I’m a first-year associate and had a rough day that I’m trying to put into perspective.
I’ve been working very hard and generally billing around 8 hours/day. Last week I had a week around 38 billable hours, and this month I’m on pace for my firm’s 2,000-hour annual target.
The issue is that today I finished the work I had assigned on a case. Late in the day, I asked a partner for help with something he had offered to assist with earlier in the day. After he helped me, I mentioned that I had capacity for additional work.
He asked how much capacity I had, and I said a good amount. He was frustrated and told me that associates should always have a little less than a week’s of must-do work lined up for the week and another 2 weeks “in the wings.” He said that coming to him at the end of the day completely out of work was frustrating because it meant he had to spend time finding me assignments instead of handling his own work/family obligations.
I honestly had not been thinking about workflow that way. My mindset had been: finish assignments, communicate when I’m available, and ask for more work when I need it. I now understand he expects more proactive outreach.
What is making me feel worse is that another partner then sent me a bunch of additional work, including a motion due tomorrow. I had previously drafted a version of the motion and sent it to him about a week ago. I had said I was happy to do more if needed. His feedback was basically that the motion needed substantially more. And that actually he’d like to see two similar motions as well which he never motioned. (These are somewhat smaller discovery motions, but still at least a few hours’ work I think.). I think the first partner told the second partner I need more work, and that caused the second partner to review my work last minute.
I’m frustrated because I feel like I worked hard, sent the draft, and offered to do more, but now I’m being told (right before the deadline) that there was a much larger scope of work. At the same time, I recognize there are probably things I could have done better. I could have asked earlier whether there were additional motions needed. I could have proactively asked for more assignments before I ran out.
I’m still learning how private practice workflow differs from clerking/law school.
I’m mostly trying to figure out whether I should view this as a “lesson learned” situation or “I am seriously in trouble” situation. Feeling pretty damn low tbh