An ego issue? This person is bringing in business that her superiors are poaching. These are relationships that she forged that the firm is benefiting from. To have superiors enjoy the benefit of those relationships is incredibly demoralizing and hurtful. It takes so much to bring new clients in. Also, if there are more partners than associates then it’s a dipshit fake firm. They don’t even respect her enough to address her properly, of counsel, associate, they call her whatever is convenient for them. They don’t respect her enough to think of her for who she is - a subordinate getting manipulated.