The Commercially Savvy Lawyer: How to Survive a Toxic Culture

I'm going to share a secret. Since the age of 11, I have been - on and off - a victim of bullying both at school and at various jobs I have had through the years. I am not sharing this to paint myself as a victim (as a victim I am not.) Admittedly, I was a sensitive child who would cry at the drop of the hat. I did not get bullied much in grade school - it wasn't until we moved to Southampton, Long Island all year round in 1984 when I was in 7th grade, that I got my first taste of "mean girls" (and boys and teachers.) Living in the Hamptons all year long as opposed to just spending your summers there are two entirely different kettles of fish.

I got bullied almost from the get-go and it was extremely unpleasant. My parents made sure I had the nicest clothes. This might have made things worse for me because the other girls knew how much they cost because the clothes came from local boutiques. Also, I stood out. I am half Irish and half Egyptian and there weren't many "exotic" creatures like me and my siblings out there at the time. And despite being a tween, I had a pretty sophisticated vocabulary so I was like an uber-nerd in their eyes. Then, I had the audacity to get onto the field hockey team, which was met with angry comments from some girls that I didn't deserve to be on the team because I was new to the school. Forget that I was better on the field than them and had a natural athletic ability. I was not allowed, according to a few young women, to get the place on the hockey team that I had earned.

What did the bullying look like? It was outright taunting, name-calling, exclusion to the point of feeling like I did not exist. My mother didn't stop dressing me well - in fact, she dressed me better than initially, which may have invited more bullying, ironically. How did I react? I shut down. I stopped talking a lot (I was and am a chatty person.) I lost my connection to myself and I allowed the bullying to steal my joy. Because these were my teen years, I was too insecure to not let the bullying affect me deeply, and, typically, I went out of my way to try to fit it. This didn't work out so well, either, as that created a whole lot of extra social pressure. As an adult, I just am.

Fast forward to adulthood, the bullying I have experienced ranged from the very subtle dig - "YOU got an A?" from a frenemy in law school to outright threats from sinister supervisors at work ("You're still here? My plans to assassinate you this weekend seem to have failed.")

When I started working and first experienced bullying at work, I really took it personally and I let it affect me. I fed the bullying and the bullying fed my "new lawyer insecurities." Eventually, I realized that bullying is au fait at work, especially in the GCC where employment laws are not equipped to deal with bullying so there is no recourse and no compensation for the bullied. I believe in Bahrain and Qatar, the victim must seek redress through criminal courts.

The array of bullying I personally have experienced in my various jobs has looked like this:

