The Repeating of History

So that Indian single mother lawyer got fired. I knew it was coming, because first Turkey wasn't giving her any work to do. This by the way, is a sign you're about to get fired. Then he handed her a binder full of articles he's written, and told her to memorize them and he'd quiz her on them the next day. Now, if someone did that to me, I'd cry. She did not. Apparently she went to law school and was familiar with memorizing large amounts of ridiculous information and was actually preparing to take the binder home and cram all through the night. But she got fired and it was the day after she signed a lease that locked her into paying rent for a year.

So now Turkey has a new baby lawyer starting Tuesday. She's like a preemie baby, because she hasn't even taken the bar yet. So she'll work for a month or two, then take a month or two off to study for and take the bar, and then come back. My prediction? Based on the fact that we don't even have enough work right now for the employees currently working, once she's left to study, she will get a call telling her not to bother coming back.

This poor girl is going to show up on Tuesday all bright and shiny in a new suit, with her hair blown out and shoes polished, ready to smile big and make a great impression on everyone. Meanwhile she has no idea she's about to begin working for a pathological liar who takes great pleasure in playing psychological warfare and driving people crazy.

It's not my place to say anything to this new girl. There's nothing to say, really. I mean the WASP has been there for over five years. I didn't get fired after two months - I've been there since April. The billing guy just got a huge promotion - he took over 75% of what Office Manager used to do. So some people do succeed at this firm.

The first person to arrive in the mornings is always me. Except for when there's a new eager beaver baby lawyer around - then they like to show up before me to appear enthusiastic, ready to work both early and late at the drop of a hat. I must make sure to not make any negative comments to her about working here. If it goes anything like it did with the single mom lawyer though, at some point she'll come to me with the comments. Not necessarily negative, but more confused. Turkey loves nothing more than having meetings with people, saying he'll discuss things with you during said meetings, acting stressed about all the meetings he has, and then giving conflicting and incomplete instructions during said meetings. One day last week he had three meetings with Billing Guy. In ONE DAY. This'll be interesting.

Changes Keep Coming

As of last night a cold has joined me, so I need to get to bed soon. But first, just wanted to get out a few things. Here are the gifts I got from work:

1. A dark red wine-colored throw, which I exchanged for a light blue/gray/silver one instead. It is so much better having this on my bed as a second blanket instead of my shower towel!
2. $50 from one of our sub-tenants. You might ask, "What do you do for them?" Here's what: I put all their mail aside for their guy to come pick up, I reserve conference rooms whenever they need one, I receive their clients whenever they show up and sometimes help them.
   
3. 2 really funny drinking glasses from one of my favorite stores from the hot gay sub-tenant with a cute note.
4. A bonus from the Turkey that's more than one paycheck but less than two. He must have used some sort of formula to decide how much of a bonus to give, but I can't crack the code for the life of me.
   
5. A small box of chocolates from the sweatpants-wearing corpulent guy who (apparently) still has a crush on me.
   

Talk about making out like a bandit! This is the first year in ages where I've gotten a bonus, and it's an awesome feeling.

Our office manager is still sorely missed, but the billing guy has taken over most of what she used to do, and seems to be doing a great job. He's super-easy to work with, very straight-forward, no mindfucks of any sort, which is fabulous and exactly what we need.

Turkey and Personal Assistant are in some sort of awful power struggle. I will have to blog some back-story for you on her, but I think she'll wind up fired soon. Which will suck since all the random shit she does will get passed to me.

Next week a new baby lawyer starts. Which is weird, since there's barely enough work for our WASP. It's also weird because she hasn't taken the CA bar yet, so she'll work for us for a month, then leave to study for the bar for a month or two, then come back. What is that? I don't see this working out well. My prediction is that she'll work for a month and then while she's out studying the Turkey will tell her not to come back. Next week will be interesting. Baby Lawyer is super professional, and I anticipate her going into shock at Turkey's shenanigans.

You've Been Served

My office sub-leases office space to a few other lawyers. This means sometimes people show up to see them, people drop things off for them, etc. Not all the of lawyers are in our office full-time. One entire law firm has their main office in another part of the Bay Area, and they rent a small space from us. Every so often they call us and request to reserve the conference room or small office, and they show up for a few hours.

