Complaint Review: Kirkland & Ellis - San Francisco Office - San Francisco California

Per this article in the San Francisco Chronicle on February 24, 2006: Robert Sutton, a respected 52-year-old Stanford University professor, is a gentleman and a scholar. But that isn't stopping him from making liberal use of an unprintable vulgarity to kick off his new campaign to jerk-proof the American workplace. Sutton, a management science and engineering professor, says he's not trying to offend anyone with the blunt title of his new book, out this week, "The No -- hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't." But he felt he needed to use an "emotionally authentic" term to spur corporate America to stamp out boorish behavior that decreases productivity, drives away talented workers and destroys morale. "I am disgusted with the norm in business and sports that if you are a really big winner, you can get away with being a creep," Sutton said. "My dream is that leaders of all organizations will eventually treat acting like an -- hole as a sign of bad performance rather than an excuse for good performance." For getting away with being profane, Sutton owes a debt of gratitude to retired Princeton University philosophy Professor Harry Frankfurt, who penned a best-selling book in 2005 on the Platonic essence of bull manure. " 'On Bull -- ' opened up the market for books with dirty titles for professors from fancy universities," Sutton said. Even Sutton's six-figure advance was based on the sales of "On Bull -- ." Sporting a neatly pressed button-down shirt and khakis and a deep scholarly interest in the workings of high-technology, Sutton seems an unlikely gutter fighter for the rights and feelings of working people. But the preponderance of jerks, who use their position in the workplace to demean and sap the energy of others, has always bothered him. Sutton was familiar with the vast academic research into workplace bullying, but it wasn't until he used a profane word in a much-discussed Harvard Business Review essay that he realized the gut-level resonance it had with people. So he refused to go with a publisher who would insist on cleaning up his language. "This is language that people will remember and spread," he said. He even made sure the book was thin enough to slide underneath a boss' office door. Sutton fully expected title waves. But even he is a bit surprised at just how much attention he has attracted from all over the globe. The book already has been translated into a dozen languages, and he has given interviews to media organizations in as many countries. Sutton has received hundreds of e-mails and as many faithful visitors to his blog, all with their own nightmarish tales of suffering at the hands of mean bosses or co-workers. More than 13,000 people have taken his online " -- hole Rating Certified Self Exam" (ARSE for short). He even offers corporations a way to measure the "Total Cost of -- holes," or TCA. About 2,000 promotional " -- hole" erasers from his publisher, Warner Business Books, quickly became hot commodities in his campaign to rub out jerks at work. That campaign is making him something of a bookish, bespectacled rock star in Silicon Valley, where companies from Google to eBay to Yahoo, trying to create worker-friendly cultures, have invited Sutton to give talks on the subject. Silicon Valley certainly can lay claim to its share of outrageous accounts of brilliant but brutish technocrats mercilessly torturing their employees. Sutton uses Steve Jobs as the poster boy for a concessionary chapter on "The Virtues of -- holes." But Sutton says there's an unmistakable groundswell of support for his struggle to create a kinder, gentler workplace, particularly at a time when the war for talent is once again in high gear. " -- hole bosses and cultures drive good people out," Sutton said. "Having Google as the employer of choice for many young folks ... means they have to compete with people who really do try to adhere to the 'don't be evil' culture." Shona Brown, Google's senior vice president of business operations, might be too polite to use Sutton's preferred terminology, but she told Sutton that Google has a zero-jerk policy, he said. Lars Dalgaard, the 39-year-old CEO of San Mateo-based SuccessFactors and a major player in the rough-elbowed world of business software, identifies himself as a recovering Fortune 500 " -- hole." He realized as a young general manager that " -- holes stifle performance." So he explored more effective and humane ways to deliver results and hit financial targets. Now he's famous for mandating a strict "no -- hole" rule at his 475-employee company. Job interviews are lengthy and feature probing questions designed to uncover any browbeating tendencies. Last year, he took candidates vying for a chief financial officer vacancy to lunch at a local restaurant to see how they treated the wait staff. Some got a free lunch but nothing more. A welcome letter for new recruits spells out 15 corporate values, the last of which is: "I will not be an -- hole." "If you don't use coarse language, people become inured to it," Dalgaard said. "No one can hear it anymore. It doesn't even stop in the ear canal." Dalgaard demands that everyone treat one another with respect. And that means everyone. He encourages his colleagues to knock him down a few pegs if he falls out of line. Whenever he feels the temptation to revert to his old ways, he uses his company's own performance software to refresh himself on how to solve problems without creating bad feelings. Diego Rodriguez, an associate