Newbie

So I mentioned that the partner told me he started the process of getting us a new person.  I thought it was going to take forever.  Well it didn't, although it's not the ideal situation.  As things went, the firm had a whole incoming class of first years but we had no room for them.  We had no work for them.  Some of them have delayed start dates, some of them are placed at various clients for the year.  But the employment group took 3 of them and as it turns out, employment is over staffed.  So basically we are stealing (uh borrowing) a first year from employment.  It makes a little sense because some of what we do is employment related but it's also a little arbitrary.  Nevertheless, I wasted no time - I gave her two projects immediately.

Like I said, this is all a part of the partner's master plan, he becomes equity partner, I become partner, and someone becomes me.  Ironically, me and this new person have the same name.  The only thing that I am not sure about is having this person on loan.  What happens when the employment group gets busy again and we lose her?  We lose the person we just trained.  The kind of projects we do, we can't just give someone a one off project, you really have to be trained in the practice area.  In any event, I am going to train her as if we are keeping her, because I really need the help and I really need someone to know what they are doing.  We have a partner, one full-time senior associate (that would be me), one part-time senior associate and a staff attorney that we use when we are busy and another staff attorney that we sometimes use on certain types of projects.  The one staff attorney is pretty dedicated to our group and has learned really quickly and is trained pretty well, but even giving her work isn't lightening the load, at all.

Anyway, whenever the partner gives me a project, the first thing I ask myself is whether there is some possible way that I can get someone else to do it.  Now I have more options.