My Law Clerk Quit Today!

If you've read my previous posts you know that in the past 6 weeks or so I've hired both a law clerk and a legal assistant. Since that time I've been really pleased with the way the things were going, particularly with the legal assistant. She's got a good attention to detail, she shows up to work every day on time, she's got a good personality, basically though it's early she's looking like a great hire.

The law clerk, on the other hand, I wasn't so pleased with. Though I thought she was trying hard I just plain didn't think she was taking enough ownership of her work. She was kind of new to the criminal defense world, which I was fine with, and I have a lot of forms to get her started both on research and on writing the assignments that I gave her. But it just seemed like the effort wasn't there. And I told her that.

The way I told her I thought was great. And it's totally my style. I wasn't mean, I was open to hearing that some of it was my fault (which it undoubtedly was - it's always hard to be as clear as you want to be or think you are), and all I was looking for was continued improvement over time. I mean it's impossible for me to be judgmental when maybe I wasn't as clear about what I wanted as I should have been.

At the end of our talk I gave her an assignment and we got to work. I thought everything was good and I was looking forward to her growing as an attorney - I mean, let's be honest, law school doesn't teach you a thing about being a lawyer - when most people graduate from law school they wouldn't know how to find the courthouse without GPS. She gave me her work for the day and left.

Then I get a voice mail today. It says, basically "I wanted to call to say I won't be working for you anymore. School is just taking up too much of my time, and with finals coming up I just don't think I'm going to be able to do both. If you want to talk about it that's great, give me a call." Really, did I just get broken up with (work-wise, of course) by voice mail? Yes, I think I did.

I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt on this one and hope that she was just too busy to do both. But I remember what life was like when I was a 2L, and my alcohol consumed to class attended ratio was extremely high. Maybe she's different. I hope she just didn't like the criticism and quit. Either way though I guess we just weren't a good fit for each other.

No matter what the outcome, win or loss (and I won't tell you what I consider this), there are always lessons to be learned and applied to starting a law firm. And here is what I learned:

1. I need to create a better idea in my mind of what I'm looking for in a law clerk;

2. I need to continue to be up front with my employees about my expectations and whether or not they are being met;

3. I need to take the same time and care picking out a law clerk that I did for a legal assistant (all law students are not created equally); and

4. It's way cooler being the boss than being the law clerk!

Stay tuned for Friday when I'll talk about what I think law school students should focus on in law school if they know or are leaning strongly toward starting a law firm when the graduate. To give you a hint, there are some things you should definitely be doing today!