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The week started off like any other. I rolled out of bed, happy that we seemed to have finally found the key to getting Andrew to sleep through the night. Amazingly, it was as simple as putting Food Network on the tv in his room. (Apparently when we changed the channel one night to watch something, around 1:00 every morning the programming turned "scary" and either screams or gunshots from some variation of Law and Order would wake him up and freak him out)

We got up early and I managed to cruise into the office before 8, giving me the ability to start in on banging out a motion before most people got to the office. Around 9:15, the head of the commercial lit department buzzed me and asked if I could come join him in his office. When I walked in, another partner was sitting there. Oh-oh was the first thought that went through my head...

I had no idea...

The equity partners had met that morning and voted to cut my hours and pay by 20%. They questioned my commitment to the firm. To my own development as an attorney. To say that I was floored by their decision is the understatement of the century.

In subsequent meetings, which have consumed virtually every day of the week, I learned that they never talked to my direct boss about this - the guy who has gone out of his way to mentor me since the day I set foot in the office, who I've worked on every single one of his files for the past seven years. The partners seem to want this to be something that I'll look back on "fondly" in a year as the kick in the ass I needed to be the best possible Jaime I could be. And these guys actually thought that I would "embrace" this.

After 7 years, I can say definitively that they don't know me at all.

How can they question my commitment to the firm? I'm still the same person who last winter practically moved into the office, working 21 hours a day to get a trial together. There was nothing that I didn't do, manage, handle. The partner wanted for nothing - because I anticipated everything he needed and did it better than he expected. Because of my work, we achieved a phenomenal result for the client. I'm still the same girl who, six months later, learned an entire new area of law in a week to get ready for another trial because the partner whose file it was hadn't learned admiralty law during the course of his 3 years living that file.

They don't think I get my name out there? Show me another attorney who has published 20 articles in ONE year. To write those articles, I have to be in regular contact with bar leaders across the state and the country. And I'm now the editor-in-chief of both state and national publications. I have a higher ranking position in the hierarchy of the national organization than anyone else in my office. I sit as a member of senior leadership of the bar, on counsel (which makes all the strategic plans for the organization) and am one of two people in line to be the next communications director of a national organization.

My biggest client generates more than double my salary. Show me one other associate who can say that ONE client generates that much income for the firm.

I've gone out of my way to mentor every new attorney who has come through the office. I make the people around me better attorneys. And isn't that exactly the kind of player you'd want on your team? Someone who elevates the play of the whole team simply by being on the same field...

I suppose that I can say this slap in the face has been one hell of a wake up call. I suppose it did make me think about the kind of attorney I am and that I want to be. And I need to be somewhere that my talents and my contributions are actually appreciated... Unfortunately I'm not at an office who seems to acknowledge anything that I do for them.