• Before I passed the NY Bar, I had landed a very senior job, which I started with a Lebanese lawyer who did have a law license and yet started with a less senior title than I did. He bristled at this and he made things difficult for me - first when we shared an office for three months, he made a point to have very violent and loud phone calls while I was working hard and trying to pass my probationary period. When I asked him to take it elsewhere, he refused and carried on yelling. Later, when we had his own office, he tried to set me up with the help of the trainee lawyer, who did nothing but read her own book all day, to get me fired, which he failed to do;
• I made the mistake of being too honest in my exit interview when I was leaving one job, which was supposed to be treated in confidence but the HR guy shared it with everyone, subsequent to which I was subjected to severe retaliation, including the threat of legal and police action;
• I was iced out of social events that took place in a small office I worked at where it was too small to exclude anyone. Professionally, they tried to put a supervisor above me who was not doing well so that he could be boosted by my successes. Had they not been bullying me so relentlessly, I would have been happy to support my failing colleague. But they tried to bully me into submission by failing me in my performance review, despite my demonstrable successes, so it became impossible to work with them and keep my self-respect. This was the most disappointing experience since it was a British law firm. The guy who was supposed to supervise me smeared me to other lawyers. I know this because a very distinguished Bahraini lawyer with her own firm turned to him in a meeting and made a point of telling him, "Sonya is a very good lawyer." I thought it was odd and then I realized they were bad mouthing me to others, which is why the junior lawyers in the firm and where I was seconded were treating me like I didn't count;
• At one new job, I had to fight through jealousy and politics just to take the actual desk that was assigned to me. This went on for several months and was perpetrated by a junior married lawyer who seemed to have a sexual relationship with my married supervisor and used that relationship to climb the corporate ladder. This lady was not only stubborn but could be physically aggressive and was wont to snatch things out of my hand (or try to);
• At one job, I had asked the General Counsel of the Legal Department that I be compensated for the nearly 6-month delay that the company had caused me, which caused me to spiral into a state of financial instability which is a dangerous state in which to be in the GCC - when I told him the company had caused my financial indiscretion, he refused to take responsibility and called me a "pattern troublemaker." I never got the 6 months salary but, goodness, did I ever get a Ph.D. in Street Smarts and people. What I came to understand after the fact was that the General Counsel and some of the other lawyers were part of a very dangerous gang in the company - that General Counsel was reputed to be using a fake law license and is now sitting pretty in a law firm in London where he is a partner - who says crime doesn't pay?;
• The supervisor who wanted to assassinate me also cried bloody murder when I started out-performing him (he was literally doing nothing and that was on purpose because, it turned out, he was part of a gang that was stealing money from the company so his apparent incompetence was a ruse.) At the same time as he started making noise about my progress, I started getting hacked - both my work and personal emails got hacked regularly - it was a nightmare. Again, in retrospect, I realized that I had inadvertently stumbled into a lion's den and snake pit all at the same time - my progress was messing up their ostensible embezzlement plans - because once you set up a foreign office you also need a corporate bank account which means their habit of transporting money in bags across the world (thus presumably enabling a lot of theft); and,
• At another job, I faced more jealousy from certain female colleagues who wanted jobs that were given to me, another noisy colleague who refused to stay quiet while I was working on billion-dollar contracts, and finally, a not very well-disguised set-up that entailed an investigation and basically ended my career there because despite handling massive agreements and making major contributions to the company, my new boss and colleagues could not handle me and they mobbed me. When this happens in the GCC, you are really at the mercy of the unjust and to make matters worse, at that time, you could not leave with even a little bit of debt - and the company can just refuse to pay you what they owe you leaving you stuck in the desert and at risk of incarceration.

When I think about the array and kinds of bullying I have experienced, I do not feel like a victim or any bitterness about it. I was always aware that this bullying was making me stronger as aptly expressed by Winston Churchill, "The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire." I learned so much about how to deal with bullies and toxic situations by having to deal with bullies and toxic cultures.

My takeaways on how to deal with toxic work cultures and colleagues or bosses are as follows:

• Don't take it personally. People who bully are deeply insecure and flawed humans. They can't get ahead based on merit, so they try to use sheer force. It's about them, not about you;
• Keep your life private. Do not bring the bullies home with you - leave them at work or wherever you find them;
• Don't feed the animals. Bullies can be and seem vicious, mean, vindictive, and ruthless. Don't obsess about them and stay as far away from them as possible at work. Don't engage and don't rise to any bait they throw your way;
• If you can't stay away from a bully, then bully the bully. In my long experience with bullies and toxic cultures, I found that the only way to deal with a bully is to bully the bully. This works because a bully does not expect to be bullied - a bully bullies to keep power and control. Don't be afraid, bullies are really big sacks of insecure jelly behind that mean facade;
• Surround yourself with positive colleagues, if available. If you work in a big enough company, find your tribe within the organization and stick with them;
• Document and complain and escalate the matter, if possible. Unless the entire organization is completely toxic, seek out the assistance of your HR person and see what can be done to mitigate the effects of the bullying. This will require you to have proof - in that case, take notes and document all instances of bullying. Get witnesses to back you up if possible;
• Leave. You are not a tree, you can leave - if the situation becomes untenable, work on getting a better situation and just leave; and,
• Protect your mental health. People have different tolerances for bullying and mental health must be protected at all costs. If you're facing issues consequent to having been bullied, seek help of some sort - either therapy or talk to your doctor or find a way to deal with it in a healthy way.

A commercially savvy lawyer knows how to deal with all kinds of people, including bullies..