Secret Life of Lawyer Rule #4: Thou Shall Stay Quiet.

As always, all of the events below happened. 

“You are fired. Sign this piece of paper and we will give you two week’s pay. In exchange you won’t sue us and most importantly, you will keep everything confidential”.

She added: “I know you may go to law school but please do not bother applying to us for an articling or associate position. You won’t get it so save the effort”.

In my 24 years of living on this earth I had never met someone as cold and detached as her. She was the general manager of one of the biggest law firms in Canada. Anne was her name. At the time, I was only a legal administrative clerk and I had taken a job at the firm before starting law school to see how the life of lawyers were.

That day a $30 million dollar deal was to close at noon. I had mistakenly told the courier to deliver it by 1 p.m. The envelope had been picked up by the courier company and was sitting at their office. I ran like the champion runner to fix the mistake. I ran so fast to the point that I lost sense of my legs. They had gone into the cruiser mode and I lost control and fell on the pavement. I got up and ran faster to the courier office. With the last bit of breath I had, I told them to give me the envelope. I grabbed the envelope from the lady’s hand and ran out to the next law firm. Up the elevator, I ran to the reception and pounded the envelope down with my sweaty hands.

It was 11: 57 a.m. Deal closed in time. I still lost my job.

Corporate Firm Confidentiality

I’d find traces of cocaine and empty bottles of alcohol after some big corporate clients would leave the ‘meeting’ with the firm’s top lawyers. I had the task of cleaning these rooms after they left and to make sure they look clean for the next clients. The meeting rooms always looked so perfect, luxurious and calm. Little did the clients know that downstairs, more than a hundred lawyers were melting down, yelling at their assistants, cheating on their wives and hiding alcohol in their desk drawers. Everything was hush. Every lawyer was expected to stay pretentious and perfect. Almost every relationship at that firm was superficial. Everyone was to be someone else.

Schmoozing, begging and networking were rewarded. Being a slave to the corporate client to keep them meant you had a chance at partnership. You were to keep your shiny business cards in your pocket and were only allowed to leave your office at 6 when there was a networking event. At that event, you were to compete against another 100 associates from other firms all with shiny cards in their pocket trying to get referrals or the next big corporate client. You were not allowed to be yourself. You had to say what they wanted to hear and do what pleased them.

You would walk in to the room eyeing your competition, calming the nerves with the glass of wine that I, your server, would bring to you while you shook the hand of a person who would potentially make money for the firm. For the next 10 years, 80% of that money would go to the firm and 20% would go to you even though you did all the work. After 5 to 10 years of slavery, the firm would only make you a partner if it felt that losing you would mean losing money. Even then, you had to hand over to the firm hundreds of thousands of dollars to ‘buy in’ in to the partnership. And then maybe, just maybe, you’d see the light of the day as your income increased. All along that process, you’d lose your freedom, the love that your family gave you, the summer nights you missed out on, the travel around the world that never happened, and the peace that you could have had if you chose not to take part of this. 

Corporate Firm Treatment

Within the three months I worked at the firm over the summer, ‘executive decisions’ were handed down to install beer taps in the lunch rooms. Only lawyers were allowed to use them though. Unlimited beer any hour of the day starting at 6 a.m for lawyers. One day when the firm fired a lawyer, it ordered over 500 bottles of expensive wine to be moved to her room. I distributed access keys to all the lawyers and partners to have unlimited access to that room. Again, at any hour of the day and for any amount. Then I’d walk into work at 8 in the morning seeing lawyers pour the beer for themselves at that hour and continue drinking throughout the day. Everyone kept it hush though.

“Thank God It’s Friday” only applied to lawyers. That consisted of $500 worth of catered food and unlimited alcohol on Friday at 5 p.m. It lasted for an hour and then everyone was to get back to work.

When the firm ordered food for clients or lawyers, the staff were not allowed to eat. Staff were never ordered food. Staff were only allowed to eat the leftovers of lawyers and clients. Because that was their worth. That was the hierarchy we all had to comply with. I was just another robot, another number and never a human. Out of more than a hundred lawyers who worked there, I was noticed by one, Dave which I will get to in my next blogs. Everyone else ignored me regardless of the fact that I saw them everyday, said hi to them every day, and made sure they all knew I wanted to become a lawyer.

“Hi, my name is Leena and I want to go to law school. How are you finding your experience here?”, I asked a gorgeous, tall, dark and handsome articling student who had slept in his office the night before and was wearing the same clothes.

“Well, I have billed 300 hours in the last 20 days. Straight. I wasn’t able to tie my shoes laces this morning when they came undone”. He still smiled at me and encouraged me to go to law school.

300 billable hours meant that he billed 15 hours of work per day for 20 days straight. That means he made roughly $70,000 for the firm in 20 days. This meant 15 hours of pure work, no breaks, no time accounted for talking to his family, his friends, eating, using the washroom, talking to his colleagues, etc.  And when it came to be hired as an associate, he never got the job. The job went to the other ambitious law student who averaged slightly more than him in billable hours.

Thanks for the words of encouragement Anne. But I have decided that I will never work for a big firm.

