
Okay, this was seriously fucking funny and I just emailed it to two friends.
I don’t know where you people work, but I work in BigLaw (500+ attorneys firm) and I LIKE the partners I work for. One of them is kinda stressed a lot, and one of them is hard to reach sometimes, but overall, between the dozen or so partners I work with on a regular basis, they are ALL nice people, who really try not to screw over their associates, who only make you work nights and weekends when there’s absolutely no other choice (and they’re working then, too), who say nice things and smile and stop by my office for little chats, who are normal human beings with somewhat higher-than-average stress level. Don’t believe it? Well, then, I feel sorry for you because you are so bitter you can’t bear to believe that someone isn’t suffering like you. Maybe you should change firms, it sounds terrible.
Well, I am DAMNED bitter, I’ll grant you that…
Have you been at this firm for longer than a week?
Thanks for making me laugh out loud. Days ago, I e-mailed another associate complaining about “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” because of insane writing demands that can never be satisfied. And then you blog about these very issues.
I’m destroying my horcrux at even as I type.
HA! This blog saves me.
Reply 1 of 2: Definition of narcissistic personality disorder? or criteria for partnership? “It’s a dessert topping AND a floor wax:”
“A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes”
Beware! The DSM-IV-TR is being revised…good old Narcissistic Personality Disorder might not exist by next year.
Reply 2 of 2:
You had me at “Law firms are abattoirs of self-esteem.”
“In a world where everyone is starved for praise, no one has time to waste feeding anyone else’s confidence.”
This reminded me of a meeting of about 10 fellow law students I attended when I was in my third year of law school. It was a very unpleasant meeting. Everyone was talking over everyone else, no one was listening, just an overall nasty atmosphere prevailed. Suddenly, it dawned on me: this was a room full of … baby lawyers! Oh, no! I’m going to be in this room for the rest of my life!!!
A little over 16 years ago, I left big law firm life and joined a small firm where I pretty much answer only to myself. If I’m going to have to work for a person with a raging case of narcissistic personality disorder, then it might as well be me.
This post made me laugh out loud! First on the writing style. Every partner I ever worked with had a different writing style and insisted that any client correspondence be drafted in that style. In some ways I found it quite easy, it doesn’t require any thought as to what actually should be written other than remembering who does what. The only problem for me now that I do not work in a law firm anymore, is that I tend to write in a overly legal fashion (starting any correspondence to a media firm by “Dear Sirs” has made a few people laugh).
As for the horcrux, I have never been unlucky enough to have a firm supplied Blackberry but my most recent partner made full use of my personal cell phone to, for example, call me on a Friday evening to let me know that I had to attend a client’s board meeting on the Sunday at 3pm. The fact that I was out of town was irrelevant and I was instructed to take the first train back to attend the meeting.
@Jadzia, consider yourself lucky that you work in such great environment. I have had some great experiences in law firms, but in others yes you do get bitter when it’s the 3rd time in a row your weekend or evening is wrecked by a “last minute project that cannot wait until the next day” and you’re not even paid adequately for it.
I can’t give you all the credit, but I do thank you for helping me see the insanity that was my life as a big firm attorney. Having abandoned ship 4 months ago I’m significantly happier, although significantly poorer.
The constant criticism and lack of praise left my self esteem in ruins and made me afraid of life without the bigfirm paycheck.
Turns out life is about more than money and billing hours, and I owe some of that to you. Thank you, and keep up the good work. There are still lots of souls to save.
You are one funny bastard, Will. I can’t tell you how many times I had to use “Gordian knot” and “cross the Rubicon” when writing letters for a particular partner. And everything HAD to be written in Courier font. Bold. 10 point. Sick.
This is all really funny and cool and extremely well done (and the psycho analysis part is of course totally spot on) but just so no one gets too freaked out, yes, there are biglaw partners who are voldemorts and many many more biglaw partners who are evil functionaries but nowhere near as interesting or grandiose that I’ll call death eaters. But there are also always a few dumbledores out there and the order of phoenix lives on. Sometimes redlines are tools of black magic meant to steal your soul and leave you with little redline lightening bolts on your forehead. Sometimes a partner just has their own voice and style and wants to make sure that a letter going out with their name at the bottom reflects their voice. Its up to you to know the difference and to avoid the death eaters when you can.
Nicely said…:)
There are people like this in every profession, but there are also plenty of people who are not like this, even law firm partners. Your clients are self-selected for hating their jobs in law firms, as they seek you out because they know that you will affirm their tales of law firm horror.
I just ran around to all the partners’ offices smashing their blackberries in the hope that I can finally destroy the evil in this place . . .
I’ll let you know how that turns out. 😉
PS – Really, really well said, Will. Is your book available on Kindle?
Yes, it’s available for Kindle and Nook and iPad, and I hope you’ll give it a read and let me know what you think!
[…] be it from us to explain the underlying reasons for this, a psychotherapist can do a lot better: The People’s Therapist: I was chuckling with a client the other day about the insanity of trying to please a partner with […]
Actually, I went to see the Phantom of the Opera the other day. The Phantom reminded me EXACTLY of my partner. I don’t mean that in a giggly, “he must be evil” kind of way. I mean when he started giving everyone notes on how they sucked, it really sounded like my boss.
I love you to the core of what remains of my crushed, battered soul.
I love you too.