It is Thursday. I am sitting in Dallas, in the Galleria mall, outside of Starbucks, with a view of the ice skating rink below.
I am staying at the Westin Galleria. Interestingly, my husband is upstairs in the room working remotely, trying to get a production out the door. He works in litigation support too.
I am in town for a mini vacation and a podcasters conference that starts Friday evening.
I am working on my MacBook writing a chapter of my book called “The Expectations”. I had just typed a few sentences around the fact that attorneys have a habit of showing up in our office doorway at 5:30pm with a request.
My friend, Jamie Collins, who blogs at The Paralegal Society, sent me text message that said “You MUST go read TPS blog. I just did something crazy fun.”
I opened up a new browser tab and went to her website. The most recent blog post is called “A Wickedly Entertaining Public Service Announcement for Paralegals.” I scrolled down and saw two videos on the page. Huh? Jamie doing video? Then I watched them, and re-watched them. Too funny.
As it turns out, Jamie and I were mind-melding and didn't even realize it. She's sitting in Indianapolis and I'm sitting in Dallas. Isn't that pretty darn cool?
Do you have any stories of those “end of the day” attorney requests?
Click here to check out Jamie's article and videos. Prepare to laugh!
3 Comments
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Unfortunately, these scenarios are not uncommon. I was describing similar scenarios in writing the book chapter today. I’m trying to be realistic about a job in litigation support.
I feel lucky these days to be working at a firm that has considerate attorneys. I still remember what it’s like to not have that.
Loved these clips. I passed them on to some paralegal friends and now we’re all practicing falling out of our chairs.
Oh, I lost count of the times when the shareholder in my first firm or one of her lackey associates darkened my door at 4:59:59 p.m. with some project that had to be done NOW. Usually I was done with the project at about 8:00 p.m. No O/T paid, BTW.
I remember a time when a client came in at or about 4:20 p.m. Everyone was in a meeting. I was told to see the client. The shareholder showed up later. I wasn’t finished until at least after 7:30 p.m. No chance to call home. I had to stay late the next day as well to haul some documents downtown to client’s bank or something. Again, no O/T.
A client on a particularly contentious case came in late in the day to see the shareholder. I had to sit in, too. A particular letter had to be drafted. At the end of the meeting, which ran at least past 6:00 p.m., shareholder told client, without first asking me if it would be okay, that “——-” will stay and write the letter.” There was absolutely NO NEED for me to stay late; shareholder was leaving and would return the next morning. I could have just as easily drafted the letter and gave it to her the next morning. Same story about O/T.
I have more stories…..
Paralegals are not immune. My spouse was a law librarian. Attorneys habiitually showed up in her library at 4:59:59 with an urgent project they said they needed NOW. She would complete the project, and miss her bus, and run it up to attorney’s office. As Paul Harvey would have said, the rest of the story was attorney had left, his/her office lights were off and attorney was gone for the day. One time a partner demanded a project to be finished NOW. She completed the work, only to find partner had left the office. Partner returned to the office several days later.