Psychopathy in Lawyers

I recently read a journal article on psychopathic leaders, who are not motivated by fame, money, or prestige. Instead, they are motivated by the need to control other people. In this embodiment, the leader does not care at all about the success of the group, and only marginally cares about his own compensation. Instead, what he cares most about is that he's the one pulling the strings and exploiting other people. This is a toxic and unhealthy motivation, but it's all too common among attorneys, including environments I have worked in. The combination of being a then-newer attorney who didn't understand what was happening, plus being then-poor and needing money, was disastrous for my crude effort to avoid working in a toxic environment. I made the wrong choice not once, not twice, but three times, and ended up in horrible situations through my own inability to see these traits. Knowing now what I wish I had known then, I would have stayed far away from the opportunities that presented. But I couldn't have known back then. I'm pulling back the veil on psychopathy in law firms and, in a sense, gaining revenge justice on the folks who engaged in manipulative, toxic, and/or psychopathic behavior during the early years of my career.

Wayne McFadden

It was August 2009. I had just been non-selected from a government agency's recruiting pipeline for ridiculous and untrue reasons. I found myself unemployed and living with the folks, and desperate to get out of there. I had recently moved back to San Mateo from San Rafael, where I had been living while working at my uncle's law firm in Santa Rosa. In other words, I was in a vulnerable state. I couldn't find any jobs online, so at the suggestion of a family member, I called a couple of connections and asked to "interview for information." One interview for information was at the now-dissolved Borel Bank in San Mateo, where I met one of the executives. She referred me to Wayne McFadden, who was represented to be a local attorney with his own law firm who might have an opening for a smart, talented, hard-working young man such as myself. Had I known then what I know now, I would have quit law and joined the Army, which was an option back then. But I digress.

I contacted Wayne's office and they said that yes, they did have an opening for a 3-5 year associate litigation attorney, and would I like to come in for an interview? Solely because the bank executive had referred me to his office, I went in for the interview. What struck me about Wayne's office (his own building, by the way) was the amount of crappy art pieces on the walls showing groups of people and/or humanoid figures. The banker had told me that Wayne was a "people person" who had formerly been the Mayor of Foster City. I assumed he was, like many "people people," simply interested in people and politics, which can be entirely normal.

I was offered the job on the spot as an hourly attorney at a generous hourly rate. I thought I had done well. However, the cracks appeared on day one. First, Wayne did not give a shit about any client or about the quality of the work produced by the firm. He walked around the office constantly asking people what they were doing and dictating what they should be doing. When it hit 5 p.m., he would host dinners in the office for himself and his wife and their guests, and also celebrate and proselytize their Christian faith, while lawyers in the law firm were still working on cases. So far, this is not out of range for what would be expected in a small law firm owned by an individual.

The first actual illegal thing Wayne asked me to do was in connection with a family law matter. We had to have DissoMaster to do a support calculation, and Wayne did not have DissoMaster. He asked me to falsely register a trial copy of DissoMaster under my own name, but on his computer, in order to get the free trial, and then use the program until the free trial expired-- then repeat the process by registering free trials under other people's names for as long as I needed DissoMaster. DissoMaster at that time cost $350 per year or something. What the hell was this guy's problem? Red flag! This coincided with him making negative comments about clients, such as that clients were buffoons or pieces of shit, or something substantially equivalent to that.

From that point forward, it became clear that Wayne did not care at all about lawyering, clients, legal compliance, or other important things involving law. He also didn't seem to be hurting for money or caring about money. So the thing with DissoMaster was not actually about the $350. It was about control and wanting to take advantage-- a common theme at Wayne's office. A week or two later, I discovered what I believed to be overbilling and fraudulent invoices, which were all done by Wayne's wife. This was straight out the movie The Firm, in which Mitch McDeere discovers that the law firm has taken his time sheets, altered the time entered, and then billed the client the altered number. I'm not saying it was exactly the same-- I'm saying that, at a minimum, Wayne and his wife were grossly and recklessly indifferent to accuracy of the firm's bills, which were shockingly large considered the low quality of work done at the firm. I resigned shortly thereafter due to the illegal and unethical practices in the firm, with my total time at the firm being about one month. I've never told this story because it's embarrassing that I went to work for this guy at all. The bottom line is that Wayne McFadden presented a number of questionable traits, and I didn't want to be a part of his firm. I was so disgusted by this experience that I rage-quit law for five months and went to work briefly in Information Technology to heal.

Robinson & Wood, Inc.

It was March 2010. I was working in a major university's I.T. department, which was one of the worst jobs I've ever had (another story). I decided to return to law practice after the disastrous month-long stint at Wayne McFadden's office. I did what I never should have done: I looked on Craigslist in the legal jobs section and found what I thought was an interesting opportunity in San Jose. I didn't actually want to work in San Jose, but I was desperate to return to law after six months off. So I responded to the firm's ad, and was promptly contacted by Joseph Balestrieri, one of the law firm owners. The opportunity was represented to be heavy-hitting trial and litigation work for a "prominent" "leading" law firm in San Jose. What a freaking joke. In any case, Joe straight-up lied to me during the interview, where he represented the position paid $85,000 with a bonus for excellent work (I had told them my salary expectation was $100,000 before the interview, which felt like a bait and switch that they still brought me in). After the interview, the following exchange occurred over email:

Dear Joe,

Thank you again for the offer of employment with your firm.  I am very
interested in the position and in the opportunities that would be
presented in working for a preeminent litigation firm such as Robinson &
Wood.

