This may not be the place for this and if it isn’t then I apologize. I work at a very small law firm. It’s two lawyers and myself – I am a paralegal. I would like to be an employment attorney but law school is expensive. I did take the LSAT and did really well. That’s mostly beside the point.
One of the attorneys is in his 70s. I honestly think he needs to stop being a lawyer because he is constantly loosing things and blaming everyone else, making mistakes in his documents – which I fix, often without telling him so he isn’t embarrassed and has wanted to retire for quite some time. He also needs to retire because he’s creating a hostile work environment. In friendly conversation, I let him know that I’d like to learn more about what I’m doing in the hopes of becoming a lawyer myself. Perhaps through our states law clerk program. I’m a woman in my 30s. He laughed at me and asked why I would do that since I was going to be a “baby factory.”
I was floored. I had just miscarried, don’t have any kids and never brought anything but work to work. That was a few months ago. I’m still mad about it. He also talks down to me, as well as female clients. Today I asked a question to clarify something – it was something I was 99% sure about, but I asked so he would have a better chance at remembering what was sent. He starts yelling and telling me that my job is to support the lawyers in the office – which I know and is what I do literally all day. He also says rude things about me to clients.
He’s really just awful. I don’t know what to do about him – he was supposed to retire at the beginning of the year.
I stick around because the younger lawyer feels so bad about what his partner said to me that there’s a good chance he will be my clerkship mentor. And other than this guy I actually like a lot of things about this job – I can start anytime between 9-10, it’s a goood learning opportunity, and the other lawyer is a good guy.
I don’t want this to be a complaining about my boss post- I am looking for feedback on how to deal with a job I like and a person creating a hostile work environment. I’m going to ask for a raise – initially I only worked for the younger attorney, also I bill for $100/hr but don’t get paid for that. I am thinking about telling his wife what he says, but don’t know what good it will do.