« About Your Posture: Looks Like Mom Was Wrong, After All … | Home | Um …. What Happened? »
Why Shinyung Oh Is
TIS’s New Hero of the Month
By Sheryl | May 13, 2008
(Pardon the unusual use of profanity in this post, if it bothers you. I can only offer this from my college chaplain, who’d just called “bullshit” on some machination by college administrators: “Sometimes, no other word will do.”)
You have to have read this by now.
If you haven’t, here’s the Twitter (less than 140 characters) version: PH associate gets fired, rips partners a collective new one via email, to prevent other fired associates from feeling low esteem.
See, the at-first-nameless ex-Paul Hastings associate intimated in her letter that the problem with the random layoffs wasn’t the fact of termination — it was the reason given:
Had you simply explained that the department is unable to sustain the number of associates in the office, I would have completely understood. Had you explained that the office had been directed to reduce the number of associates and I was chosen because of my high billable rate and low billable hours, I would have appreciated such directness, even though the consequences of blindly raising billable rates to an unsustainable degree is plainly predictable. What I do not understand is the attempt to blame the associate for not bringing in the business that should have been brought in by each of you and to hide your personal failures by attempting to tarnish my excellent performance record and looking to undermine my sense of self esteem.
There’s so much fabulousness and inspiration in this email, I hardly know where to begin.
The Problem With BigLaw
We could go on ad nauseam on the larger topic of billable hours and the evils thereof, but the real issue that the letter writer spots accurately is this: business has taken priority over humanity. To paraphrase Marley from A Christmas Carol: Humanity ought to be our business, especially for lawyers.
This is why I just couldn’t deal with a large law firm: too much gamesmanship, too much emphasis on revenue above all else.
As solos, we get to chart our own course. We decide what the bottom line really is, and how we will define success for our practices and for our lives. I like our way better.
Speaking Up Should Be Commended
I know a lot of folks might advise “don’t burn bridges.” My advice to my coaching clients is a bit different: Don’t burn bridges unnecessarily.
Sometimes, you have to speak up, is my point. When it gets this bad, this blatant, this pervasive, then brave people need to speak up and call the bad actors on their shit.
That person in this case was Shinyung Oh (her name revealed at the WSJ Law blog here). In that WSJ Law blog interview, it’s made pretty clear that the problem isn’t the firing (as it’s also made clear in the email itself) but the “how” of the firing, the symptom of a larger problem: the loss of humanity at many large businesses. It’s not just a BigLaw problem, though it does seem particularly pervasive there.
And many of the commenters to that interview seem to miss that point: that the problem isn’t one of entitlement or cause for termination but of values. Simply put: people put in charge of large firms, for better or (I vote) worse, do not believe as a whole they can afford to be human, with all that word implies (compassion, support, morality, emotional truth).
They make a decision that they know will be unpopular and what is the rallying cry of defense when they’re called out on it? “It’s just business!”
Yes. Yes, it is. Just — only — solely business. And nothing else.
So Ms. Oh gets our nod as Hero of the Month.
Topics: Solo Stories |
May 14th, 2008 at 9:40 am
As you may know, I have changed my position on this because when the full story emerged, it appears that Ms. Oh had gone public not to get back at the firm (my initial impression - and a bad reason to burn a bridge) but to make other similarly situated lawyers recognize that they should not feel badly about their abilities if they are fired (an excellent reason to speak out). In any event, the story is even happier because as it turns out Ms. Oh built many more bridges than she arguably burned.
In addition, I’ve heard from Ms. Oh privately - even after all of this, she is incredibly gracious and open minded. So your heading is right on!
May 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Hey Carolyn - thanks for popping over! Yes, I did know you’d changed your mind — another hallmark of a gracious and highly developed being, by the way, besides “speaking up” — but didn’t feel it was my place to comment on it.
But I’m really glad you did, because it gives me an opportunity to write this: I think the last sentence of your first paragraph is the hidden truth we’re sometimes uncomfortable admitting — we sometimes need to burn a few bridges in order to build some better ones.
It would have been far better, I think, if PH had just been honest and above-board with their associates. The mind-boggling lack of compassion shown to Ms. Oh might have gone down a little more easily had they taken that high road.
But that lack of compassion also bothers me — it’s a different issue, but related to the larger “business over humanity” issue. Why is that we women seem to be our own worst enemies, or at least treat each other so miserably? Have we tolerated derision so long that we’re not comfortable with our own natures? Why aren’t we helping each other? Why are we tearing each other down?
I don’t think Ms. Oh’s experience with that female partner is so uncommon, after all. That also bugs, greatly. But — separate post.