consulting professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford who works at innovation company Ideo in Palo Alto, is another Silicon Valley denizen known for urging organizations to develop a "shock-proof, bullet-resistant -- hole detector." Ideo screens out jerks to maintain its collaborative culture, Rodriguez says. "We are in the business of helping other companies be innovative and using the process of design as a way to get there," he said. "It's difficult to get things done if people feel they can't trust each other, be open with their ideas, feelings and insights or if someone is treating someone else poorly on a consistent basis. That just shuts the whole process down. With that in mind, we are very careful about filtering people out in the recruiting and hiring process to ensure people don't show up and ruin the experience for everyone else. ... Life's too short to work with jerks. It's one of our cultural pillars." A half-dozen other entrepreneurs have told Sutton they enforce a "No -- hole" rule when hiring and firing but use more polite terminology, he said. Sutton defines a jerk as one who oppresses, humiliates, de-energizes or belittles a subordinate or a colleague, causing that person to feel worse about him or herself. Tactics include personal insults, sarcasm, teasing, shaming or treating people as if they were invisible. He distinguishes between "temporary" jerks, those with the potential to act like jerks but who don't do so all the time, and "certified" jerks, who are routinely nasty. The certified jerks are the ones who pose the greatest threat to an organization's culture. Sutton then explores ways to implement a no-jerk rule and how to survive an environment that doesn't have one. He also warns organizations that being a jerk is contagious. Hire one, and you'll soon have plenty polluting the work environment. Sutton has had his own run-ins with jerks. As a young, inexperienced professor at Stanford, he received poor teaching evaluations from his students. He worked hard to become more effective in the classroom and was delighted when his students voted him the best teacher in his department at the end of his third year. His delight was short-lived. A colleague approached him, hugged him and whispered in his ear: "Now that you have satisfied the babies here on campus, perhaps you can settle down and do some real work." "It's a painful memory," he said, recalling his entrepreneur father's sage advice to avoid jerks in business at all costs. Sutton says the hardest thing for many people to acknowledge is that they themselves can be jerks. He readily admits he, too, can be a jerk. (If he didn't, his wife, a prominent Silicon Valley corporate lawyer, would remind him). But writing the book has helped him become less of one. "I view this as a problem that we all struggle with," he said. ----------------------- Dirty dozen actions that -- holes use 1. Personal insults 2. Invading one's personal territory 3. Uninvited personal contact 4. Threats and intimidation, both verbal and nonverbal 5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems 6. Withering e-mail flames 7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims 8. Public shaming or status-degradation rituals 9. Rude interruptions 10. Two-faced attacks 11. Dirty looks 12. Treating people as if they are invisible From "The No -- hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't"

My 2007 Review of Audrey Wulff - Secretarial Manager - Kirkland & Ellis LLP Audrey Wulff lacks the communication skills, management experience and educational background to be any major law firm's manager over greater than 10 employees. Ms. Wulff has not demonstrated any significant commitment to any particular career since her entry level Help Desk position at a law firm in 1999. Since this time, Ms. Wulff has not developed any proven track record as an I.T. Trainer she migrated to in 2001 from her Help Desk position. Shortly after a one year stint as the I.T. Trainer at Kirkland, Ms. Wulff applied for a secretarial coordinator position there. The two combined skills of I.T. training and Secretarial Management, neither of which Ms. Wulff has demonstrated any long standing development or education in, has resulted in her recent abuse of the at-will employment law to cover-up her incompetence. Ms. Wulff is hypocritical and demonstrates an unethical, despicable nature to be in her position under the circumstances, managing those who have far more applicable skills, proven track records and experience in their chosen line of work then herself. Ms. Wulff often plays the role of a politician, over inflating herself and background while being highly critical of good employees whose very nature threatens to expose her having such limited credibility to be in her position. Ms. Wulff manages employees like a socialist system in which those who work hard are highly criticized or deliberately burned out for sticking out from the crowd, while inexperienced or lazy employees are rewarded for not complaining about Ms. Wulff's incompetent management. Rating - Low Quality - over political, hypocritical, abusive in her militant demanding tone, lies, covers-up. She protects lazy workers while terminating anyone who exposes her incompetence as a manager. This is a knee jerk manager who over blows anything that comes to her attention for the sake of making it look like she's doing her job. She also abuses her Blackberry late at night in order to harass evening employees over insignificant matters that do not require her assistance. This is lower management at its worst.

