Back story: I’m interviewing a lawyer about… well, I can’t tell you, because I promised not to out him … I’m interviewing him about something staid and serious, and, frankly, even with this kinda’ dull topic, he’s funnier and witter than me, so I do what I always do when I encounter genius: I ask for a Last Word inspiration. He demurs. But a little while later, he sends me this: “..some combination of examining ego, merit and compensation: when they align, everyone’s happy, but in different formations of non-alignment, “fun” ensues. A subset of this involves laterals – if it’s not working, how long does it take for various constituencies to acknowledge that fact.” Yes! He adds, “If you do go with something like it, I emphatically do not wish to receive credit for inspiring the topic.” Why not? It’s genius. Pure genius.
Especially if you’re a little mean, like I am. The result: the March 2012 Last Word, Egos and Expectations.
A certain other someone–so many secret identities behind this Last Word!–wanted to call it, “Suck it up, Princess.” Which isn’t bad. Especially if you know who “Princess” is. If If you feed me enough tiramisu and wine, I might tell you who… No, I won’t. Of course I won’t. Cause that would be wrong.
But yeah, he might work at your firm.
Unedited excerpt (full text follows):
Look at your number again. I know you don’t have to: it’s seared under your lids as with an iron poker. Indulge me, look. Is it what you expected? If it is, congratulations: you are that rarest of things, a happy lawyer, and you’ll die happy and not of a coronary. But odds are its lower. Lower in one of two ways, and more likely both. The overall size of the pie just ain’t what it was what you told yourself it was going to be as you suffered through 2009 and 2010… and your share of it? Well. Your insides your boiling. You can’t believe the compensation committee did this to you. Your own partners. Who know how you’ve busted your chops for this firm for decades, and how many better offers you’ve said no to over the years, and how you carried all their deadwood when your practice was going gangbusters, and frankly, in 2011, you were as busy as anybody, maybe busier, and this is how they repay you?
Yup. This is how they repay you. They’ve spent weeks crunching numbers, doing everything they can to be fair, and knowing all the while that no matter what they did, you’d crucify them. Oh, they knew full well how you’d react, you know that. You pulled the same stunt in 2009, remember? Making them wonder how a lawyer so apparently brilliant and successful could be so freakin’ dense about that little global financial meltdown thing. And before that in 2007, when the size of the pie and your slice of it, actually, both set records. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t sufficiently more than the other guys’.
Last Word: When Egos and Expectations Collide
I don’t know about you, but I never get a really good sense of what type of year the last year has been until the first quarter of the next year is nigh-done. And not because I’m waiting for the various league tables to tell me. No, I know what sort of year we’ve had by how law firm partners behave come split time. And while the split timetable varies a bit among the law firms—some engage in it annually while others suffer through it only once every two years; some get it done as quickly as possible in the first weeks of the year while others draw out the process or don’t get started until March—March seems to be the month that it really hits home. Just ‘bout everyone’s done it by then; just ‘bout everyone’s got a number plastered to her forehead (or hidden under her ‘closed compensation’ team jacket), and just about everyone feels hard done by to a lesser or greater extent.
And me, I know exactly what sort of year it’s been—for the law firms, at least.
My final evaluation of 2011: way worse than you expected.
Don’t raise your eyebrows and point me to the league tables to argue the contrary. I have had the… opportunity? privilege? Misfortune? … to spend time with some dissatisfied, thwarted, frustrated and burned law firm partners over the course of my career, and let me tell you, 2011 takes the cake. Whatever it is that most corporate types wanted out of 2011—well, most of them didn’t get it. Not even close.
Look at your number again. I know you don’t have to: it’s seared under your lids as with an iron poker. Indulge me, look. Is it what you expected? If it is, congratulations: you are that rarest of things, a happy lawyer, and you’ll die happy and not of a coronary. But odds are its lower. Lower in one of two ways, and more likely both. The overall size of the pie just ain’t what it was what you told yourself it was going to be as you suffered through 2009 and 2010… and your share of it? Well. Your insides your boiling. You can’t believe the compensation committee did this to you. Your own partners. Who know how you’ve busted your chops for this firm for decades, and how many better offers you’ve said no to over the years, and how you carried all their deadwood when your practice was going gangbusters, and frankly, in 2011, you were as busy as anybody, maybe busier, and this is how they repay you?
Yup. This is how they repay you. They’ve spent weeks crunching numbers, doing everything they can to be fair, and knowing all the while that no matter what they did, you’d crucify them. Oh, they knew full well how you’d react, you know that. You pulled the same stunt in 2009, remember? Making them wonder how a lawyer so apparently brilliant and successful could be so freakin’ dense about that little global financial meltdown thing. And before that in 2007, when the size of the pie and your slice of it, actually, both set records. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t sufficiently more than the other guys’.
See, the bitch of it is, you are really good. I grant you that. They grant you that. But baby, you’re in a profession full of the really good. Practicing with a layer of it stacked with high performers. So yeah, the distance between you and them other guys and gals? It ain’t as big as you think it is. Worse, it’s not as big as perhaps it once was.
So the result going forward, if your expectations and your ego remain at their current intersection? Eternal frustration and disappointment.
But perhaps not quite as pronounced as in 2011, eh? Because, really, there was something very odd about that year. I mean, when you complained in 2007—it was not so much in frustration, but out of sheer, how can we put it, greed—you knew it had been a stellar year for you and the firm, and goddammit, you wanted as much of it in your pocket as you could get. In 2009, when your complaints had the firm questioning your sanity, you mostly did it as a matter of form. To ensure that in 2010—well, they’d keep in mind how utterly screwed you were in 2009. But 2011… you thought it had been a decent year. Not a record-breaking year, not a stellar year—but damn it, not this bad. You expected more. More money. More recognition. More appreciation. Less sharing of pain.
It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for you. Almost.
Marzena Czarnecka fosters her unreasonable expectations in egotistical Calgary.
Marzena Czarnecka 