My name is Isabelle, and I am seeking for an advice.
I am a 22-year-old female who has been working at a law firm as an administrative assistant for a year. My plan has always been to go to law school, but I wanted to get some work experience beforehand. Unfortunately, I need to retake the LSAT, so I will have to work another year. When I first started, I was given many tasks and was the top attorney’s favorite. However, after another assistant was hired, all the tasks that used to be sent to me were sent to her. The attorney that used to send me all his requests started sending everything to her. Everyone in the office started greeting her instead of me. Even though I send mass emails to the attorneys saying I’m free and can assist with any task, I get nothing to do. To stay productive, I often ask my coworker if she needs help with anything. She accepts my help and sends me things she has had backed up for over a week. I am writing this at work right now because I have nothing to do, and none of the 70 attorneys responded to my email offering to assist. Despite my efforts, I feel like they think I’m incompetent and that’s why they send everything to her. This makes me feel terrible and disillusioned about coming to work every day. I’m looking for advice on how to deal with this situation, but I’m not sure what else I can do considering that no one responds when I offer to help.
I think there’s a term for this called “quiet firing” so they can push you to quit so you don’t collect unemployment, so that’s probably why they’re not giving you any work in hopes you’ll leave. It does sound like a personality conflict and only want her to the be administrative assistant. I would either apply to other jobs asap or wait to get fired/let go to collect unemployment.
A law firm is aware of the phone calls you make and how you use its computers. It would be hard to do that and generally, I think it’s a bad idea. Law firms bill clients and if there is any question about billable hours, there will be a serious problem. Your integrity and honesty will be called into question. I know that some Redditors think everything’s a game. It is not in a law firm. In addition, OP may need a strong recommendation from lawyers at the firm for law school.
At every firm I’ve worked for, the secretary’s time was billed to the client if it was a task for the benefit of a particular client like typing a brief or a contract. Secretaries had to keep diaries describing how they used their time just like everybody else.