The top attorneys in the country at this law firm are allowing inexperienced management personnel, who are overwhelmingly all women, to put their law firm in jeopardy of possible multi-million dollar malpractice lawsuits. Who in their right mind - such as any top Stanford law graduate attorney, would allow some dimwit former entry level Help Desk person to take over their management at their law firm in San Francisco, taking on all kinds of roles at any given moment, IT Trainer, Secretary Manager and Interim H.R. Manager - while putting in jeopardy the firm's success by the unprecedented, reckless hiring of entry level clerical workers with no legal background whatsoever, giving them a graduation certificate from her class after a few weeks? Any seasoned attorney should know that if any of those clerical workers ever commit any significant error that adversely affects their clients, that a client will, in fact, conduct discovery and an audit will bring forth this ridiculous and quite reckless management lunacy! These women in management get off on revenge and firing anyone who threatens their power. They asked the last H.R. manager to resign! Prior to that they had an Interim H.R. manager. They fire, fire fire, without warning over and over again. This, while hiring clerical personnel from Kaiser Permanente giving them some hideous graduation certificate and legal secretarial positions in a matter of a few weeks. Pathetic. Requirements to be the Legal Secretary Manager at Kirkland & Ellis LLP should be as follows: B.A. in Business Management 5 years experience as a manager of 10 or more people. Instead, this prestigious top law firm gives its former one year I.T. Trainer a management position over 30 secretaries. Zero management background! She thinks to herself, "uh, duh, let's see, I can't find any secretary applicants who can pass my tech tests I designed, so I think I'll like, uh duh, train entry level clerical workers with no legal background in my class and give them my autographed graduation diploma. Just unbelievable, and it's a wonder Morgan Stanley is still their client after this firm's huge mistake last year that was highly publicized. These attorneys are too enslaved to word processing their own documents to notice their management people don't know what the hell they are doing. "Uh duh - let's see, I think I'll hire clerical workers from Kaiser Permanente and then give them one of my signed autographed graduation diplomas and a job as a legal secretary. In the mean time, I'll set-up and fire an 8 year experienced legal professional who performed her job exemplary in 2 years, because she sees through my little scam con operation to glorify my lame sorry a*s."

I was in fact looking for a job and informed them that if the humiliation of me continued, I would seek counseling and other employment. I took one day off after the demotion of my position to that under the notaries. It was only the fourth day I took off all year. When I returned, that is when I was terminated. I got a job 3 weeks later from having sent out my resume during that time. THIS LAW FIRM FACES POTENTIAL MALPRACTICE LAWSUITS RESULTING FROM INEXPERIENCED CLERICAL WORKERS POSING AS LEGAL SECRETARIES WHO MAY COMMIT SERIUOS ERROS THAT AFFECT THEIR CLIENTS ADVERSELY - NOT TOO BRIGHT! Finally, this law firm is quite foolish to allow a former IT trainer with no management background to train and staff inexperienced clerical personnel who have no legal background or experience working in law firms. Most major law firms require at least 5 years of experience for its legal secretaries. It is very DANGEROUS for a law firm to employ clerical workers with virtually no legal background it trains a few weeks in tech to then turn them into legal secretaries in a matter of weeks. In fact, any error that such an inexperienced entry level legal secretary could commit could cost this law firm millions of dollars in MALPRACTICE lawsuits from clients who perform discovery to learn of this INSANE practice. Such top prestigious law firms hire seasoned, experiment legal secretaries for this very reason with at least 5 years experience. It's not too bright for a law firm to allow it's two management people to have such a stranglehold in management there firing any H.R. person who threatens their power. The bottom line is, these management people aren't very bright, and such a prestigious law firm should be much better in choosing management people that could potentially cost it millions of dollars in malpractice lawsuits. Duh, duh, duh - and this is one of the top law firms in the country - this is how they run their business, with amateur, inexperienced management people who fire seasoned hard working professionals like me while bringing on clerical workers from Kaiser Permanente who have zero legal experience. DUH, DUH, DUH, DUMB, DUMB, DUMB. This is supposedly one of the top prestigious law firms in the country - they allow themselves to be managed by CLOWNS in San Francisco.

