For Shame

So, Paul Hastings announced some layoffs earlier this week. This time around, they are calling them "layoffs" instead of pretending that they are performance-based terminations. I also understand from associates in the firm that they are no longer requesting that laid-off attorneys sign non-disclosure agreements. Also, the management is going out of its way to assure the employees that the layoff is based not on performance, but on the economy.

Even as recently as last month, Paul Hastings was claiming that its layoff of 15% of the associates in the Atlanta office was somehow based on job performance even though the firm had not yet conducted any performance reviews. It was also apparently trying to keep its stealth layoffs in LA and Shanghai under the radar.

From the way Paul Hastings partners have been trolling the comment section on Above the Law to write in asinine defense of the firm, they apparently do care about their public image. I've heard from friends who still work there that after my email was posted on Above the Law, partners pleaded with associates to post positive comments about the firm on the site. I've also heard that the head management begged associates not to make negative comments about the firm on blogs. It's all rather pathetic.

Apparently, some companies have to be shamed into doing the right thing. We could all have saved ourselves a lot of time and bad PR if they had the brains to figure out the meaning of decency on their own.

PS - As one of the readers pointed out, Paul Hastings is admitting to their layoffs only because Latham already announced theirs. Of course. They aren't motivated by shame. They are - and will be - industry followers to their dying day.

Layoff Coverage

Earlier this week, I was contacted by a freelance writer working on an article for the Associated Press. I declined to speak to her because I thought the media was focusing too much on how employees are reacting to layoffs instead of highlighting the unethical manners in which companies are handling layoffs. I asked her to focus on what the companies are doing, and she responded that she would be "happy to talk...about that as well." Well, sure enough, the article comes out and it's only about employees and their departure emails. Good thing I declined to speak to her.

[If you want to read a decent and intelligent article that the New York Times did on layoffs, check out this article. I had to email the guy and thank him.]

Here's the email exchange I had with the AP writer:

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 10:46 AM, Kelly DiNardo wrote:
Shinyung,

I'm a freelance writer working on a story about departure e-mails for the
Associated Press. I was hoping to have a quick phone chat with you about the
one you sent out and that then traveled through the blogosphere. Would you
give me a ring at your earliest convenience -- [phone number deleted] -- or let me
know the best way to reach you?

Best,

Kelly DiNardo
Freelance Writer

***
On Mar 4, 2009, at 1:59 PM, Shinyung Oh wrote:

Hi, Kelly,

Thanks for the request, but I think the media should focus on
unethical practices corporations and law firms are engaged in when
laying off their employees. Thanks.

Shinyung

***
Shinyung,

I'm happy to talk to you about that as well. Would you give me a call?

Thanks,

Kelly

Over-Exposure

When I received an email from the Today Show producer on Monday, my first inclination was to say no. They wanted me to fly out to New York that same day and be ready to appear first thing on Tuesday morning. I have been handling some litigation work in addition to my magazine articles and class assignments, and on Monday, I was booked for back to back meetings all day until 9pm. I have also been exhausted from my pregnancy, and all I want to do is curl up and sleep all day long. The thought of a six hour flight was not appealing.

And each time I am contacted to talk about my Paul Hastings email, I worry about being over-exposed. It's not something that I necessarily want to be known for. I sent the email because I thought it was important to speak up for myself and those who may face similar treatment. But I don't need to be known as "that Paul Hastings email girl." So when Lesley Stahl's producer from 60 Minutes contacted me last summer, I told him no. When the Today Show producer emailed, I initially said, "Sorry, I can't fly out to NY today."

But then, there was also a side of me that thought, "Oh, what the hell. The story is already out there, and maybe it'll force some employers to pause before dragging an employee through the mud. And who knows, maybe it'll help me with my writing career in some way." So I decided to do it, and they set me up in a studio on Battery Street in San Francisco. On Monday afternoon, they sent a camera guy over to take some footage of me sitting at my computer. That evening, I picked out a couple of jackets I could wear, grateful that I only needed to worry about the top half of my attire. On Tuesday, I woke up at 3:30am to shower. I asked Jeff if he wanted to join me, but the smart man decided sleep was more important. They sent a car at 4am, and once I got there, a make-up lady fussed over me for a while. Once we were ready, I just sat in a dark room, stared at the camera, and talked when I heard Meredith Vieira ask me questions through an ear piece. I felt strange talking into a camera, so I asked the make-up lady to stand behind the camera. And it was over in a few minutes.

I think the Today Show appearance was neither here nor there. In some ways, it was disappointing because it focused on whether employees are conducting themselves properly when the topic should really have been on the unethical strategies employers use in laying off employees. And of course there were tons of things I thought to say in advance, but once you are in the middle of it, everything escapes your brain and you wonder what the hell you are doing there. The biggest thing I regret not saying is mentioning Paul Hastings by name, pointing out that they are an established employment law firm, and explaining how they were mocking up performance reviews to suit their purposes. But it's too late now.