On Thursday, an old woman came in and announced she wanted to serve me. I asked who exactly, she wanted to serve. She mentioned one of our sub-tenants. Immediately I picked up the phone to call that lawyer's other office, to make sure it was kosher to accept service on their behalf. The lawyer was really nice, and assured me it was okay. He told me the woman was a new lawyer and imagined she was quite young. As she looked on, I stammered, "Uhh... it's actually in the opposite direction." There was a pause, and then, "Oh!"

This woman's hands were shaking! She was TERRIFIED. So, let's talk a little bit about process servers. Across the board, they're usually men. Now, sometimes it can be a dangerous job. Some people become really hostile when they get served. Usually men. If you're serving a corporation it's no big deal. But say a battered wife is filing for divorce and having an abusive husband served. Say the abusive husband with a temper gets served at work. They get embarrassed. They get loud. They then attract the attention of their coworkers and then feel humiliated that everyone knows. Then they get violent. Some people really do kill the messenger.

Anyway. Lawyers can act as process servers (in certain circumstances, maybe only in certain states), as this woman was. I've never seen any lawyer so blatantly nervous. She didn't arrive at our offices prepared, which struck me as unprofessional. When you're delivering documents, the documents should be in final, bound, stapled or clipped together neatly, and ready to be handed over.

This woman spread everything out on the front counter, and created a big mess of paperwork. The image of Pig-Pen came to mind. At one point, she asked me if she needed to clip the paperwork together. It's possible my jaw dropped before I collected myself enough to tell her, "I'm not a lawyer, so I really can't give you any legal advice." I wanted to shout, "Pull yourself together, woman! Think about what you're saying!" Even a layperson should know the answer to that one. If you're handing someone a document, should it look messy, or should it look professional? This is not rocket science. Clearly nerves had gotten the better of this woman. It was sad.

On Friday, the sub-tenant showed up, and wanted to confirm he'd reserved the conference room for an up-coming deposition. I love depositions! This news made my day. People get really freaked out if while they're speaking, someone is writing down every single little thing they say. And as long as a deposition is about individuals rather than corporations, emotions are flying high and you can count on drama.

The sub-tenant then informed me that the nervous lawyer would be at the deposition. He laughed as my eyes lit up in excitement. I hope they leave the conference room door open so I can listen!

Has No Idea

9am told me he's going home for a week at the end of the month. I asked if this would be a vacation or if he'd be working. He said there'd be a bit of work.

Then, 9am proceeded to tell me that he and his boss have a very informal relationship, so it's not uncommon for his boss to call him in the evening or on a weekend sometimes. 9am was never given a Crackberry. I have to keep reminding myself this is 9am's first experience in any law firm ever. He never summered at a firm.

So I shouldn't roll my eyes too hard that 9am is injuring his body patting himself on the back for working "after" work ends. Because he doesn't fully realize that's how it normally is, practically how it's supposed to be. Somebody should clue him in.

Bar Results

Just a shout out to all the little wannabe baby attorneys who found out their bar results tomorrow at 6pm. Good luck to you. Hopefully your friends and family don't know it will become public knowledge on Sunday.

As You Wish - Part 4

There was a lot of back and forth over whether The Company would pay for all the fees associated with Frank taking the bar exam. Some of it he didn't know about, some of it, he did. Frank wanted to take the bar in both Florida and New England. Of course The Company was only going to pay the fees associated with the Florida one. So of course, Frank told me about taking both exams, and told me not to tell anyone else.

What happened was that I'd give Frank a form to fill out, and he'd make a photocopy and fill it out twice, once for each state. And then instead of giving it back to me to get signed, he'd give it to the General Counsel to sign. After it was signed, he'd bypass me again and push the paperwork through again, saying I never sent the first one out, or lost it. I won't bore you with the details, but it took until after I'd given notice at The Company for us to sit down and figure out exactly how Frank had done it.

