Graduated law school last year. Got a job as a law clerk after I took the bar exam in August with a part time professor I had at his firm doing a mix of criminal and civil and family cases. Started off great, he was very supportive and friendly and complimented me a lot and said I was doing great. Even said he wanted to train me to take over the firm in 10 years. Said that after I pass the bar I'll get the associate attorney job. I find out I passed the bar in mid November, and I get business cards with associate attorney on them, and boss tells me he's got an offer letter coming my way. December comes and still no letter, ask him about it, says he will get to it after this big criminal trial he's doing. All this time I'm not hearing anything negative about my performance. Getting no real help from boss or only other attorney, they have me doing cases that involve areas of law and topics they've never even touched before and I have to figure it all out. End of the year no offer letter. Not hearing any negative critiques.
Ask again in January about the offer letter, says he'll get to it next week. Beginning of February, still no offer letter. Nothing has changed, still no negative critiques or anything aside from a mention to remember to save the research supporting my citations in a research folder. All this time I've been working more than 8 hours a day every day, some days working between 12-15 hours. I don't get any overtime. Just get paid for the 8 hours a day. He charges the client $185 for an hour of my time and I only see $34 an hour. It's a new firm with only me and two other attorneys (including boss) and our secretary.
This week our secretary has been out and he asked me to handle the phone. Earlier this week, Tuesday, boss gets pissy with me about a document I prepared (an Answer to a Complaint). Asks me why I included some defenses. I explain that I've done like 6 of these since working there and I've done what he's complaining about each time I've written these and have never gotten feedback to not do that. He even had me look up a few weeks ago about whether there's a problem with pleading a bunch of affirmative defenses, and I explained based on research that there's no real downside and he said okay and we submitted the Answer. Now, all of a sudden he's pissed about it for some reason. I say it won't happen again and I'll make sure it's done the way he wants it. He also goes on a rant about:
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I emailed a client last week based on him telling me to email her, during a meeting two weeks ago, after receiving a letter we were waiting for. So I emailed her and he immediately emails me saying why did you email her? I wrote back I emailed her based on our conversation where you asked me to email her. So he brings this up yesterday, Tuesday, and says I would have never told you to email her, and says it keeps him up at night that I did.
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Including short memos with my Answers to complaints so he can see how I'm coming up with the defenses, and saying that I never do that. He's never asked for this before, I always file a memo with all my research and analysis in our folder, but they're typically more than a few pages because of how in depth I get.
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Giving him an update about a conversation we had on Monday about a client. Says don't work on stuff I don't tell you to do, all while I simply noticed an email from the client from last week that changed part of my analysis and wanted to update him because I felt it was important to the client and our success on the case.
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Says I spend too much time on tasks. Has never brought this up ever before. As mentioned above, he has me working on complicated property, contracts, etc. cases that the two attorneys there know nothing about. It takes time for me to research and learn, and I ALWAYS get my work done and submitted before it's due. Couldn't ask for more information about this or comment on 95% of what was said because he was talking the whole time and then said I need to go to a meeting and left.
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Ranting about how he has to cut the time I'm billing to clients and that he's having to cut so much that it's effecting his bottom line. He has never brought this up before. I try to ask him about this and what he's cutting and how I should be doing it differently and he tells me to look at the bills and my logged hours, compare them and figure it out.
Fast forward to today. We meet. He asks me what my career goals are and what areas of law I don't like working on. I say I'm interested in criminal defense and that I was hoping to do more of those cases. He starts talking about how I should go find a public defender job, very clearly suggesting he wants me to leave essentially. Says he wants to give me a good reference but he can't “misrepresent” me and essentially says that depending on how I perform in the coming weeks I would either get a bad review or a good one.
He then starts ranting about how I submitted another Answer with too many affirmative defenses last night. Yesterday, I spoke with the other attorney at the firm, who is overseeing the case I submitted the Answer for, and explained boss's criticisms with my complaints, and said I'd like to make some changes to. I asked him if he reviewed it and what he thinks about the defenses in there. He says to keep them all. I explained to my boss today while he was ranting about it that I had that conversation with the other attorney (same age as boss and same experience) and he told me to keep all the defenses. Boss starts practically yelling now that I needed to tell the other attorney that he was wrong and that I should have convinced him to let me make the changes, even though he's the main attorney on the case and said to keep them. After yelling some more about how I'm making his life difficult he says something along the lines of: I'm going to replace you as soon as I find someone.
A few hours after this conversation he comes to my office and starts shooting the shit and makes some jokes about going to teach the class he teaches at the law school. Boss is oblivious. Thinks we're pals still after that.
Now I need to find a new job. All while my medical bills are killing me because of our shitty insurance (I have some medical problems). Feels really shitty. I feel like I did everything right for the firm and worked my ass off every single day and worked way over the hours I was paid for. Now I feel betrayed and like a fool. Wish me luck on the job hunt while I stair at a wall tonight trying to make sense of this. Bay Area, California.