"Your office is difficult to deal with"

Excuse me!?

My managing attorney is appearing at a Mandatory Settlement Conference this morning (an appearance required prior to Trials in family law cases).  Both opposing counsel and the claimant's counsel (claimant is the parties' son who is stating he has an interest in one of the residences, we say he does not), failed to show up for the last Mandatory Settlement Conference, so the Court, on it's own Motion indicated they would hear argument regarding sanctions at today's hearing.

Both opposing counsel and claimant's counsel submitted declarations that were total BS full of blatant out and out LIES. Some BS about traffic and that's why they didn't appear - oh really? Then why wouldn't you call the Court and advise them you were going to be late like we do all of the time? Also - why when I called you nearly 2 hours after the hearing was supposed to start to ask you where the heck you were - you told me you "assumed it was off calendar".  You forgot to mention that in your declaration.  You also were NOT stuck in traffic when I spoke with you. LIAR!

The attorney just texted me and said that opposing counsel told the judge that our office is difficult to deal with. HA!

Let's review, Opposing counsel has no fax, no physical address (PO Box only), no email address, and whenever we send anything by mail he alleges he doesn't get it forcing us to go to the expense of sending EVERY piece of correspondence to him by certified mail.  What else, oh ya, you lie. Constantly. About everything. 

We sent a discovery request, meaning that his client had to provide a ton of documents we were requesting for within 30 days.  After 25 or so days he calls and asks for an extra week, so it would now be due in 37 days.  On day 38, after receiving nothing we sent him a "meet and confer" letter indicating his response was now late, therefore, he waived any objections he may have had, and if we did not get the full response within 10 days we would file a motion to compel the response and request for attorneys fees.

Do you know what his response was? That he never got our discovery request.  You know, the one he had previously asked for an extension on.  Note - this was when we determined we would send everything certified mail.  We argued, filed a Motion and the Court didnt' order sanctions and gave him 20 days to comply.

After 20 days, no response.  He calls, said he's sick and needs more time.  Give him 5 more days.  He calls, now his dad is sick.  We give him 5 more days.  He calls, now his dad died.  We give him a week.  He calls, now his wife had a miscarriage, we give him another week.  He calls, said he's sick again, I say NO, we need it by the end of today period.  We finally get a box full of documents, unorganized, not in any kind of order as required. This was last month. Either this guy is the most unlucky SOB in the world or a giant liar.  I'm going with the later.

Now this mandatory settlement conference is today.  You're required to exchange a bunch of stuff 7 days prior.  We of course, get theirs and the claimants (ps the two attorneys are in bed together or something) documents YESTERDAY.  The DAY BEFORE.  Not 7 days before.  So I draft up an objection.  The rule states if the orders aren't followed sanctions SHALL be imposed.

So help me God, if the Court does not order sanctions against both of those lame-ass attorneys I'm going to scream.

Oh, did I mention the parties are in their 80's and I think the reason for all of this is that they want to keep stalling so that our client dies and their client and the parties' son can have everything? Pathetic.  Makes me sick.

YOUR office is hard to deal with!!!!!!!!!!!  I need a xanax or something.......

Thankful Thursday

Today, I am thankful for having common sense.  In a field that is heavy in customer service, I have come to realize that not everyone is as lucky as me to have been born with such an asset.

Examples you say? Ironically both examples don't have to do with clients but ex coworkers.

Here we go..... I am paraphrasing as my memory may not be 100% accurate on the exact verbiage used, but I kid you not these things actually happened.

Example 1

[Male Secretary, age 18, is grunting and slamming the stapler on the table.]

Me: Name, is the stapler jammed?

Male Secretary: I don't know, it's not working.  I think we're going to have to throw it away.

[I walk over and open the stapler and see it is out of staples.]

Me: It's out of staples, you just need to refill it.

Male Secretary: You can do that!?

[I stare blankly.]

Example 2

Male paralegal, age 40: Elizabeth, I am going to Subway, do you want me to pick you up anything?

Me: Sure, that would be awesome, thanks! I'll write down what I want and give you some money.

[I write down Italian Salad (not sandwich), with onions, feta, avocado, tomato & all of the same meat as the sandwich.  I then hand said list and money to coworker.]

30 minutes later.

[Male paralegal arrives back at the office with a plate of meat, onions, feta, avocado, and tomato....... no lettuce.]

Me: Is the lettuce in a separate container or something?

Male paralegal: What lettuce?

Me: For the salad.

Male paralegal: You didn't write lettuce.

[Raises eyebrow.]

As you can see..... not everyone is graced with the asset of common sense, so for being one of those more fortunate ones, I am thankful.

The Life of a Paralegal - Dealing with an Opposing Party who is In Pro Per

I think I should amend last Friday's five pet peeves to include when the opposing party on a case is in pro per......

For those of you not in the legal field, the term "in pro per" refers to a person who is self-represented (representing themselves rather than having an attorney).  More often than not, these people make my life hell.

Today is a fine example.

I had to give ex parte notice.  Again. for those of you not in the legal field, the term "ex parte" in this use refers to an emergency hearing which will occur usually the following day rather than having to wait 30-60 days for a hearing date.  In order to "go ex parte" you have to have grounds showing that there would be irreparable harm if the issue was delayed, thus necessitating the emergency hearing. 