Yesterday morning, I received a call from Inside Edition. I told them no. I think one dorky TV appearance on this topic, particularly when I've gained so much weight from my three pregnancies in the past year, is more than enough. And it's hard to know when you'll be set up as a punching bag for some TV show's rating.

I have to say, though, that my concerns about the downsides of sending the email have turned out not to be warranted. I think most people worry that you appear unprofessional or that companies will not want to touch you after this kind of an experience. One of the first emails I received yesterday after the show was from one of my current clients, the founder and managing partner of a consulting company, and he wrote, "Great job and well said!" What a decent man. Even my parents, probably the most conservative and risk-adverse people I know, said, "Of course you should speak up when your boss lies like that." And during the past ten months, random people have contacted me and invited me to interview with their company. I've also received emails from in-house attorneys who offered to help in some way.

So many of these incidents stand out. A few weeks after I was laid off, I was flailing and trying to figure out what to do. Out of the blue, I emailed journalist Henry Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle. I had never met him before, but I wanted to learn more about journalism and knew that he covered trials in the Bay Area. In the email, I explained what had happened and that I was considering a career change. In the warmest response, he invited me to have lunch with him. I met him for tapas just a block away from the Chronicle office in Oakland, where he pulled out his notebook to talk to the attorney for the Muslim Bakery, who happened to be passing by. Then he let me hover over him the rest of the afternoon as he typed furiously, clicked on different windows every few seconds, interviewed police officers who had a lead, listened in on police radio feeds as they chased some suspects around the city, scanned press releases and court dockets, exchanged emails with his editor, and shared a story about the time he rode a Blue Angel just weeks before the pilot crashed during a show. I walked out feeling like I could never do Henry's job, but what a great way to find out.

So what could been a terribly sour termination experience has in many ways turned into an affirmation of the decency of people in my life and strangers I've never met. Maybe the world isn't so bad after all. Isn't it a good thing that I'm no longer hanging out in that particular building on 2d Street in San Francisco that seems to be filled with an unusually high concentration of jerks?

Regrets

I've been asked a few times whether I regret having sent my Paul Hastings email, most recently for this article in the LA Times. I think I would have left quietly if the firm had simply laid me off - or if even one of the partners had the decency to be straight with me, even on a confidential basis. The economy is bad and I am certainly not exceptional for having been let go. What I found offensive was that a company -- an established employment law firm -- would abuse its power as the employer to manipulate my performance review to protect its own reputation at my expense.

Just a week before my review, I had a one-on-one conversation with the head of my department. I had been worried about my low hours. I had talked to him repeatedly throughout the year, asking for more work and asking what I should be doing differently. Always, his response had been, "It is my job to find you work, and I am working on that." During my one-on-one, I raised my concern again that my hours were low. He assured me that my work was "great" and that everyone loved working with me. I thanked him for his assurances and said, "Thanks so much for telling me. We all have our moments of insecurity, you know..." He then responded, "I know, Shinyung, and that is why I want to get it through your head. You are a great attorney. It's not because of your work." When I asked what he thought was the problem, he explained that the economy was bad, the firm was raising its billable rates to a level where it was pricing itself out of its current market, and the firm was attempting to get a foothold in the elite upper tier.

A week after that conversation, I had my review with the same partner and another partner TC. When I walked into my review, they did not make eye contact with me. When I read my review, I was shocked by the downgrading in all but one of the categories. When I asked what had happened between my prior review and the current, TC blathered that he could not explain it, that he had nothing to do with the prior year's review (although he had headed the case for which I received great ratings), and it was possible that my prior review had been "over-inflated." The head partner, who had told me how great my work was a week earlier, said, "You need to think about your future here."

The situation was surreal. When your boss tells you one thing one week and says the complete opposite a week later, you wonder if you know nothing about human nature. Law firms are often afraid to admit that they are suffering economically -- because they are trying to attract other rain-making partners with big books of business. And no partner with a big book of business would join a firm that appears to be hemorrhaging. To protect its own reputation and to avoid any possible appearance of a decline in business, the firm tarnished my performance review to create a public excuse for my termination.

So, yes, when I wrote my email, I was emotional. But I also thought what they did was wrong. I'm no longer emotional, but I still think what they did was wrong.

When a bully is about to stomp you with its giant foot, the least you can do is try to take a bite out of its pinky toe.

