The People You Work and Associate with Can Either Make or Break You

When I was practicing law, there was a partner at my law firm that everyone warned me to stay away from—she was apparently quite difficult to work for. It seemed that once someone got involved in a project working for this woman their career practically imploded. -One girl (a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School) became a waitress at TGI Fridays after working with her. -Another guy who had been making at least $150,000 a year dropped out and took a job with Lexis-Nexis paying $40,000 a year. -Another guy became an outdoor hiking guide. Several people just dropped out of the work world completely. This was at the Los Angeles office of a New York law firm. At the time, this was one of two firms paying New York rates in Los Angeles – which were about 60% higher than major Los Angeles firms. The people in this firm all had great backgrounds and were the sort of people you might expect to go quite far in the legal profession; however, after working for this woman something went very wrong. It was almost like they lost all confidence, faith in themselves and so forth. There was story after story like this – and it was almost like clockwork. People would work a few months for her and then all of a sudden their careers would turn upside down. I never understood it—but it was a pattern that apparently had been going on for years. In fact, after I became a legal recruiter I used to see resumes now and then from people who I could tell had worked for her in an instant. They would start off with a top law school, summer associate jobs at the firm and so forth, and then “boom” something would happen and everything would stop. There would be a gap on their resume for some time and then the person would emerge in some job scarcely connected to the practice of law – if at all. I always called these people to chat and I think that every single time I did this woman’s name came up. Even years later the people sounded angry, confused and beaten up because of what this woman had done. What was it that happened to people who worked for this woman? How was she causing them such turmoil, lack of confidence and forcing them to “drop out” like this? What was she doing? This was incredibly interesting to me because I had such a hard time understanding how someone’s career could implode so quickly. Someone goes to high school and is really focused, works hard and gets into a good college. Then, they get into a good law school and do really well there. They practice law for a few years and then –by the luck of the draw—get an assignment to do some work for this woman and–WHAMMO—their career comes screeching to a halt. In fact, it is my belief that in a different environment those same people might have thrived. Instead, they wound up around the wrong person and their career and life suffered immeasurably. I am not saying that these people should blame their lack of success on their interaction with this woman. What I am saying, though, is they clearly were not prepared. How could one person do so much damage? What was she doing that was creating so much stress for people? It seemed incredible to me that one person could cause so much harm and completely send so many talented people off the tracks. When I was in college I wrote for the college newspaper. One year I was given a assignment to write a story about a student at the University of Chicago Lab School (a high school) that had won the most prestigious science prize in the country, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now known as the Intel Science Talent Search). As part of my assignment, I went over to interview the student’s science teacher. 

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