I knew it was going to be a challenge to pull my weight when I went into the partnership with Steve and Chuck. They graduated in the top of our law school class; I was somewhere in the bottom half, I think. More relevant to their professional trajectories, they were the stereotypical alpha males: tall, strong, good looking and self-confident to the point of having inflated impressions of their abilities—and their abilities were considerable. These were the crucial ingredients for success in the law—even more than intelligence. And, on top of that, they were hard workers.
I'm not sure why they wanted me to join them in their new venture. It didn't hurt, I guess, that I was married to the daughter of an appellate court judge. Our partnership meant that, like me, they could never take a case to his court. But there were compensating benefits. They were immediately connected, through me, with the elite legal community in our county. Anyway, that's the only reason I could come up with that they would want to include me.
I was flattered, though, and saw this as a great professional opportunity. I knew the start would be slow and probably rough. These things always are. But I was sure that Steve, Chuck, and I could make this one of the most dynamic and successful firms in the area. And it was exciting to be building something from scratch instead of starting out doing grunt work as a new associate in an established firm.
When we were first getting started, things went reasonably well. There was so much work just setting up the partnership, finding and furnishing an office suite, hiring a legal secretary and all. It was really impossible to tell who was actually pulling his weight in terms of building the legal practice.
The woman we hired as a legal secretary, Phyllis, seemed like she would be terrific. She was 32 and had good experience and references. She was fairly easy on the eyes, too—not model pretty, but attractive. It didn't really matter to me, though. I was married and didn't have a roving eye. Maybe the best thing about Phyllis was how comfortable we thought we would be with her. It was clear from the interview that she had no problem with raunchy humor or coarse words so we wouldn't have to bite our tongues to avoid a "hostile environment" lawsuit. That was good.
When all the set up was done and we began trying to operate as a sustainable law firm, the gap between the performance of Chuck and Steve, on the one hand, and me, on the other, started to become painfully obvious, not only to me, but the them, too. They were both bringing in clients reasonably steadily and was mainly coming up dry in my attempts to solicit business. Even my connections through my father-in-law didn't help me.
After a year, it was clear that I was mostly doing lackey work in support of Chuck and Steve. Some of it could be done by paralegals and most of the rest could have been done by a junior associate who wasn't a partner-either option would have cost the firm much less. As time went on, it was clear that Chuck and Steve began to resent what they wound up having to pay me as a partner. They made much more than I did, of course. Our partnership agreement counted billable hours and they had lots more than I did. Still, as a one-third partner, I was taking home a reasonable income mostly doing work that could have been done much more cheaply.
At a partners' meeting about a year-and-a-half into our endeavor, they first raised the issue. The solution at that point was to assign to me all of the office management duties. But that was really a joke. Phyllis took care of all the routine office management issues and she didn't really need any management. It didn't take long for Chuck and Steve to come to the realization that I still wasn't pulling my weight.
A few months later, they decided to assigned me also to be (in effect if not in title) the office girl, a go-fer for Phyllis—effectively making me report to her as a practical matter. When she got overwhelmed with work, she could assign some of it to me. And, naturally, she assigned the most routine, boring work to me. I'll never forget the afternoon I spent sorting paperclips into large and small ones.
This was all incredibly humiliating, of course. But what could I do. I wasn't bringing in work and, when I did get a chance to do some lawyering, it was clear even to me that I was often in over my head. Chuck and Steve had to correct my work frequently. After I wrote a brief that was based on a serious misunderstanding of the court's decision and cost us the case, they didn't trust me with any real work again.
So, I was basically a pretty well-paid (because of the partnership) office girl. I know what you're thinking. If I had any self-respect, I would have quit and found something I was good enough at to at least stand on my own two feet. But my wife, Joan, and I had bought a house and the mortgage stretched our budget to the max. I couldn't quit without admitting to her that I was a failure. And I couldn't bring myself to do that.
Finally, after nearly two years, came the fateful partner's meeting that changed my life forever. Steve and Chuck had clearly planned things out in detail. The meeting was an ambush. Steve led the charge, making the case—embarrassingly easily—that I still wasn't pulling my weight. The firm could get all the work I was doing at a much lower cost by hiring a legal assistant. He'd even worked out the difference in the cost to the firm and, when I looked at it from a business perspective, the case was airtight.
I was panicked. The two of them could force me to sell out to them. Chuck made a point of telling me how much they'd saved up to make this possible. And, then, there'd be no reason for them to employ me in any capacity. I'd be jobless and have no choice but to confess to Joan that I was a complete failure.
They could see the fear on my face and hear it in my trembling voice. I expected them to steel themselves to my pleas and tell me to just suck it up. To my surprise, it was Chuck who seemed to offer me a life preserver—if you can call it that.
"Steve, I think that everything you're saying is right. I can't find any fault with your argument from a business perspective." Steve nodded in a very self-satisfied way, and Chuck went on. "But I feel bad for Nathan. We started this firm together and I hate to just look at this from a business point of view."
I'd always felt closer to Steve but right now, Chuck was my champion, and I was grateful.
"I know, Chuck," said Steve. "But what can he do to pull his weight around here?"
"I don't know. But we should try to think of something."
It was an incredibly awkward scene for me. They were discussing my fate and casting about for something positive, and I really didn't have anything to say in my defense. Instead of standing up for myself, or even coming up with a creative solution, I was reduced to blubbering and begging.
"Please don't force me out of the firm. I can't afford to lose this. Joan and I just bought our house. We'd have to sell it and move. It would be terrible."
In Latin, they call that an *argumentum ad misericordiam*, I'd learned in law school—an appeal to misery. It was a fallacious argument. Instead of trying to support a claim with reasons, it just appealed to people's sentiments. But it was all I had. And I'd also learned in law school that if you have only one arrow in your quiver, you use it.
Steve suddenly brightened up, as if he had a brilliant idea. "I know ... Chuck, all you've been doing for the last month, since Jennifer dumped you because you were working all the time, is complaining about your sex life."
I didn't know where this was going and, at the time, I thought that Chuck didn't, either. It was only later that I figured out that even this part of the meeting was scripted in collaboration.
"Yeah. So?" said Chuck.
"Well, you'd be much more efficient if you weren't so frustrated all the time. And I would be, too, because I wouldn't have to listen all the time to your whining about not getting any."