Marketplace

We were divided across the desk. The day was winding down, and the retiring sun threw its last ray of incandescence. Minutes before, we were colleagues, part of the same enterprise. Now, I suddenly found myself an outsider, someone who did not belong. And a handful of words made it so: "We've decided to terminate the relationship."

The words fell, and I kicked it around on the dusty floor of my mind before dealing it a lethal blow. It was over and done, and I had to pack up and leave.

But like Lot's wife, I took a second to look back. I wasn't sure what I was looking for. Perhaps a signal that the "we" terminating the relationship did not include him, at least not really. A whisper or a knowing look that says, I'm sorry, I wish it could have been otherwise. Or a letting down of the guards, so that we could be ourselves for one final exchange of warm wishes.

Instead, we stayed as still as pillars of salt, faces shut, shoulders hunched, lips pursed. The line had been drawn, and there was no turning back.

I could have reached over and said, I know we are not family or friends. We are just two people who frequent the same market as we sell our wares. True, we had chatted about this or that, and there were times that I had looked to you for guidance. I've helped you unload your goods and you've helped me with mine. But at the end of the day, we knew what was yours and what was mine when it was time to go home.

Prudence Anyone?

So I put myself out there. Prudence dictates that I keep my head down, wait for this incident to blow over, apply for a normal job, and pray that whoever interviews me (if I can still get an interview, that is) is oblivious enough not to have seen my email or has a bad enough memory not to recognize my name. I mean, there's a reason why fish camouflage, and isn't there something to be learned from that? Instead, I stick my neck out once again and wait for the guillotine to drop.

I read the comments on Above the Law, and I got that churning feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why did I give my facebook photo to the WSJ reporter, and why is it plastered all over the place? I am freakin tired of looking at it too. But such mean comments. Who are these people? And where do they work that they should have so much time on their hands? But maybe this is what I get for grabbing more virtual space than this is worth. Should I just delete this blog now? Go away quietly and resume my life as it was before this fiasco? I mean, why use this opportunity to try writing? It's gibberish, and why do I have to practice my writing in front of the world to see (and judge so harshly)? And who cares about some random chick who had a miscarriage and got fired? Shit happens all the time, and on the grand scale, this really is trivial.

But the other side of me says, well, you've been wanting to try your hand at writing for the past fifteen years, and now that you've been spit out by PH, what's the harm in trying it out? The worst that can happen is that no one reads it, or people read it and tell you it's crap, and you will at least know that you gave it a try. And you never saw the point of writing if no one reads what you write, so isn't this a great way to try your hand at it? And one way or the other, sooner or later, you'll know more concretely whether it's worth pursuing. Right?

And is spending another ten years in a law firm really the answer? Haven't I had my fill of discovery, case law, and settlement conferences? I mean, what do I have to show for the past ten years of my life? Yeah, I can write a mean ass nastygram, but is that really something to tout? And am I going to look back 10 years from now and regret I didn't at least give it a try? I'll forever wonder how the ilks of Jhumpa Laharis hit the best seller list and I couldn't even give it a try.

But that damn job pays so well. Well, maybe I keep doing my contract gig for a bit, which at the end of the day is enough to live on, and try my hand at this writing thing for a few months. We'll see how this goes...

And in the meantime, if only I could grow a thicker skin...

Was it career suicide?

You'd think I spoke out against Stalin or the Genovese family. All I did was speak up against a group of men and women who run a business. They sit around and think of ways to protect and increase the million plus profits they each take home at the end of the year, and firing some underling and sabotaging her reputation in the process is par for the course in their world. What does it say about our times and our profession that calling them out should be considered so unusual? Shouldn't we all be protecting ourselves against bullies like them?

By the reaction, you wonder if McCarthyism hadn't ended in the 50s. Do I have to worry about being blacklisted because I didn't subscribe to their prescribed view? Is my career on the fritz because I didn't take their hush money and disappear quietly? Are we still living in a time when I have no choice but to betray myself and what I know to be true in exchange for job security? No, this isn't about something as grand as political rights, but social/economic pressures don't exist in a vacuum.

One of the partners, the same one who made the comment that my prior year's review may have been "over-inflated", had the audacity to tell one of the clients that "[I] had left the firm because [my] husband is a successful entrepreneur and [I] no longer need to work." You'd think someone who chooses to make a callous decision would at least have the balls to own up to it. Who can explain what happened to these people in the process of becoming the kind of people they are now?

So what are the fallouts? Are there fallouts? Since my email somehow became public, I have received hundreds of emails offering support and sympathy. Several in-house counsel also contacted me to express outrage at the firm's handling of the situation and stated their intention never to hire them. One GC emailed me to let me know that she has fired them. She became my hero. Maybe the world really isn't so bad after all.

I'm not a cynic. I believe in notions of justice. And I like to think that I played a part in reminding others to play fair.