Verbal Abuse on the Job

I am a small practice legal secretary for a firm of three lawyers. The job pays reasonably well and I am not in a position where I can quit my job, as equivalent employment in my area would be very difficult to find. I have been working here now for about 3 months. 2 of the lawyers are fine, but the senior partner is an abusive bully, to me and even to the other lawyers in the firm. He will give me an assignment to complete and then he will invariably end up screaming at me for my having failed to include some information that he didn’t ask for and that I couldn’t have know he wanted. He really makes me feel stupid sometimes and I have to remind myself that I didn’t do anything wrong and that I can’t read his mind if he won’t tell me what he wants. He generally likes to wait until there is at least someone else within earshot before yelling too, so he’s got an audience and so other people think I am incompetent, which I am not.

He also loves to wait until almost the end of the day, often as he is leaving before giving me some task he knows will take hours to complete so that I have to stay late. I could go on, but basically the guy is a complete jerk and if I had any legitimate alternatives I wouldn’t stay another day. I am often in tears by the time I get home at night and I am often still seething over the day at work as I lie in bed at night. As it is though, I think I need to try to make this work for a while, but what can I do to make him back off a bit? Is it a good idea for me to confront him on his bullying or will this just make things worse? Is what he is doing against the law? At this point I would love it if he got what’s coming to him for the way he treats everyone.