Corporate Firm Interviews

In the second year of law school and around October, the big firms visited our law school to conduct interviews and choose the best of bunch for a second interview/dinner. I happily wore my runners and my sweater and walked the halls to my next class, knowing I never wanted to take part. Aside from me and a handful of students, over 95% of my classmates were dressed in black suites and heels, going from room to room to meet with big firm partners. I could feel the nervousness and the tension. After all, once this was over, some of them would get the job and the others had the unfortunate task of telling everyone that they did not get the job. Given that we were all A type perfectionists, the embarrassment of not getting the job was worse than the job itself. 

Each interview lasted about 15 minutes. Looked like legal speed dating. During the break I came out of the law building to grab a coffee. Behind the bushes I saw two of my classmates who at that time were dating. Both top of their class. Both straight A students. The girl had crouched down on her knees, her hands on the pavement trying to balance herself on her heels. I could see her tears hitting the pavement. Her boyfriend was sitting beside her rubbing her back. When I came back from grabbing the coffee, I saw her in the hallways on her way to her next interview. Huge, fake smile on her face. Confidence oozing from the way she walked in to the interview. If I hadn’t seen that vulnerable, fragile human behind the bushes a few minutes ago, I would continue thinking this girl is indestructible. I wondered if the partner would notice her shaking cold hands which told a truth no amount of cover up could hide.

Those interviews were the start of our transformation to the ideal, pretentious image of the lawyers you see on Suites. Those interviews were the beginning of our fading dreams that once kept us excited about helping humanity, becoming United Nations Lawyers, Animal Rights Lawyers, Poverty Lawyers, etc… we started telling ourselves that we need to put those dreams on the back burner because first we needed to pay off our student loans and have our resumes say we worked for big firms. That was the only way we could find our way in to the U.N. one day… that’s what we told ourselves anyway….

This was just temporary. We never going to lose ourselves.

My Firm. My Culture

July 21, 2017. I sit at my desk in Yaletown looking at the 7 staff and lawyers we have added in a past few months. We moved into this cozy lovely space 1.5 months ago. My goal is to make the office look like home. Feel like home. So that when the vulnerable client walks in, she feels welcome rather than intimidated by the gray floors and the florescent lights of the big firm. Renovations are starting next week.

I am staying away from the business district on Granville. I will not show off the expensive art I could buy with my client’s money. But I will show him the quality and worth of my work. I have and will give a large part of our profits to multiple charities. I will make sure the client knows we are all family — not a factory where lawyers are robots, trained to take as much money from whoever they can, so that they can survive themselves.

My lawyers come to work from 9 to 5 and do not work weekends. I see strength in not asking them to work more. I welcome lawyers with little kids and from all different walks of life. I want them to feel human. I do not care about how much more money I would make if they worked or billed more.

I smile as I see my staff smile, laugh and entertain one another. Here, everyone is equal. Today is Friday and I am taking everyone out for drinks, not just the lawyers. Last month, I took everyone to Vegas, not just the lawyers. In March of this year, I took everyone to Whistler for St. Patrick’s day because we added our Irish, gay and diva of a receptionist, Lee Grogan and wanted to make him feel welcome. When we go for lunch, everyone goes.

And I will always happily pay for everyone. If one day we get too big and I am not able to afford the trips or lunches, I will make sure I pay for the staff and the lawyers pay for themselves. Because that is how it is supposed to be. I will give without any expectations and I will appreciate them beyond their wildest dreams. You know why? Because they are not here to take.

Because after the Vegas trip, we were getting back into town late at night. The last train was at 1 a.m. The staff could not take the train because we landed at 12:40 a.m.. I told everyone that I will pay for their taxi ride. When we landed, I saw my staff run as fast as they could to take the train. Because they did not want me to spend money on their taxi ride. Even if that meant they had to take the train at 1 a.m. and walk home rather than being in a warm taxi taking them to their door step at my expense.

My superstar assistant Victoria will happily work her weekends here at the office if she feels like I need her help. She will never ask for any favours or extra pay because she knows I know her worth. She stuck by me 4 years ago when I broke out on my own, had little money and a small office. She worked out of a tiny little ‘room’ with no windows and numerous boxes with a smile on her face. Without her, I would not be able to make it. Victoria now still sits across me and greets me with a smile everyday. It doesn’t matter that we have now quadrupled in size. Our loyalty and friendship will always remain the same.

We may not have a room full of 500 bottles of wine. But we have happiness and respect. We are a family. A community. A team.

I continue to work and do this because this MY time. My generation. And this should be the future of how a firm should be run.

From the moment I decided to go to law school until the moment I became a lawyer and then the moment I started my law firm, I endured people pointing and laughing at my dreams. That’s why I do not care if you point and laugh at me right now and call me a dreamer. I no longer care about what people think of what I do, say or write. I will only consult my dad, my mother and my sister in addition to a couple wise people before making decisions. All other opinions will be nothing more than noise. And I will happily tune out that noise.

My team and I are on our way to change the way the legal profession functions. In small steps. Because the current model is not working. And I will fight for that change without fear. And I know what I am doing is right because my associate just walked by my office and told me how happy she felt returning from lunch knowing she is walking into YLaw – where she now works after leaving the big firm.

I will continue expose what we go through and are not allowed to talk about. And I will explain how I was able to heal myself in the next blogs.

To read how this all started go to Part 1: click here.

To read part 2 on addiction,  click here.

For Part  3 on the climax, click here.

For Part 5 on how it all ended, click here. 

For Part 6 on bullying at the work place, click here. 

For Part 7 and my transformation, click here.

By Leena Yousefi – [email protected]