You attacked the hierarchy. Keeping your head down and going with the flow as you look for a better job is usually the better strategy. If you had prevaled the career of Ms. Wulff would have been finished. Kaput. Over. She would have lost her authority in the organization. There is often a great difference between who has the 'higher' position in the organization chart and who has the real power in the organization. When you challenge a management superior one of you will 'go'. Usually it is the underling. An employment attorney can advise you. Tim - Valparaiso has pointed out in the past the differences between the 'written' law and case law, and that the latter usually prevails. When you work in a hierarchy, good work often takes a back seat to kissing up, because those in power will decree what is good work.

O/T worked for this review period - 107.5 hours. "The quality of Cheryl Merrill's work is always high and her consistency is as much a virtue as the quality of work itself. Cheryl is committed to helping the K&E team provide excellent client service and I am not aware of anyone that would consider her to be not well liked." Noah Boyens, K&E Associate "Cheryl is great to work with. Her attitude, willingness to help and technical skills are great and she is an asset to the firm. I can always look to her for her technical knowledge especially in Excel. I have a lot of projects where I need to manipulate data in Excel and she has always pulled through with her skills. Great working with you Cheryl." Aya Okuma, K&E Legal Assistant "Cheryl does Class-A work. She is dependable, prompt, and provides quality work product. Cheryl is also very responsible and follows-up well." Adam Alper, K&E Partner "I am very pleased with Cheryl's work product. It is a very infrequent occasion when I have to request additional revisions to a document that I have given to Cheryl for processing. Cheryl virtually always returns documents within the requested time period. All of my interactions with Cheryl have been pleasant and she has conducted herself in a professional manner." Stuart Casillas, K&E Partner "Cheryl is a real help. A good document person." Stephen Johnson, K&E Partner "Cheryl's work product is accurate, well done and meets deadlines. Cheryl is professional and easy to work with. Cheryl has an excellent sense of customer service." Patricia Costello, K&E Legal Assistant "Cheryl has the technical skills she needs. She does good work. She is knowledgeable about the latest technology, well-organized and current. Cheryl does very well handling multiple assignments and juggling work for several attorneys. Andy Bates, former K&E Associate "Cheryl really helped out when I had nobody else to turn to, which I really appreciate. She came in with very little notice to help out over the weekend on an urgent project. In the two projects for me, Cheryl was able to do both jobs without too much supervision or direction from me. Cheryl was very responsive and provided excellent service on the two projects I asked her to do." Terry Tang, K&E Partner "Cheryl does quality work, and she does it quickly. She worked on several projects for me this year and gave each appropriate attention to detail. I enjoy working with Cheryl and look forward to working with her in the future." Carl Jung, former K&E Associate Note: At the end of 2006, I was working for a significantly larger law firm in San Francisco that had added an entire floor in the 555 California Street tower buildings. Management there still failed to hire an evening secretary and my workflow had grown to sometimes insane proportions. Instead of addressing issues I raised over my increased workflow in a professional manner, the Secretarial Manager suggested I perform clerical tasks in her office during my down times. Ms. Wulff fired me within a few weeks of my initial written complaint to H.R. that she was abusive, harassing in nature and would not address unfairness between myself and my day staff counterpart. Further, Ms. Wulff preempted the interim H.R. Manager's position who I had been working with about the harassment / discrimination complaint, to fire me for writing I could no longer work overtime on the weekends, and that I was only available for job assignments that fell within the jurisdiction of my job description (e.g., no graphic design layout projects for invitations and projects they had previously requested). Yesterday I bumped into one of the H.R. support staff people this management team fired. Laurel said that this San Francisco Kirkland office has had management problems for a long time. The Kirkland San Francisco Office has also been working its two H.R. support staff assistants to the bone. They commonly work 14 hour days leaving as late as 11:00 p.m. at night. One of the staff members is always trying to find applicants who can pass Ms. Wulff's highly abnormally tests for legal secretarial staff. One has to wonder that the real issue with the S.F. office