But before that, Remy kind of caught on that something wasn't kosher, and told me flat out that Frank had better not miss work to take the bar in New England. Well guess who called in sick? Yeah, he did. Wait, but the thing is, when most people call in sick, they call their office before they're supposed to be there. Or within the first half hour.

Frank's idea of "calling in sick" was to simply not show up, wait for us to notice, and then not be at any of the phone numbers we had for him. Eventually he'd call us, late in the day with some excuse, and let us know he hadn't died in a car accident or something. He'd previously asked me to not call his house - he didn't want his baby mama (I'd say common law wife, but there's no such thing as common law marriage in Florida) being bothered by us. I think the truth was that there were some days he was out with Talia and didn't want his screwing around exposed to her.

So Frank went to New England and took the bar. Then he took the Florida bar. Umm... hi. I work with lawyers. Members of my family are lawyers. I know stuff like when the bar is in whatever state I'm living in, and what date bar results come out.

When bar results come out, first they're only available to bar-takers initially. Later on, around 24 hours or so, they're available to the general public. So when bar results came out, I let Remy know, and we all gave Frank a lot of space so he could find out the news in his own time without us hovering over him.

Finally at the end of the day, Remy couldn't stand it anymore and when Frank walked by, Remy asked if he passed. Frank told him bar results hadn't come out yet. Remy looked at me, and I looked at the internet, where it said bar results were in fact out that day. The General Counsel asked what was going on. Remy told him. The G.C. shrugged and said that clearly Frank was too scared to look at work. He told Frank to go home early that day.

Next day, Frank came in saying he'd passed. Who the hell would lie about passing the bar? The truth is, Frank passed the bar in New England and didn't pass in Florida. But we didn't know that yet. It didn't occur to any of us to go look for ourselves. Why would we?

Around this time I found out something else to add to the long list of Frank's deception. The Brother did a lot of business with one specific guy. That guy gave him a lot of work, work which ultimately gave The Brother a lot of money. The Brother had Frank do some work for him here and there. Frank asked me for the Guy's phone number. Thinking nothing of it, I gave it to him.

Suddenly, I found myself taking calls from the Guy for Frank. Which made no sense - Frank was supposed to be somewhat behind the scenes of what The Brother was doing. There was no reason Frank and the Guy should be talking. I said nothing - it was none of my business, and maybe The Brother was giving Frank more responsibility or something that I didn't know about. It would be wrong for me to assume and jump to conclusions.

The truth is, you want to believe people you deal with on a regular basis. If you start listening to the doubts you have about them, then you're forced to admit to yourself that you're not as good a judge of character as you wanted to think you are. Remy had been really happy that he'd been able to hire a black guy. (Yes, everyone else in our tiny Legal Department was white.) He didn't want to think he'd made a mistake.

Only one more left - aren't you excited?

As You Wish - Part 1

Silliyak - I haven't started up fucking yoga again yet - I don't have the money for it these days. I am sorry you had to walk out early from your class - sometimes it's hard to breathe in compassion for yourself and out compassion for others without laughing. And Scotty, I applaud your individuality.

I need to do this in installments. There's so much to this story that I'm not even sure where to begin. So I'm going to start with disclaimers. There are people of different races in this story, and I'm going to mention some of them. I thought about leaving it out, but decided that for one person race was a very big issue. So race is in. Let me save you some time - you can google until it snows in Miami - you'll never find the people I'm talking about.

The Beginning:

I'd been out of work for over six months, almost a year, really, and was desperate to start working. Not just for the money, although that was a big part of it, but for the sanity working brings me. Letting me feel connected to the world and all that.

So when I was offered $10K less than what I'd had at my last job, I took it anyway. Because it was better than nothing. It was so little that I didn't sign up for health insurance, because I couldn't afford to have the company taking the $35 out of my paycheck on a regular basis. That's how close I was cutting it, and how desperate I'd become.

It was the legal department of a company - not a law firm, and there were three lawyers, and two secretaries. One of the people I'm calling a lawyer was really a kid who had finished law school but hadn't passed the bar his first time around and was about to re-take it.

