Report comment

Partners are interested in one thing, well two issues actually, money and why we haven't got more money.

Partners do not care about the welfare of their staff only with safeguarding their legal liability to them so as to prevent loss in the employment tribunals.

I have actually witnessed a solicitor who was bereaved in a tragic car accident and who turned up for work the same day in a state o shock being told: you must take the AFTERNOON off!!!

I took will instructions for the widow of a solicitor who shot himself in his own office (having walked into work carrying a shot gun) - absolutely no thought was given by his colleagues that fateful day to calling for assistance lest the reputation of the firm suffer; although to be fair the staff were only real concerned as to whether his suicide might affect their holiday bookings!!!

Again I acted in the administration of an estate of a partner of the firm who worked a six day week right through his bowel cancer only to be asked after his death to help the partners cook the books so as to minimize their payout liability to the widow (when that didn't work they broke every professional conduct rule in the book by going behind my back and my client advice and succeeded ultimately in cheating the widow out of at least £48,000).

When the Working Time Regulations came into effect (regulations designed to reduce the impact of long hours on health and well-being; depression being a typical symptom of overwork) the firm I was working at ran around to every fee earner with an opt out agreement which was deemed a prerequisite for continued employment? Sound familiar to anyone else?

Partners see depression as either a hustle to get on the sick or as evidence of professional incompetence and they always will unless they are at real risk of losing money for not taking it seriously.

Partners see their staff as resources, not as people: indeed for all their talk of modernizing outlooks they still employ Human Resource Managers (not Staff Welfare Managers).