(Photo by National Motor Museum/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
There are a variety of inconveniences that may befall you on any given day. But part of living in a polite society is managing those frustrations and not going nuclear on those who piss you off — even when you’re justified in your irritation. That’s something a Biglaw partner is figuring out the hard way.
Richard Pitt is a partner at Eversheds Sutherland in their Cardiff office, where he leads the Commercial Dispute Resolution team and is Co-Head of the Procurement team. But he’s getting a lot of attention, not for his lawyering skills, but for his anger management ones, or, more accurately, lack thereof.
Pitt was dealing with one of life’s frustrations — his reserved parking space in the office carpark was taken by another car. His spot was snagged by another attorney at Eversheds — a pregnant associate — and Pitt absolutely lost his shit.
See, Pitt never learned the Daniel Tiger strategy for dealing with anger. (Take a deep breath and count to four.)
No. Instead, the partner took his frustrations out on the pregnant associate — and those who had the misfortune of being parked next to her — trapping the car in the carpark. As reported by Roll on Friday:
When Pitt returned from the gym to find his spot had been taken he was “enraged”, said a source.
In a fit of pique he parked his car behind hers, lengthways, blocking in her vehicle and another colleague’s.
The associate discovered she was trapped and asked Pitt to move his car – believed to be a yellow Porsche – so she could go home.
“Richard’s response – a firm no”, said a source.
The associate was eventually able to maneuver her car out of the lot — no thanks to Pitt, but with the assistance of others who moved their cars to let her exit.
Sigh. Listen, parking squabbles can indeed be frustrating. And having your reserved spot snaked out from under you is definitely annoying. But Pitt loses all sympathy with his over-the-top response. You never know what someone else is going through, and giving those who frustrate you some grace is a great life skill — particularly when those people are colleagues you have to work with. Alas, that wasn’t to be.
But that wasn’t the end of it, as Pitt then asked his pregnant colleague to provide him with a written apology.
“Amazingly”, she did, said a source.
But that still wasn’t the end of it – the written apology was apparently “not good enough” and Pitt requested an in-person apology. At that point, the associate refused.
At least cooler heads have, at last, prevailed. Pitt apologized, telling RollOnFriday, “In the moment I made a regrettable error of judgement for which I apologise unreservedly.”
Eversheds Sutherland provided the following comment about the affair, “We are aware of the incident relating to car parking at our Cardiff office. The matter has now been satisfactorily resolved.”
Hopefully, Pitt will count to four next time he’s inconvenienced, lest he have to make another very public apology.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].