One of the first things I was told when I started working was that I needed to stay each day until the job was done. My response was, "Great, I love overtime!" Oh no. Poor Green, you must have misunderstood. There's no overtime. "But I'm non-exempt. Legally I qualify for overtime for any work over 40 hours. That's the law." Sorry dear, we don't pay our other legal secretaries that way, so we can't pay you that way.

I needed this job. And quite frankly, things are kind of corrupt out in South Florida - you just accept that and deal with it. So I said okay, and told myself I simply wouldn't work outside of my normal hours.

A few months in, the kid re-took the bar and passed. He was given a bonus, something insulting, like $250, and a raise to less than $50,000. He'd just found out when I happened by him one day, and that's the only reason he told me. I understood what he wasn't saying, and brought it out in the open. "Well, it's been great knowing you!" He nodded and asked me not to say anything. I didn't say anything. I'd have left also.

When he gave his notice, my boss, one below general counsel for the company, was
furious. He pulled me into his office to rant. "After all I did for him! I can't believe he's doing this to me! What a shit!" Remy took everything personally. He believed there were tons of office politics at our company, and believed any time someone wouldn't do something for him, it was politics, and personal, all wrapped into one rejection. Remy had taken and passed three different bars, and just because I thought it'd be funny, I got him admitted to practice in D.C. (as long as you're admitted and in good standing in any state, D.C. will take you).

Remy came to work at 10:30 or 11 a.m. every day. Wearing old jeans, old sneakers, and even older metal band t-shirts. We never saw clients. I wore khakis and a t-shirt and sneakers every day to work. Remy didn't mind the low pay because he appreciated being able to dress like an extra in Wayne's World. He was into music, and thought of working for a law firm as selling out. He believed he was a good guy who was always willing to help people.

Remy pushed to get a new attorney to replace the kid who was leaving. Meanwhile, the company fired people left and right for nonperformance. For looking at porn from work computers. For coming to work late repeatedly. Whatever the issue was. The unofficial policy of the company was that we never paid unemployment. Any time someone was fired for cause and filed unemployment, we fought it.

That meant the legal department, not the HR department, got involved. There'd
be a phone call between the unemployment office, the person who got fired, and a lawyer. Except, the general counsel wanted Remy to handle this. And these phone calls were first thing in the morning, like 9:15.

When we'd first get the notice, I'd contact HR and ask them to send me the personnel file on the employee who'd been fired. I'd go through the file, creating our defense. The six times in two weeks that the person had come to work late without calling first, the eight times they simply hadn't shown up at all in one month, all the warnings they'd gotten - both verbal and then written.

And then an attorney was supposed to call in to defend the company from having
to pay unemployment. But Remy didn't want to get to work early. And the kid had left for a better paying job. And hadn't been replaced yet. So Remy told me to call. And we got in a closed-door fight over this. Previously, when I worked in New York, I once got hauled into a partner's office because they overheard me say to someone, "I'm not a lawyer and I can't give you legal advice. But if I were you, I'd call a lawyer." I was given a stern talking-to about what constituted legal advice. Advising someone they needed a lawyer fell under that category. Ever since I have always been VERY careful about making it clear that I am not a lawyer, that I can't give legal advice. But in Florida I needed my job. So I called in. And let them believe I was an attorney.

Even though I could have gotten in a lot of trouble. And even though when that trouble came down, I knew the company would deny ever telling me to do what I'd done and would fire me. And then, of course, deny me unemployment. Even though the company could lose part, if not all, of their insurance. Even though an attorney can be disbarred for doing this. I did it. Remy never told me to "win" or anything, or actually, to lie. We're going back a few years, but I think the way he phrased it was, "Tell them you're calling from the legal department on behalf of Company." He would go over all the information I'd pulled from the personnel files, and we'd talk about what was strong evidence against the former employee that made it clear they hadn't been fulfilling their obligations. So that'd be ... legal strategy. Yeah.

Honestly, I'd never make it through law school if I tried. Hell, whether or not I could even make it through college to get a Bachelor's is negotiable. But I am telling you, I won... I won't say cases, because we weren't in Court, but I argued shit and WON.
Just sayin.

