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Legal Secretary Files Wrongful Termination Suit, Alleging Work-Related Panic Attacks

By Lynne DeVenny

Many legal professionals are suffering under the weight of crushing workloads, especially after layoffs and hiring freezes. Some people manage, with complaints that the quality of the final work product is not as good, while others slowly decompensate, dreading work every day, but stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to function effectively but unable to afford the loss of a paycheck. Others quit under the stress - or get fired.

Law.com is reporting that Nancy Topolski, a former legal secretary at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, based in Seattle, Washington, filed a wrongful termination suit against the BigLaw firm after she was fired in November 2009 - allegedly because she suffered panic attacks after she was assigned to support a fourth attorney, Greg Chaimov.

The suit includes an allegation that Chaimov "had a tendency to wait until the last minute to give assignments to Plaintiff, which ended up causing projects to be rushed and completed to standards lower than Plaintiff desired."

I bet I'm not the only legal professional with an over-flowing in-box and 500 unanswered emails, thinking that you'd like to have that statement cross-stitched, framed and hung over your desk.

The article includes input from Patricia Infanti, the new president of NALS, who discusses the affect of layoffs on remaining staff and truthfully says that some people handle the increased workloads better than others.

As a long-time employee of a SmallLaw firm that specializes in labor and employment law, representing the worker or the "little guy," I see many employers allege just cause as a legal basis for termination. But Topolski was valued enough to survive the earlier layoffs, so it might be hard to prove that her work performance was not satisfactory up until the point that a fourth lawyer was added to her load. She says she became completely overwhelmed and reached out for help, and instead of support, experienced a mental health crisis and got fired.

Sure, I've seen some of the unsympathetic opinions denigrating her ability to handle the last-minute deadlines common to law firms. But I suspect there are plenty of legal professionals out there in the same position of suffering severe anxiety or panic attacks in response to rapidly mounting caseloads with no end in sight - who can relate to and sympathize with Nancy Topolski.

Source: Law.com

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on March 25, 2010 (boomark / email).