A Mess - Shareholder Littler Mendelson Employee Review

Unfortunately, Littler has serious problems. Like others, I became fed up with Littler's quality and decided to leave. The firm bangs the table telling everyone, repeatedly, it is the "largest" management-side labor and employment firm (certainly when you include non-traditional roles). It's sad how much the firm relies on this figure, as evidenced by management's cartoonish horror when Law360 noted Littler's slip in attorney headcount. What the firm doesn't promote is the lack of meaningful cohesion among offices and a corresponding lack of meaningful quality control among, and even within, those offices. The result is a loose collection of small firms, initially cobbled together from disparate practices, with inconsistent quality of work product and people. While there are some great offices and attorneys, there are also terrible offices and attorneys, and the latter cast quite a shadow. Over the years, I had the misfortune of working with some incredibly incompetent shareholders and woefully unqualified associates. On one hand, you have shareholders who bill significant time to the file yet don't know what's happening on the case. Watch the chaos unfold when the court denies summary judgment and sets trial, and these types scramble to catch up on years of litigation in six weeks. On the other hand, you have shareholders who shouldn't be let out of the house: confusing clients and cases, forgetting facts, not remembering strategy, etc. Court appearances with them are a mess even when you feed them a script (which you must). Then you have shareholders who run this scheme of demanding that junior shareholders manage their cases, but refusing to split credit under the pretext they're still managing the matters, when they're not. (Practice tip: Tell them to find someone else. They'll either slither away or cave. If you're competent and/or have some of your own business you won't need them to crush your GEC.) Associate quality is all over the map and it takes forever for the firm to manage out poor performers, if it addresses them at all. Candid reviews and ratings are frowned upon by at least one office. I understand the appeal of treating future in house counsel kindly but this tack only hurts the firm's representation of current clients. The firm's efforts at innovation seem geared more toward being the first than being the best. CaseSmart is a disappointment. The internal backlash against it is very real, and who could blame the opposition? Just ask the shareholders "supervising" CaseSmart matters, assuming they haven't quit for a competitor. The firm's diversity groups, while ostensibly well-intentioned on paper, are, at least for one particular group, roving bands of past-their-prime malcontents and an embarrassment and disservice to the minority groups they purport to represent. The childish conduct and disrespect toward others are foul. The turnover at the firm, and at some especially unsavory offices, is notable, but hardly surprising given the terrible morale, hostile management, lack of leadership, and poor pay relative to hours. Of course, the driftwood remains - they have nowhere else to go - and the clients continue to suffer. The problems seemed to have worsened considerably under the current executive management. The recent transition to Kansas City was awkward and some attorneys were quick to blame problems on the new team rather than management where it belongs. The mask comes off when attorneys leave. Rather than try to understand why, or avoid burning bridges, elements in the firm, including certain office managing shareholders, members of the board and/or management committee members, and the firm's in house counsel, behave terribly. The insecurity is stunning. These people either don't realize or don't care that this behavior gets backs to the attorney in question and, more importantly, passed along to people inside and outside the firm. I ultimately left Littler because I grew tired of the incompetence and atrocious environment. Life and career are too short to spend much of either at Littler.