More on the Memos - 2-20-2004

I am terribly, totally and completely discouraged today.

I don't think I ever followed up with you about the Memos from Work chronicle.

As you may recall we all turned in the requested memos. I didn't see all of them, but I understand several were strikingly similar with the same complaints coming from different attorneys.

Then things got testy with the staff. They were, if it's possible, more apathetic and just openly hostile.

And then my secretary, we'll call her the Wicked Witch of the West, stood in my office and told me what she was and wasn't going to do. I was being unreasonable and she just wasn't going to do it.

We'd been having minor skirmishes over simple stuff. When you get an Answer, change the calendar so it doesn't show up as being due when we have in fact received it. Put a note in the case management software when we receive something so if someone says they are sending something, I'll know whether that happened. When someone calls, I want her to figure out whether they really need to talk to me or whether she can help them. When she does something, put it in the case management software so I don't have to find her and ask her if she did something, I can just look.

And then with this martyred tone of voice she said, "I know the lawyers think that the support staff doesn't do anything, but we are all working as hard as we can possibly work." She babbled on about The EvilGenius (he complains openly about them and they don't like him) and then she said "and if we laugh and visit and socialize sometimes it's just to help relieve the pressure we are under."

And then it dawned on me: Someone has given our memos to the staff. I think I wrote: "Too much laughing, visiting and socializing goes on."

Sure enough, others were getting the same kinds of comments. Things they'd said in the memos were being repeated back to them.

Actually I shouldn't be surprised. Our "office manager," I'll call him the IdiotSon, that's really his sort of management style. Let them see the complaints and then they can deal with it however they want to.

We rocked along for a few days with snide comments and almost open warfare going on between the support staff and the lawyers. I went to the TrusteePartner who requested the memos and said "I think they've been given to the staff and this is why I think that, and I don't understand how or why it happened."

An investigation was begun. Pointed questions were asked. I'm being sarcastic here. The staff didn't know anything about our memos and they don't know why we would think that they did.

But they quit quoting it back to us and things appear to have settled down.

I learned this week that one of the secretaries has turned in her notice. Everyone is.So.Very.Upset we can barely contain ourselves. I'm being sarcastic here again.

So back to my story. The WWW and I are in my office and she's telling me what she is, and isn't, going to do for me. And I'm thinking, "I'm screwed." No one here is going to make her do the work. There will be no consequences if she doesn't. If I blow a deadline, well that will be my fault not hers.

So I decided I basically had two options. I could figure out how to make the situation work for me, or I could go work somewhere else.

I decided "I can make it work." I love the adversary work I'm doing; it's the most fun I've had in a long time. It's really only a few of the support staff who are total pains in the ass, unfortunately I'm being forced to deal with the biggest pain in the ass. And for the most part I like most of the lawyers I have to work with most of the time.

I have my own printer at my desk (which I bought, I might add) and the Husband and I were talking about buying me a cheap scanner. With a minimum of assistance, I could make this work and retain my sanity.

So the next week the WWW is standing in my door when a call comes in. It's a lawyer who wants information. Everyone has been asking for information which they could get from this document. I'd asked the WWW about 10 days before to scan it for me so I could just e-mail it to those who wanted it and I wouldn't need to even talk to them. Talking to people takes a lot of time; e-mail only takes a moment. And she starts yelling at me. She hasn't done it because she hasn't had time. She doesn't know why I'm "starting" with her again. I said "do you want me to scan it, I can do that" and she stalks off. And the next thing I know she is crying. And she goes into the Senior Partner's (who just happens to be her Uncle) office and cries some more. I don't really know what happened in there. There was a small Partners meeting with her and some of the Partners. No one ever talked to me about the incident. The EvilGenius reported the result of the meeting was that she was going to do what I needed her to do and what I'd asked her to do; but surprise, surprise, she hasn't.

So last weekend a bunch of checks (and by a bunch I mean more than 500 but probably less than 5000) for this adversary came in from Colorado. I had them delivered to my house and spent part of my weekend going through this huge box of checks and assorted random pieces of paper. I'm the ultimate romantic you know: Happy Valentine's Day! I didn't go into the office on Monday because it was a holiday. I sorted checks. I entered them into a spread sheet. I put them in alphabetical order. I asked the WWW to put them into the files. When I left tonight they were still sitting on her desk.

While I was sorting checks and creating the spread sheet, I should have been creating Joint Status Conference Reports but I needed the information from the checks to put into the Joint Status Conference Reports and I knew the WWW wouldn't do it in any kind of timely fashion.

I have 20 JSCR due next Tuesday. I began working on them Wednesday.

The WWW has some type of family crisis. You know, I don't doubt it's a crisis, but she always has a crisis. I think she cried every day for the first 12 months I worked here because of one crisis or another. So she spends all day on the telephone talking to various friends and relatives about this particular catastrophe.

On Thursday she doesn't come in at all; someone had to take her Father to the VA Hospital and of all the brothers and sisters and assorted family she is the only one who could do it. Let's not think, or talk about the fact that she took Thursday, Friday and Monday off and hasn't done jack for me since she's been back. So I asked one of the other secretaries to help me prepare and get the Joint Status Conference Reports out.

This Secretary is a Nice Girl. Not particularly bright but pleasant. She's works hard but her work is sloppy. I can live with that if she'll Do.What.I.Ask. and not give me any grief.

