Law Office Story: The Marketing Lesson

Inadvertently, I was the catalyst of disturbance at the first private law firm that I joined, but I feel like I got the last laugh.

     I entered private practice as an associate of a firm that was a difficult, unpleasant and stressful place to work, because of the personalities of some of the partners. For example, when I won a summary judgment on a construction related issue, the partner refused to speak to me because the issue on which I prevailed was adverse to the interests of some of his other clients. (My case was sustained on appeal, and my fellow associates snickered snickered at the partner behind his back.)  Another associate served as second chair during a year’s worth of preparation for a prairie fire case that had concluded with a trial, and a very successful outcome, a verdict in the millions. Despite the money in the bank, the partner came to the associate’s office and began to chew him out for everything he had done wrong for the past year. Realizing that he couldn’t talk back, the associate just noted the time. He sat still for a barrage of verbal abuse that lasted for 45 minutes. It wasn’t an effective teaching technique: Like a psychologist once said, if Pavlov waited for a year before he rang his bell, the bell wouldn’t make his dog drool.

   One day, I casually mentioned—I don’t recall the context-- that several associates were in treatment for stress-related disorders. (I had seen one guzzling Malox straight from the bottle, and praying out loud about a case.) The partner charged with managing associates was shocked. The firm called in a specialist in law office management to interview each of us confidentially.  The consultant proceeded in alphabetical order, with only Sundberg and Zanzig left to go after me.  His primary emphasis was whether the firm discriminated against women, but the partners were just nasty to everybody. In the parlance of employment lawyers, they were “Equal opportunity assholes.”  

     During my interview, I said that the partners didn’t like each other. “What!” the consultant exclaimed. Next a memo came out, saying that information had developed that made a second round of interviews necessary, then a report was issued.  The associates didn’t see it, but its contents leaked anyway. It said that the partners disliked each other, and the firm was about to split apart. 

     Within days, a group of partners announced that they were leaving the firm, and they used the so-called “confidential” interviews to determine who would go with them, if invited. They were jubilant until they learned that those remaining behind were calling them “The Dear Departed.”

     It was time for me to bail out, and I did. I went to work for the Law Office of Loren D. Combs, in Renton. But I heard that things hadn’t improved back at the successor firms. The half I had been with spawned six or seven more split-off firms.  The “Dear Departed” arranged for an overnight retreat for their newly reconstituted staff, but when the men assembled with their bags in the lobby, they pointed to one associated and said, “Oh, by the way, you aren’t going.” That’s how he knew he was fired.  

     I settled comfortably into a new firm. As I was driving to work one day, I saw a bumper sticker that made me chuckle:  It said “Beyond Bitch.” I mentioned it to my business partners, Loren and Duncan, who were busy working on a case for a metalsmith’s shop. A few days later, I found a velvet jewel box on my desk, and opened it to find a gift from the client’s shop:  A key-ring fob engraved with my initials on one side, the slogan on the other side, “Beyond Bitch.”  I had an alternative business card made up to go with it. Instead of “Attorney at Law” under my name, it said “Beyond Bitch.” I used the card with discretion, but those who received it usually laughed. One client took to calling me “Mrs. Bitch,” and he would roar with laughter every time he said it.

     I once handed the card to an opposing party’s expert witness so he could bill me for the time I had used to depose him. The opposing attorney was an over-aggressive litigator who was churning the case (running up the bill) of a client who was paying him by the hour.  He brought a motion in court, at his client’s expense, to try to have me sanctioned for using the card. My reply was to hand the court two more alternative cards from our office. Duncan’s said “Master of the Universe,” and Katherine Johnson’s said “Tyrannosaurus Regina.” Judge Jordan kept an appropriately neutral demeanor, but declined to impose sanctions. (Eventually we mediated a settlement, and the attorney disappeared out the door the minute he couldn’t charge another cent. It was left to me to drive his client to the bank to withdraw the funds to pay for the settlement.)

     Duncan got as much use out of the card as I did. The day he was fitted for a couple of new suits, he didn’t have his own card on him, so he handed the salesman one of mine. The salesman loved the card, and asked for a couple of handfuls of them, because he thought that they were great marketing, and he taught marketing classes on the side. He was completely puzzled, then, when he handed the cards around the table to one of his classes, a group of associates at a law firm.  Nobody smiled; everybody kept a stony face. It turned out that he was trying to teach “The Dear Departed.”