Office Talk

Wow. I look back on the first post I had for this blog and I am stunned by how young and naive I was back then. I sounded like a young kid who had the whole world before him. Oh yeah, it's been one hell of a week since then.

I work in an office. I am the Legal Director of the Bronx AIDS Services Legal Advocacy Program. I run a program consisting of four staff attorneys, four paralegals and a secretary. We provide free legal services to low-income Bronx residents who are living with HIV/AIDS. I operate the program on a shoestring budget which compromises my ability to pay my staff competitive salaries. And when I say "competitive salaries," I'm not talking about vis-a-vis other lawyers (as director, I make less than half what a know-nothing first-year associate makes at a large private firm), but the salaries I can offer barely compete with what other public interest law offices (e.g., The Legal Aid Society) can pay. Last year I had to fill two attorney vacancies and, hoping to hire folks with at least a modicum of experience in housing court litigation or public benefits advocacy, I wound up hiring two attorneys with virtually no practical experience. That meant that I had to spend a lot of time training them to become housing court litigators and public benefits advocates. They were bright and motivated. It was a fun and interesting challenge for me. I like supervising, I like teaching, I like the way I approach the role of zealous public interest advocate and so I like molding others after me. But it was also hard trying to keep the program running at full speed when two of the attorneys needed six or more months to get ramped up to the point where I could begin to trust them with a full caseload or complex cases. They worked hard and blossomed into two very good attorneys -- still much to learn, skills to develop, etc. -- but I was psyched that I now had this staff of talented attorneys to work with.

On Monday, those two attorneys came to me, independently of each other and unbeknownst to the other, to tell me that they were leaving; one to take a job for higher pay, the other to follow her partner to D.C. for her partner's job. I went from panicked to angry to resentful to depressed to I don't know what I'm feeling right now. As a manager, I think that I put so much into these guys and now they're both walking away before I can fully reap the rewards of my efforts. As their friend, I'm hoping that they're both making the right decisions for themselves (they aren't).

Max, my four-year-old son, has been very interested of late in what I do in my office. This evening, after he pretty much refused to give me a straight answer to my questioning him on what he did in school today ("we threw the teacher out the window," I trust, was not an accurate description of the day's activity), he asked me what I did in my office today. I tried to give him a straightforward but digestible answer, which may have been too digestible, given that he asked me if it was boring. I tried to explain how it wasn't boring, that I spent a lot of time talking with my co-workers, that I was actually the boss. He said, "the boss of all those other people?" (whom he has met on his numerous visits to my office), and I said "yes." He then wanted to know if I took care of them because I was bigger than they were.

Beyond his lack of spacial relations (I'm 5' 7 1/2" and am bigger than pretty much no one), Max understands what is important in life, and what kind of boss I aspire to be. I will find two new attorneys, and they will likely require training and mentoring, and I will try to provide that, and life will go on.

Unless, of course, the Mets do indeed blow their fragile lead in their division and miss the playoffs. And then I might throw myself out the window.