Remy finally got HR to approve his ad for a new attorney, and one was posted online. And the resumes poured in. Guess who got to review them? So I'd take a few hundred
resumes, go into an empty conference room, and pour through resumes, throwing out any that had typos. Throwing out any with cover letters indicating the attorney wanted six figures.

I was looking for a Type. This was not a position any normal attorney was going to want. I needed some old guy who'd moved to Florida to retire, but found that talking about doctors and playing golf wasn't enough for him, and wanted to work again. Or some female lawyer who'd had a kid and decided quality time with a kid was more important than money, but didn't want to step out of the game completely. Basically, I needed to find someone who wasn't applying because they were hoping for a fat salary.

I kept finding people, Remy kept interviewing and rejecting them. He wasn't clicking with anybody. I even found him people who'd graduated from his law school, but nothing. We kept getting HR to put the ad up over and over. I spent more and more time in the conference room making piles of resumes.

And then I found Frank. He'd just graduated from law school in New England, hadn't yet passed the bar, and wanted a job. Within a month Frank was hired. Less than a month after that, he was making me narrow my eyes at him as he'd walk away from me.

Jew Cool

Trixie has been dating/fighting with a guy we refer to as Old Guy for at least half a year now. We all hate him. Literally every single one of Trixie's friends can't stand him. So we were all thrilled when Trix announced that a kid, a 26 year-old at her law firm, had asked her out. Trixie is a couple of years older than me, and thought the idea of dating someone so much younger was crazy, and she couldn't do it. No way. He's seven years her junior.

Old Guy is ten years her senior. I say, as long as he's out of school and has some time under his belt of working in the real world, the actual physical age tends not to matter. Despite saying she couldn't date him, Trixie kept talking about The Kid. "He's half Jewish, half Indian - he's our apartment!" "He's from New York - you'll like him!" Great, so I'll date him.

Finally Trixie started dating The Kid, and I got to meet him on Friday. Yes, that'd be right after bar results came out. He passed the bar. Yet another baby attorney is on his way to becoming official (he has to be sworn in ). After I congratulated him, I asked if he'd been nervous, waiting for the results.

Modestly, he shrugged and grinned. Cocky chap, ain't he?

Congratulations to all the baby attorneys who just found out they passed the bar. You can breathe now.

Psuedostoops - Part I - Do's and Don'ts For New Associates

The lovely and hopefully-talented-at-passing-bar-exams Psuedostoops did this interview thing, and since I love to talk about myself so much that I have a blog for that purpose, I signed up.

The answer to her first question was so long though, that I decided it should be a lone post. Tomorrow will be part two. So here we go.

1. You have spent time working in law firms. I have just graduated law school and know a lot of people going to work at law firms. Many of them have trouble remembering that good interactions with everyone, not just named partners, are key to success, but I think your perspective is really fascinating and helpful. In your view, what are some dos and don’ts for new associates coming into firms?

Do:
- Do listen at the training your new firm arranges for you – even if you’re thinking “Won’t my secretary do that?” because at some point soon, the partner who asks (tells) you to work on a project will have you come in over the weekend and want something on her desk by 8 a.m. on Monday, and won’t you be embarrassed to have to wait until 9:01 a.m. when your secretary strolls in because you couldn’t figure out how to get the memorandum macro going? Yes, yes you will.

- If you are a new lateral associate, and you’ve decided this firm is WAY better than your old firm, don’t walk around saying that. You think it’s a compliment. The people who truly like the firm will think when you leave you’ll trash talk it.

- Cry and bitch behind closed doors, outside of the office, only to people exactly on your level, or not at all in the firm you work at. If you cry to someone above you, they’ll think you’re a pussy, and if you cry to someone below you, they won’t respect you.

- Ingratiate yourself to your secretary – on your way out for a ‘bucks run, ask what you can get him/her. Doing that once every month or two will take you far.

- Say please and thank you. One time per reason for saying either will be plenty, and again, will take you far. Any time Tuna or Nice Partner seemed stressed, I always offered to stay late or come in on weekend, and it wasn’t only because I like overtime; it was also because I knew they appreciated my willingness to do so (and they were pleasant to work with).