Anyways, back to the story.... I had to give ex parte notice to my client's ex wife.  Ex parte notice generally must be done by telephone call.  Here is my replicated transcript of the call (of course with identifying/irrelevant info omitted):

Me:     Hello this is Elizabeth with the Law Office of _____.

Her:    No! I am not talking to you. Anything you want to say to me can be done by email!

Me:     I am happy to memorialize our conversation with an email but I am required by law to notify you of tomorrow's ex parte hearing by way of telephone call. 

I then continued to give her the information as to where, when, why, etc. 

Throughout the entire conversation following her telling me she didn't want to speak with me, she SCREAMED over me repeating "E-MAIL E-MAIL E-MAIL E-MAIL E-MAIL E-MAIL". 

Upon stating all of the information I ended the phone call by hanging up.

Now I am not required to email her any of the information.  I shouldn't have.  Then she wouldn't have known where to go, what for, what time, etc.  But, as I am a nice person I emailed her a courtesy copy of the information and stated something to the effect of "here is the information I supplied to you by telephone call this morning". 

She promptly replied with "You're a liar". 

Sigh. Excellent.  I am appalled sometimes at how people behave.  This is a business.  I would never treat a business with such disrespect and unprofessionalism.  If you want to act as your own attorney (in this case she is choosing to be her own attorney it is not for financial reasons), you should act professionally as your own attorney.  Furthermore, what incentive would I have to lie?

Ridiculous.  Absolutely ridiculous.

Friday Five - Paralegal Pet Peeves

I recently have added a few blogs written by paralegals all over the nation to my ever-growing list of blogs that I follow.  It made me realize that I have yet to reveal that I am a paralegal to my mass of followers (insert snort here). 

Well, I am a paralegal in a small family law office in Orange County.  Oh, and we represent mostly fathers.  The office in which I work is made up of 1 senior attorney, an associate attorney (who is just a few years older than myself), myself (the only paralegal), and a secretary.  Well my boss's daughter also works a few days a week doing mostly billing and collections.  We carry a caseload of approximately 70-100 cases on any given day. 

As a paralegal I cannot give legal advice, but I work with the client's to prepare their forms, declarations and prepare them for any hearings or Trial.  I also have get to sort through financial records and assist in Trial preparation by completing discovery and determining all assets and debts which will become issues at the time of Trial. 

I do enjoy my job overall as it is an adventure each day.  No two days are alike and I get to remember that this is not my drama, but theirs.  It is not my life, but theirs.  There are, however, some aspects of my job that I don't like and some things I just need to get off my chest.  Here we go.

1) I am not your therapist.  I don't know how else to say this. I don't mean for this to sound cruel.  I do empathize with you and the problems you are having, but I am not paid to listen to your problems.  I have work to be doing.  In fact, some of the work is on your case and I cannot do it while I am holding your hand while you have a meltdown.  That is what friends, or therapists, are for!

2) It is not my fault.  Again, I empathize with the problems you are having, but I did not sleep with the person and father or mother a child, you did.  Chances are if she is bat shit crazy now, she was probably bat shit crazy then, yet you decided to move forward with your relationship with said person.  Unfortunately you must live with the decision to do so.  I am here to assist in working out an agreement between you and that person, but it is not my fault you are having to do so, so don't take it out on me!

3) I don't care why you split up unless it will have a direct impact on your case.  Things that don't matter - who cheated on who and why.  Things that do matter - she got arrested for child abuse, she's had 3 DUI's and lost her license and therefore cannot drive the minor children, etc.  Stop telling me all about your sex life, or lack thereof, as it doesn't matter and frankly I don't care.  I do not care if she may or may not be a lesbian now.  It's not even that I wouldn't love to hear this info, because to be honest these stories are the best, it's that the Judge doesn't care and will not read it.  Therefore, we will not be including it so save your breath (and your money). 

4) I cannot predict the future.  My biggest pet peeve is when people call me and ask, "What do you think is going to happen tomorrow at Court?"  More often than not I have left my glass ball at home and cannot answer this.  I may try to distract you by pointing out the positive aspects of your case and what we hope the Judge will do, but I cannot tell you what the Judge will do because guess what..... I'm not the Judge!

5) Don't shoot the messenger.  Literally don't shoot me, but also, don't get upset with me when I am merely calling to relay information to you regarding your case (please refer back to #2).  When I call you to tell you that after taking the matter under submission the Judge has determined you have an anger management problem and orders you to attend a 52 week anger management program, don't scream at me that you don't have an anger management problem.  a) Because it is less convincing when you yell it.  b) Because it was not my decision and clearly the Judge may have seen something...... like maybe a glimmer of your current behavior during this lovely phone call.  Instead let's work on a plan to handle whatever the situation is in an efficient manner so as to save you time and money. 

Don't get me wrong, I do like my job.  I care immensely about all of my cases and put everything I have into them.  I care about the outcome of each case and am excited when the outcome is favorable for you and upset when it is not.  But please remember the above tips, be respectful of me and my time.

** Yes, all of the aforementioned have happened.