I have done some research on prevailing rates in the community, including a recent interview for a similar position.  Based on my research as well as the costs involved in relocating and joining various community organizations in order to develop business, I was hoping to make somewhere in the mid 90's.

However, I recognize that your firm is a unique opportunity for various reasons, and I would very much like to work there and start on Monday. May I ask whether your firm would be willing to go to $90,000 for me?

Best,

Andrew Watters

The best we can do at this time is $85,000.  Join us, knock our socks off, and earn a raise and bonus.  Let me know,  Joe

OK, so I started at Robinson & Wood on April 5, 2010. First thing I noticed was that all the law firm's partners appeared to hate each other. They would loudly argue and also exchange nasty emails with each other. Nowhere was this more apparent than with Jon Zimmerman, with whom I had a run-in later in 2010 when I spent $150 on the firm credit card for a hotel the night before an important site inspection in order to avoid traffic, and he made me pay it back to the firm (illegal) because his clients "don't authorize lodging inside of 200 miles" or something like that. Even though I had to be at the site at 7 a.m. and could not have driven there from Santa Clara in less than three hours. In other words, in order to save $150, he was expecting me to get up at 4 a.m. and sit in three hours of traffic. F--- that guy.

The unhealthy tendencies of the law firm and its partners continued for the rest of 2010. It was a toxic, awful place to work, with constant strife and discord. Don't get me wrong: there were some decent folks there, such as Art Casey and Chris Karick, but they were the exceptions to the rule. The highlight of my day was going to a nearby Round Table Pizza for lunch to escape the ridiculous and horrible law firm environment. At $85,000 per year, I had to eat at fast food places just to survive.

In September 2010, I noticed that my hours were far below the firm's billable hour requirement because there was not enough work to do. This continued for three months (October, November, and December 2010). I was putting up as many hours as I could legally record, but there simply wasn't enough business at the law firm. So that earlier talk from Joe about earning a bonus went up in smoke-- no one is going to pay a bonus when the hours are below the requirement. It was not my fault-- I was the associate and my job was to do the work, not bring in business. But I was the one suffering. What stands out to me in this time frame is the whole situation with the mediation brief that I did for Joe on a small case that was being litigated to death. The short version is that he placed no restrictions on the assignment while instructing me to be "very detailed" -- "VERY DETAILED" -- in the brief. I turned in the brief and he got angry with me for spending so much time on it. I had to gently remind him that he had asked me to be "very detailed" while also giving no guidance on the amount of time to spend. I was in the right for that one, plus it was an outstanding brief.

The situation at the firm came to a head in December 2010. I had started looking for another job because the hours situation was impossible to sustain without layoffs, and I was sure that I as the new guy would be laid off. So I had sent out a couple of applications and had an interview set up with the next firm I ended up joining, WealthPLAN (see below). But I didn't have an offer yet, so I was kind of stuck. And then the firm's holiday party happened.

At the law firm holiday party in December 2010 in front of everyone (40 people whose attention he had), Joe said into the microphone during a party game that he thought I should have been "a porn star" instead of a lawyer. No idea where that came from, but it was a humiliating and embarrassing comment that (in combination with other issues) prompted me resign two weeks later. F--- that guy. I later spoke with some of the staff and they said they were proud of me for doing that, though it was not directly in response to his shocking and inappropriate comment.

Protip: when people shit on you just because they can-- and when they don't even have to-- that is a sign of psychopathy and you should avoid those people at all costs. Incidentally, our shared secretary was awful, and I was told that the law firm hired her so that Joe wouldn't have another affair with his secretary and then marry her (lol). Joe got Parkinson's some years later and no longer practices law.

WealthPLAN, LLP

Where to begin...I'll start with the fact that they made me jump through a lot of hoops just to get hired at $99,999 per year (the number on my W-2 for 2011 was a dollar less than my agreed $100k contract-- just because JJ wanted to mess with me, I think). This was back when Frank Doyle was alive. Frank was an interesting guy and I don't doubt that his heart was in the right place. But the disastrous, horrible experience at the firm reflected poorly on him for his failure to rein in his law partner, JJ Mallein. JJ was a horrible person who intentionally would make people feel worthless just because he could do so. The staff would come to me and say they were having nightmares and PTSD because of his toxic behavior. I was again the new guy, so what could I do except listen? And I was not in a position to make demands considering that I had no book of business and was stuck in this dead-end job. I wish I had never worked there.

The facility at WealthPLAN was the worst run-down office building I have ever seen-- and I've seen some dicey places. It had broken elevator buttons and a couch that looked like it belonged in a homeless shelter. Frank and JJ should have been straight-up embarrassed to have their office in that location. The worst part was that the bathroom was inside the office, and Frank would smoke his pipe while in the stalls, so you would get bathroom smells mixed with tobacco smoke permeating the office every time Frank decided to visit the bathroom. JJ was a freaking robot and I don't even know what he is like as a person except what I saw at the office, which was a full-on cybernetic machine, not a human being. That was a horrible year and a half before I again rage-quit in disgust in July 2012. After that, I was a contract attorney for four years and officially started my own law firm in 2016, vowing never to repeat the toxic and occasionally sadistic things that happened to me and in environments where I previously worked. To be fair, WealthPLAN is now run by John Doyle and has a much nicer office. But back then, it was awful.

Conclusion

Why is it that many lawyers are like this? I believe it stems from a lack of agency during childhood development. Meaning the child does not have any sense of free will or choice, or they see over and over again that their choices don't matter. So they seek a career that affords them a measure of control to compensate for their lack of control in their formative years. Law is one such career. That doesn't explain the sadistic tendencies, though. Not sure where those come from-- maybe the same place.

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