She and I worked all day and got the JSCR to the lawyers on the other side for their input. I asked her today to call the lawyers and make sure they got the JSCR and to help me with the changes that were coming in. The WWW said, "oh don't give that to the NiceGirl, I'll help you now." I balked. We were right in the middle of this project and I didn't want to have to explain it to the WWW again. This will come as a complete and total surprise to you but I just didn't want to have to deal with the bitch. O.K. NiceGirl could finish this project up. It was actually a lucky break for me. The WWW had another situation of some type after lunch and appeared to spend most of the afternoon crying and being generally worthless.

So the NiceGirl and I have gotten into a groove. The changes come in, I review them, o.k. some, argue with the other side about others and then give them to the NiceGirl to make. She makes the changes and returns it to me. I review it and then e-mail it on to the lawyer on the other side so the process can begin again. This is how it's suppose to work. I can bill a minimum to the client but still get the work done. The secretary does what she's been hired to do, which is help me.

Then she says "I have to leave to go on the Courthouse run in about 15 minutes."

This is not her job. This is the job of the receptionist. The receptionist is off today.

In most offices I think the Courthouse run is done by the person who does the filing. However we have WWW's geriatric mother doing the filing in our office (if I have something I need, and can't easily replace, I NEVER send it to the file because there's a better than even chance I will never see it again).

The receptionist must have pictures of someone naked with little children because she is off work more than any other person I've ever seen. She was off today. So they had to find someone to go on the run and someone to answer the phone. Of course the IdiotSon of an Office Manager couldn't be bothered to do any of that.

At one point when she was trying to convince me that she was just a hard working regular employee the WWW complained to me that she couldn't get my work done because she had to spend so much time answering the phone because the receptionist was gone so much. I complained and got her off phone duty (which is total b.s. because no one is going to make her do anything she doesn't want to do) and yet she still manages to not get my work done.

So I complained and they sent someone else on the run.

In the course of working on these adversaries, I have learned one of the lawyers who has made an appearance in one of the cases has been suspended by the Bar Association. They call that Practicing Law while suspended. With a suspended lawyer, it's really bad because they have to show that they have NOT been practicing while suspended to be reinstated.

It.Made.Me.Sick.

The Rules of Professional Conduct put an affirmative duty on me to notify the Bar. I assume I have the same affirmative duty to notify the Court. Our Bar Association has an Ethics Counselor who takes call, answers questions and gives advice on situations like these; she's not part of the bar counsel's office, and the RPC give her special consideration, so she doesn't have to report any bad stuff she learns from talking to people like me.

I called and talked to her. She confirms the lawyer has been suspended; apparently he's been suspended for a long time. She agrees I have an affirmative duty to inform the Bar, but thinks it less clear about my duty to inform the Court.

I hate it when people don't do what they are suppose to do and then I have to do something I don't want to do.

I talked to the TrusteePartner. I mostly talked to him so he would be aware we had a problem. He decided we should call the guy (the TrusteePartner acts afraid to do anything on his own accord and loves to have conference calls and burn up two or three lawyer's time at once) and we asked him about it; it was just a "misunderstanding" he was having with the Bar and he's gotten it taken care of. I told him I'd talked to the bar just shortly before calling him and they don't think it's been taken care of. He doesn't know why this is but assures me he will send his BIL to appear until he gets it taken care of.

I still have a duty to notify the Bar and I can't appear with him in Court knowing this and not tell the Judge.

I whined about it at lunch. The EvilGenius and the LawyerFromNextDoor and I talked about how to do it, none of us ever having had the unpleasant task of reporting a fellow lawyer to the Bar. The consensus seemed to be: keep it short and to the point.

So I write a short simple letter.

Dear Bar Counsel,

Pursuant to the requirements imposed upon me by the Rules of Professional Conduct 8.3, it has come to my attention that SuspendedLawyer is practicing law while the Bar's web page reflects his license as being suspended. I brought this to SuspendedLawyer's attention and he assured me it is a misunderstanding. Nonetheless, I think the rules require I notify you. I am also bound to notify the Court, which I am doing by copy of this letter to Judge "X."

If you have any questions, please call.

There didn't seem to be any consensus on whether I should notify SuspendedLawyer. I think if I'm going to do this, I need to be up front and open about it. The EvilGenius didn't say he agreed with me but he didn't disagree when I copied it to the SuspendedLawyer on the letter. The LawyerFromNextDoor thinks the guy messed up, he is responsible for himself, we've already put him on notice that we know, we didn't owe him that and we don't owe him anything more.

I copy the letter to the Judge and to the SuspendedLawyer. I give it to the WWW and ask her to mail it. There. I'm done. I've fulfilled my duty. Whatever the Bar or the Court wants to do, It's.Not.My.Problem or my responsibility anymore.

Then the TrusteePartner comes into my office. He's seen my letter. I wanted to know how it was he came to be reading my letter but didn't think it appropriate to inquire when he appeared already agitated. He thinks there should be a Partner's meeting to discuss what to do before we report this guy to the Bar. He got all shitty with me and concluded the conversation with "you do whatever you think you need to do and we'll talk about it on Monday" and stalks out of my office and exits the building.

What the Fuck?

And I went back to work. Billing more time for the firm. Answering e-mail. Trying to get ready for the rush on Tuesday when all these JSCR are due.

I got my billable hours report for last month. I billed nearly 150 hours of billable time and a little over 20 hours of non-billable time; that's an enormous amount of non-billable time for me. The non-billable time was (1) time I spent screwing with my new computer because they didn't want to call our tech guy out because he would cost them money and (2) time I spent responding to the memo they requested. $2500 which could have gone into the coffers of the Firm but instead was pissed away.

I left my office about 7:00 feeling completely demoralized; I could have worked until midnight and not gotten it all done.

I had my laptop under one arm and a stack of files under the other wondering, "why didn't I learn a trade?"

Peace,

M&Co.