Law firms can be unpleasant places to work since office politics and bad personalities can create a toxic culture. Sometimes, law firm partners and other managers might abuse their power and belittle associates even though this can have an adverse impact on morale. In some extreme examples, shouting matches might be commonplace in law firm offices.

I worked at four different law firms before starting my own practice. One of the shops was a smaller law firm that did not pay associates as much as other practices. This usually meant that people could take time off without too much trouble since everyone understood there needed to be advantages to receiving such low pay. For some attorneys, this also meant that shouting matches were tolerated since associates did not feel like they should take abuse from higher-ups for such little pay.

One time, we received a negative decision from a court, and this made a partner at the law firm furious. The partner tasked me with researching ways that we could stay the decision pending appeal, and I went to work researching an area of the law I had not previously encountered. I ended up discovering that in our situation, we might not need to post an undertaking as was required in most situations in which litigants wanted to stay decisions pending appeal.

For some reason, the partner did not believe I was correct in my assessment. He asked for the statute that included this provision, and he read the provision out loud from a desk copy of the relevant procedural rules that clearly stated we could ask for a stay without posting a traditional undertaking. Still, he would not concede that he was incorrect, and the scene eventually became a shouting match. I don’t remember the entire conversation, but I remember our last exchange was me saying something like “I haven’t been shown anything to prove that this provision is inapplicable” and he said something like “let me show you to the door” and I left for my own office.

The managing partner eventually tasked a senior associate with conducting her own research on the issue to see who was right. Predictably, this person found that I was correct in all respects, and this was easy to conclude since the language of the relevant provision explicitly backed my arguments. I never experienced any negative consequences from this shouting match, and things mostly normalized with the partner who was my shouting sparing partner.

Another time at this firm, I attended a court appearance for a senior associate and the court rendered an unfavorable decision for us. The attorney who handled the case was livid and told me that I would have to complete any follow up work that was necessary because of the court’s opinion. This led to another shouting match, and I was on bad terms with this attorney for about a week. When this attorney saw I was in the office kitchen, he would walk out, not wanting to be in an uncomfortable encounter with me. Strangely, our connection normalized about a week later when he offered to give me a shirt that he was gifted but that was too large for him. I declined the shirt, thanked him for the gesture, and we hugged it out. Everything was fine with us from that point on.

All told, when attorneys are underpaid, they might not believe that they should have to swallow some indignities that employees at more well-heeled firms need to endure. Moreover, such lawyers might not be so fearful of losing their jobs since the gig they have is not that valuable to begin with. Accordingly, it is more common for attorneys at such firms to have more hostile interactions and for there to be fewer negative consequences from shouting matches.

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothman.law.

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