Why are law firms full of unpleasant people?

[Pinksandsandgin]

I work at a law firm and it seems that the law attracts unpleasant people. My firm has some lovely, smart, interesting, people. It also has a significant minority of utterly unpleasant people. Usually not smart but driven by material things.

Schools are the same IME.

Housing is quite nice though.

People don't go into corporate law for any other reason than money.

That's a certain kind of person.

You're in the wrong firm. I work in a law firm (personal injury, not corporate). Everyone is genuinely lovely.

In my experience you're more likely to get the divas in the large firms, not the smaller regional ones.

Corporate law will attract some money and status obsessed people, as well as those who are competitive. The actual work can favour those who are hard nosed and I found the atmosphere could be cut throat. So all those reasons!

Law school was the same. I had a small bunch of lovely friends but a lot of the people were very avaricious and I couldn't relate to them at all (it reminded me of the years I spent at private.school in that sense)

There are lovely lawyers but they often find particular niches. Unfortunately in many big firms it is aggression and Machiavellian behaviour that gets you to the top.

I've moved to a lovely niche now, in a third sector organisation and love it

In all the law firms I've ever worked in the nastiest people have been the support staff

I found working in BigLaw that 80% of the people were lovely and 20% of them were insanely competitive, totally driven by the money and status and would do whatever it took to win at all costs, including against other colleagues.

That being said, I've never heard of anything in law anywhere near as bad as the backstabbing bitchy tactics of higher education/academia.

A bit unfair @Letsgetouttahere2023 . I went into it (a very long time ago) because I liked how you didn't have to have a winner and a loser like in litigation and you didn't have to deal with people's personal relationship issues like in family.

It did however take me a while to find a corporate team with nice people in it.

Not all law firms are full of unpleasant people though OP. Unfortunately you are rewarded for billing £££ so people get very protective of their own work and clients which can breed a certain culture.

Never worked in a law firm but certainly in a school there was the same - a noticeable percentage of unpleasant, egotistical people.

I work briefly alongside nhs hospital staff - again some unpleasant staff - drs, nurses, HCA.
GP practices were much nicer.

Agree with pp about academia. Some seriously unpleasant, vindictive types!

Academia depends on the subject though. Humanities far worse than maths.

I work in a niche corporate team in a magic circle firm and can genuinely say that everyone in my team is lovely. Same in my previous US firm.

I think probably every workplace has its proportion of unpleasant people- you just see the ones in yours.

I wonder what the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant is in the general population. I’ve only ever worked facing the general public. The busier the place, the more the ratio tipped to mostly unpleasant.

Well it depends what the general public are doing there. When I am doing public facing jobs in the heritage industry people are almost uniformly lovely, because they are there having a nice day out. When I worked in Waterstones in the run up to Christmas there were plenty of wankers. Except it was probably the same people but in the latter scenario they were stressed out over their Christmas shopping.
I can imagine receptionists in doctors’ and A&E get the shitty end of the stick behaviour wise because people are scared and in pain.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel That’s true. Busy = stress for most people.

It's not exclusive to law!

Barristers are another level. I am seriously thinking of quitting after today.

All my support staff were lovely. But then we treated them well....

My firm has a mostly unspoken "no dickheads" rule - means we genuinely have a really nice workforce. Can highly recommend it as a recruitment approach!

My neighbour is a barrister and he is seriously unhinged

Yes, this. In my organisation 90% of the lawyers are really nice, and 90% of the support staff are a bloody nightmare.

Barristers I know are mostly nice enough but a lot of them exude an irritating know-it-all smugness that is achingly self assured. I find it shakes my own confidence to be around them. It's weird.

Yeah I’ve had some amazing secretaries and some real bitches. Paralegals on the whole seem to be great to lawyers and especially suck up to partners. But my god are they envious and condescending to trainees.

I suspect there are good and bad workplaces in all professions. In my experience, most law firms treat their staff significantly better and more fairly than many charities do and the working environment, although it can be brutal in terms of hours/workload, is often significantly more pleasant and respectful.

Lol, there's lots of dicks and lots of nice people in every field.

Law firms are no worse than anywhere else. But each firm has its own culture - so if yours doesn’t suit I highly recommend finding another.