Eleven Pieces of Powerful Advice for Associates from a Legal Secretary with Over 30 Years of Experience

Susan Robertson has been a legal secretary at one of the largest law firms in Chicago for 31 years. She has some advice for you.

1. Be a mensch


You graduated at the top of your class. You aced your interviews. You wear $800 suits and $300 shoes, and you just started working at one of the most prestigious law firms in your city. But guess what? If you’re a jerk, no one’s going to care. Say please and thank you. Show respect. Be nice. If you do that, you’ll get a reputation—a good one. And your secretary will do anything for you, as will most other people. Trust me on this. 

2. Ask for help

You might be a brilliant legal scholar, but do you know the fastest way to get a package across town? Or the best place within walking distance to get a cheeseburger? Ask your secretary for help. Gain her trust. She knows procedures, how things function, and who decides what and when (I’m using the female pronoun because most secretaries happen to be women). I’ve seen a lot of freshly minted associates who think they know everything. They don’t. 

3. Be direct

Flowers on birthdays are nice, but they don’t make up for the silent treatment on other days. Tell your secretary when she does good work, and thank her. Even more important, tell her when she’s made a mistake or when she’s making chronic mistakes. People talk. We know which secretaries are screwing up and which attorneys are too wimpy to say anything to them. That makes more work for everyone, and less respect for you. Not a good combination. Trust me on this. 

4. Be accountable

If you’re not going to be around, let me know. You’re going to be out all afternoon, or in court tomorrow? Tell me. Do you want a partner or client to call and me to be forced to say I don’t know where you are? No? I didn’t think so.

5. Don’t ask me to cover for you

Attorneys sometimes say to me, “If so-and-so partner or client calls, just tell ’em I’m not around.” It’s unfair and should never be done. I don’t ask anyone to lie for me. Don’t ask me to lie for you.

6. Slow down

Don’t always want it “right this minute.” I’ve been here long enough to know that when a partner wants it right this minute, a lot of times it will sit on the partner’s desk for two days. I can guarantee you that. If you’ve got a filing to be done that day, or documents to get to a client that day, or documents to get for a closing, you know it, and everybody in the office knows it, and it gets done and out the door. But if it’s a letter and you say, “I need this done immediately,” and it’s just being mailed and not faxed or hand-delivered, then you don’t need it immediately. Secretaries get really, really tired of associates who cry wolf. Use common sense. Don’t annoy your secretary and the whole office just to get your work done. Trust me on this. 

7. Do your job

I’ve seen associates who spend a lot of their mornings talking on the phone to friends, then start working in the afternoons. Your secretary will get tired of answering those calls, and extremely tired of trying to get your work out at the end of the day. She won’t get tired of it for long, though. You’ll end up being reassigned another secretary—until that secretary learns your work habits. Eventually, you might wind up being an associate somewhere else. 

8. Don’t pass the buck

You forgot to mail a document, and the client complains. So you might say, “Oh, my secretary just didn’t get it out last night.” That’s when I totally lose respect. That’s when our relationship goes down the tubes. When I screw up, I want to know, and I want to take responsibility. When you screw up, you should do the same. 

9. Remember the ninth commandment

Personalities clash. We’re human, and it can’t be helped. But over the years, some associates have said things to me about other associates and even about partners. They tell me exactly what they think of certain people. Usually when I hear things like that, I think of glass houses and big rocks. Don’t get me wrong. Over the years, I’ve done my share of complaining. But if an associate is fresh out of law school? Some associates get smart and learn quickly that they can’t mouth off. Others never learn. They don’t do very well. 

10. The coffee question

I don’t see any harm in sharpening pencils or setting up a conference room for you with coffee and water. But I’m old-school. Some other secretaries resent doing those things for their bosses. I think it just depends. I know one secretary who used to pick up her boss’s dry cleaning. She would even take his car to get it washed and gassed up. If you’re an associate asking a secretary to do that, you’re very brave. Not smart, but brave. 

11. Dipping your quill in the company ink

There are plenty of people you can date who don’t work for you. You can’t ask one of them out? Plus, there’s something called sexual harassment. You’ll get a seminar on that. But, yes, it happens: If two people like each other, they’re gonna get together. If you’re one of them, keep it quiet. It’s called discretion. Trust me on this.

See the following articles for more information:

• 22 Pieces of Advice about How to Behave as a Summer Associate
• Advice on Becoming a Successful Attorney