My boss gives me work without explaining anything

[Clicict]

Hello all,

I'm 1 month into my Articles at a small/mid firm specializing in civil litigation, estate and family law. I love the work and the people! HOWEVER, one lawyer consistently gives me work and provides me with little to no background information and often fails to provide me with the necessary documents needed for the matter. It'll take me forever to finish the NoCC or whatever claim because of that. 

Is this normal? I've considered speaking up and asking them to please remember to send me all relevant documents and provide guidance/precedent so it helps me but I'm also slightly worried they will take it the wrong way and think I'm not a strong Articling Student. I'm already quite worried that I'm taking too long making these documents WITH all the correspondence.

Is it also normal for lawyers to ask you to finish work over the weekend often?

[Conge]

8 hours ago, Clicict said:

Is this normal? 

Is it also normal for lawyers to ask you to finish work over the weekend often?

People who are bad at delegating are, unfortunately, more common than people who are good at it in my experience. So it's 'normal' in the sense that you'll encounter them from time to time, and that includes clients that hire you to do the work. You'll need to find a way to get the info you need. E.g., you could schedule a 10 mins meeting to ask what the deliverables are exactly and when they need it by and if there are other matters you can pull the files on for examples.

Unfortunately, in private practice, being asked to work over the weekend was the norm in my experience, at least as a student/clerk/junior lawyer.

 

[EmplawmentLaw]

1. Re: no instructions - It's unfortunately common for partners/associates to provide little to no instructions when assigning work. As much as it sucks, as its not your fault, you can't use "you didn't provide enough instructions" as an excuse. It's just the way that it is. Th way to respond is by being proactive. This means you have to take the responsibility to get the information that you need out of the assigning lawyer. Whenever you're assigned work, make it a habit to communicate with the partner that you may need further instructions. If the work is being assigned via email, reply to the partner's email confirming when they want the deliverable, saying you'll review and get started on it, and asking what's the best time/what's the best way to follow up if you need further information or instructions. If the work is being assigned in conversation, then immediately go to your computer, type an email repeating the instructions, ask the partner to confirm your understanding of the instructions is correct, and also ask what's the best time/what's the best way to follow up if you need further information or instructions. This does multiple things. First, its standard CYA by putting things in writing. Second, it communicates to the partner that you may need to reach out again and puts the ball in their court to tell you how/when. Third, by communicating your understanding of the instructions to the partner, it gives them a second opportunity to add more instructions if they think you're not understanding it the way they want you to, correct themselves if they made a mistake, etc. Its generally better to ask partners/associates for more information/instructions on an assignment than it is to turn in an assignment that's incorrect or not what they're looking for. At worst, the first one makes you annoying. However, the second one is the one that'll make you look dumb.

2. Re: working on weekends - During articling, it's a commonly accepted (if not expected) practice to require articling students to work over the weekend. There's no real way around it. However, there may be exceptions where you have a really important personal/family event, etc. taking place sometime during the weekend. In that case, you might be able to ask the firm to work around that. However, it all depends on the circumstances, your firm, and whether the people there are reasonable. If they reject a request that you think is reasonable, that's also a good indicator of what's to come if you're hired back and should be something you consider when deciding whether you yourself would like to come back. I would advise you not to complain or seem uncooperative when it comes to working over the weekend, generally speaking. The assumption is that everyone does it as an articling student and it will be held against you if you don't.

[BlockedQuebecois]

13 hours ago, EmplawmentLaw said:

Whenever you're assigned work, make it a habit to communicate with the partner that you may need further instructions. If the work is being assigned via email, reply to the partner's email confirming when they want the deliverable, saying you'll review and get started on it, and asking what's the best time/what's the best way to follow up if you need further information or instructions. If the work is being assigned in conversation, then immediately go to your computer, type an email repeating the instructions, ask the partner to confirm your understanding of the instructions is correct, and also ask what's the best time/what's the best way to follow up if you need further information or instructions. This does multiple things. First, its standard CYA by putting things in writing. Second, it communicates to the partner that you may need to reach out again and puts the ball in their court to tell you how/when. Third, by communicating your understanding of the instructions to the partner, it gives them a second opportunity to add more instructions if they think you're not understanding it the way they want you to, correct themselves if they made a mistake, etc.

I do not think this is terribly good advice.

First, it's implicit in me giving a student a task that they may need to come back to me for further information or instructions. I don't need that to be proactively communicated to me, and I certainly don't want a student immediately asking me how and when to come back for further instructions. Read the materials I've sent you, spend a bit of time figuring it out, and then come back to me if you need to clarify anything.

Second, if we are meeting in person your opportunity to clarify and communicate your understanding of the instructions is the meeting. I don't want an email recapitulating our meeting, because that means I have now spent time: (i) planning for our meeting; (ii) in our meeting; (iii) reviewing your email to make sure you understood our meeting; and (iv) tying to answer a pretty unanswerable question about how and when you should reach out if you realize you need something from me. In the circumstances, it would have been easier for me to just put my instructions into an email without a meeting. 

Without meaning to beat a dead horse, I think it is worth highlighting how not helpful it is to ask how and when you should come back with a question. The answer to the question is going to be highly context-dependent. Is your question simple, such that it can be answered by a brief email? Is it more complex, such that it would be easier for one of us to pick up the phone or for you to stop by my office? What are our respective schedules on the day you have those questions? Without knowing that information, my answer is almost certainly going to be "have a read through the papers and then reach out if you have any questions", which isn't terribly helpful to anybody. 

I want to be clear that none of what I said means you shouldn't go back to the assigning lawyer if you have any questions or require additional information. You absolutely should. But once the work has been assigned and the meeting is over (and excepting small details that might get missed, such as the file number or similar), I am going to expect you to have read through everything I have given you and to have thought about things before coming back to me with questions. 

[Whisk3yjack]

One thing that hasn't been touched on yet is that its possible that the partner has just forgotten that you only started and don't know how to do routine assignments yet. There is nothing wrong with that, everyone starts out with no idea how to do that job, but that's why you should start with asking a young associate for help before going right to the partner. For example, pretty early on in articling I received lots of assignments which were, please bring X type of motion. There were rarely instructions on how to do that, but they were always very common motions. I would get one of my friends who was a first year call to walk me through how to do it. If I had asked the partner, they probably would have just told me to ask an associate. 

Obviously there are going to be assignments where you need the partner to give you more instructions on a file, but in general I think it is good practice to work your way up the chain of command 

[Phaedrus]

On 3/17/2024 at 8:38 AM, BlockedQuebecois said:

-snip-

I'll piggyback off of what was said here. I've had my fair share of frustrating articling experiences where my principal provided very little instruction about a given take. Sometimes, all I was told was that it was a specific client and I needed to draft a Charter application. I think BQ addressed the issue well, and I'd add that Harvard Business Review's 1974 article Who's Got the Monkey is just as relevant to the delegation of work in the legal sector. I've found it to be an invaluable starting point to understanding my role as a junior counsel and highly recommend it. 

[SNAILS]

Learning about how to function in a law firm is about more than learning the law and legal procedure. It is also about learning where to look to find more information. This means databases, precedents your firm has filed on similar issues, etc.

Other posters have mentioned that the lawyer that assigned it is a good source of information. I also strongly echo not to bug the lawyer with questions before you have thoroughly looked at what was given to you and at least attempted to figure it out. Law clerks and other articling students can be tremendous sources of information!