Attorneys are Victims of Cliques, Too

[Gary Freedman]

Years ago I worked as a paralegal. I had a law degree, but I was underemployed. I complained to my psychotherapist that I was shunned by other employees. The therapist told me the problem was that I was underemployed: that people saw me as a "freak." He told me that the thing to do was to find employment as a lawyer--that way I would have colleagues who were on my professional level.

The problem is that lawyers working as lawyers are somtimes shunned by the prevailing clique at a firm. The following is an account written by a lawyer who was shunned by others at his law firm. Dr. Palombo, I want my money back!

I am an attorney — specifically, a prosecutor. My problem is that there is a dominant clique in my workplace, and I have been regularly excluded (implicitly and expressly) from social events. I feel as though I’m in high school again, and my co-workers have formed an exclusionary clique comprised of only the “cool” kids.

It all began when another co-worker attorney — a temporary employee who I’ll call “Tad” — began making comments behind my back. I was a new attorney (hired permanently) and his office was next to mine. On my first day I stopped by to introduce myself to Tad. He was not friendly, but cold, distant, and apparently annoyed. I got the sense that he was jealous, because I was a permanent hire and that he was not (and he was leaving soon, without another job lined up). Unfortunately, the following week, when my supervisor went out of town for a week, guess who was put “in charge” of our team? Tad. Which is bizarre, but not surprising: my supervisor, a former Marine, strictly adhered to seniority. Among the 12 or so attorneys on my team, all had been there less than a year — except for Tad, who, despite being fresh out of law school and a temporary employee, had senior status.

While Tad was “in charge,” I had taken 2 days off from work (pre-approved by my supervisor) for the purpose of completing my move from another city. So I asked some of my co-workers, including Tad, to cover my court appearances while I was gone. When the supervisor returned, I was called into his office. Tad had reported to him that I was not a “team player”! The supervisor didn’t know the specifics — but he urged me to “make amends” with my co-workers. So I tried to do that. When I privately met with Tad, he swallowed hard, stammered, and seemed shocked that the supervisor had passed along his complaint to me! He finally explained that the problem was that I had burdened my co-workers with extra work, and that I should have returned the favor by volunteering to take on some of their work. One of the co-workers said much the same; the remaining half dozen or so others that I met with denied having any problem with me. This tit-for-tat attitude struck me as immature — I mean, we all eventually ask people for favors at work. But I handled it as diplomatically as I could — Tad assurred me he was my “friend” — and I thought I had put it behind me.

I soon realized that, for reasons that still escape me, Tad was popular with my fellow attorneys and one of the organizers of the Friday night “happy hours.” I couldn’t understand why people liked Tad; he was arrogant, and he habitually talked about people behind their backs. Tad left a few weeks later, but I soon found that my co-workers, while otherwise polite, weren’t inviting me to their lunch gatherings. And I was being excluded not only from from happy hours, but also other social events. I tried to join a flag football team, only to be humiliated by the team captain, who circulated an email in which he questioned my physical shape and suggested that I practice by having my grandmother throw footballs at me. Now, I can take a joke, but it struck me as mean-spirited. I sensed that I was disliked, and I could only assume that Tad had been behind it, and that his efforts to discredit me had survived even after his departure.

At first, I swallowed my pride. I wasn’t included on emails that announced the locations for happy hour, but I went out of my way to find out where they were anyway. I tried to be friendly at the happy hours — but most (though not all) of my co-workers seemed standoffish. I’m a bit older (by about 10-15 years than most of the attorneys) and I’m sure that has something to do with it, though obviously it’s not the whole story. I’ve noticed that the older attorneys in the office (except for those who are supervisors) also appear to be excluded from these events, and they’ve confessed to me to feeling excluded, too. The exclusion seems so childish. I’m a sociable person. I’m not married; I don’t have a family life that would otherwise take me away from social events at work. I’d never had this problem before; I’d always been friendly, if not friends, with my co-workers. Some of my fondest memories are of shared times with co-workers. My isolation especially bothers me because I’m in a new city. Initially, I had not made any friends yet, and here I was being excluded from my only available social network.

The last straw came about four months later when a going away “pizza” party was held for a co-worker with whom I had developed a bond of sorts. Emails were sent and announcements were posted about the event. I showed up with the departing co-worker and announced, “Boy, am I hungry!” And someone replied, “Uh, I hope we have enough pizza.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And then a couple of people explained that only attorneys in the departing co-worker’s team were invited. (I recently had transferred to another team.) Of course, the announcements and the emails sent to everybody made no such distinction! So, I and a couple of others (who, like me, were no longer on the team) filed out of the party room. Somebody (feeling guilty) called out after us: “I don’t know how you guys could walk away from the aroma of a warm pizza,” but we didn’t feel welcome and kept walking. Later, the organizer left a note on my chair, apologizing. I told her I didn’t take it personally. After all, I wasn’t the only one treated that way. But it confirmed for me that, despite the fact that I had worked alongside these co-workers for four months, I had not made any friends or even allies among my immediate co-workers.

The isolation continues and I have resigned myself to the fact that work will never be a place for social contacts. Nevertheless, I feel very uncomfortable when I see co-workers trudging off to lunch or happy hour together in groups, filing past my door, with no one bothering to invite me. This is where I wanted to have my lifetime career as a prosecutor. It’s a wonderful city, a couple of hours from my parents and siblings. If I go to another prosecutor’s office in a big city, it would mean moving to another city far away, likely out of state.

One sympathetic friend suggested that I just throw a party and invite everyone at work, and see if that clears the air. But I’m afraid no one would show up! Pitiful, isn’t it? Any constructive ideas, or am I doomed to work in a place where I feel like an outsider?

Signed,

A prosecutor who stands alone