- Celebrate Administrative Professional’s Day – even if the firm does something for your secretary or you think it's a load of crap, you should do something too. Gift card to Peet’s, to a local restaurant your secretary frequents, etc. If you notice she always uses a specific lotion at her desk you can get one of those. Flowers. All good things. Chocolate sounds like it’d be good, but really, you were smart enough to get into law school – you can do better. Oh, the word processing people? Give them something – they’ll save your ass some day.

- If you always take candy from the bowl a secretary has on her desk, every so often give her $10 or so to replenish. At the firm I just left, partners gave $20.

- If you are married or in a serious relationship, invite your spouse or SO to stop by the firm and meet the people you talk about at home. It will quell their fears that you’re sleeping with your secretary, and make it easier for them to listen to your boring work stories over dinner, now that they can picture who you’re talking about. Friday afternoons are good for this.

- Do volunteer for some pro bono stuff. A baby associate at my last firm did, her case blew up and went to trial, and it turned out she kicked ass and won. The partner who worked with her sent an e-mail to the entire office publicly congratulating her, and she went from being “Melissa Who?” to “You Know, Melissa Who Won Her First Trial!”

- Do get on some committees or boards or some shit that’s outside the office. It’ll (obviously) get you out of the office, but it’s also good marketing for the firm, and makes it look like you’re interested in shit other than what you do.

- If you are male, and going to be litigating, bring at least one jacket and two ties to keep in your office. You WILL at some point stain them and need to change, or wind up having to cover for a co-worker on a day when you didn’t think you’d have to go to court.

- Male or female, get that Tide stick that removes stains quickly – at some point, you WILL stain your clothes right before a meeting.

- Accept that you will be late for things. Everyone knows you’ll be late, and it’s sort of okay. But to avoid being a dick about it, send people an e-mail or ask your secretary to call and say when you’re running late.

- When you’re out with anyone who is NOT an attorney and you go to check your crackberry, apologize for doing so.
- At some point you will freak out and go ape-shit on your secretary. When you’ve calmed down, apologize sincerely. Make sure you do that before the end of the work-day.

- When an attorney asks to meet with you, ALWAYS walk into their office with a pen and pad of paper. You will want to take notes, and will appear unprofessional if you’re not prepared.

- When you get the name of opposing counsel, always go look up their profile. You want to look at their picture, how long they’ve been practicing, and where they went to undergrad and law school.

- When you’re walking into a meeting that will involve a group of people, try to have everyone sit down and THEN introduce themselves. On the pad of paper you will have brought, draw the shape of the table (oval, rectangle, whatever) and write in each person’s first name in the place they’re sitting.

- Learn how to use the conferencing button and the transfer button on your phone – they’re the two you’ll use most.

Don’t:
- Don’t be one of those lawyers who always keeps their door closed. You’ll seem unapproachable.

- Don’t walk in to a partner’s office (even if they just called and asked you to come by) without asking the secretary if she’s on the phone, and knock before going in.

- Don’t have a shit fit and throw papers at your secretary when you’re angry. It used to make me go sit in my car and cry. Now it makes me realize you’re a verbally abusive asshole and walk away. I’ll leave those papers on the floor and let you pick them up.

- Don’t say no to anyone at work who invites you to lunch. If you’re busy, offer to go on a different day. But if they’re asking you, they either want you to feel more comfortable and are trying to be your friend, or they want to discuss something with you best talked about out of the office.

- Don’t be obvious about stealing the office supplies, and don’t take too much at once.

- If you commute via public transportation, keep in mind someone standing near you on the subway could be the opposing counsel. Be careful about talking about cases in public.

- Don’t be lazy about your work. Shepardize.

- Don’t press hold before you transfer a call.

- Don't lie - if you have terrible handwriting, dictate or type. If you don't dictate or type, don't be pissed that people can't read your handwriting. Oh, and if you can't read the notes the partner scrawled all over the pathetic excuse for a memo you gave in, ask their secretary. We are really good at that.