management team is power and control. If anyone seems to offer excellent service to attorneys, this management duo (Recht/Wulff) get jealous and try to put you down. For instance, my Technical Document Specialist position was placed below the Notaries in the Firm's hierarchy shortly after I requested a title change to TDS/Graphic Specialist. The Chicago home office utilizes this title for some of their more highly skilled employees. Vacation requests have often been denied due to the shortage of legal secretarial staff, or the requests require 3-4 weeks notice. The Firm promises 3 weeks a year for new employees. I was harassed by my supervisor Ms. Wulff for giving 2 weeks notice for a 1 week request. She complained it wasn't enough time, and the Interim H.R. Manager claimed it was a busy time of year. It was only my 2nd week I requested all year, in October of 2006. The only complaints I ever got from anyone in 2 years at this law firm were from the management duo of Recht/Wulff who were playing games, setting me up with little deadline window and deliberately trying to manipulate reality due to their control issues. Wulff would force me to work O/T until 1:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning when she called me late at night into my shift from her home with flippant, last minute edits to a document she wanted published on Saturday. (This had followed a request from Recht at 9:00 p.m. for a graphic design of an e-mail invigation.) Ms. Wulff did not even bother to ask about my availability to work O/T, she expected it. I stayed until 1:00 a.m. Saturday morning. I was terminated 11/06/2006 for 1) putting in writing I was no longer available to work O/T on the weekends 2) putting in writing that I was only available for work that fell within my TDS job description (e.g. no graphic design layouts for fliers and invitations where they had access to the support of "Graphic Design Specialists" from their Chicago home office). *No Warning *No Severance *Near the 2 year employment fulfillment (My anniversary was 12/6/06) to receive the firm's 401K matching contributions. *45 hours of overtime worked all year (correction from previous claim of 65). *Supervisor preempted interim H.R. Manager position (as she had the IT Trainer position previously to train secretaries for abnormal hiring practices) to fire me. This supervisor had no prior management background prior to her position at K&E. *********************** The Law: Company and Supervisor Liable for Retaliation Employers that retaliate against employees for complaining about discrimination will be liable and supervisors engaging in the same will be personally liable as well. A California Court of Appeal found that employees who engage in protected activities, such as filing discrimination complaints, serving as a witness in a discrimination complaint and openly opposing discriminatory practices, are protected from retaliation in the workplace. The court confirmed that if employees suffer adverse action or if the supervisor's actions would dissuade employees from making or supporting a discrimination claim, both the employer and supervisor can be held liable. Not only did the employee in this case suffer a demotion and decreased opportunities for advancement, the employer and supervisor's behavior deter other employees from complaining or assisting in enforcement of discrimination and retaliation protections. The types of actions taken by the supervisor combined with the timing of each action demonstrates the required "causal link" between employee-protected activity and the employer and supervisor's inappropriate actions, sufficient to support liability against both. Taylor v. City of Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power (November 20, 2006) 2006 Cal. App. LEXIS 1812. What Should You Do? Never retaliate against an employee who complains of discrimination. Objectively and thoroughly investigate any employee complaint and cooperate fully with any government agency (Department of Fair Employment and Housing, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission etc.) investigation. Properly train employees on how to handle discrimination claims and remind them that they can be personally liable.

I forgot to mention a very important fact in this report, was that I was working with the interim H.R. manager to resolve this dispute with my Supervisor. This temporary H.R. Manager was preempted by my supervisor, as she wasn't there that day, in my termination. Audrey Wulff, the supervisor I had valid issues I brought to the attention of H.R., terminated me for writing I could no longer work overtime on the weekends. First, At-Will employment isn't about firing an employee who suddenly doesn't suit your fancy, secondly, taking the H.R. Manager's position to terminate me as an employee was clearly retaliatory in nature for standing up to an abusive, unruly, out-of-control manager who had no real management experience.