Tuesday, February 28, 2006
The Strange People Who Work for Us
Work days are stressful for litigation/arbitration lawyers. We run 20 to 30 cases at the same time (all in different stages of the legal process) and we need our Secretaries, Pupils and Associates to assist us otherwise we'd never be able to handle all the work. Lately though, I've experienced some bizzare behaviour amongst them.
A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine proposed to act for a plaintiff in a defamation claim. He turned it down when it was pointed out to him that the prospective defendant was one of our Pupils. Generally, the firm tries not sue its own employees. It sounded like a bum claim anyway.
Then yesterday, that same Pupil showed me a Third Party Notice naming him. It was apparently some traffic accident matter and the defendant was claiming that the Pupil's poor handling of his car caused the defendant to crash into the plaintiff. The Pupil is painfully aware that his job is to try to get into cases as a lawyer and not as one of the parties. That didn't stop me from making fun of him though :)
Last Friday, my Secretary showed me her draft of a letter I had dictated to her. It involved an arbitration hearing at a social club called "The Legends @ Fort Canning". In that one letter, she spelt "Legions @ Fort Canning", "Legend @ Fort Canning" and finally "Legends @ Fort Canning". Even if she misheard what I said, I would nevertheless have thought she would have been consistent in her misspelling. I was wrong.
It brings to mind an occasion some years ago when a colleague showed me a draft letter prepared by his secretary of 6 months. She had misspelt his name. Twice. Both identical misspellings. You'd think they'd know your name if they worked for you for 6 months. Especially since in those days, we still had all our names listed on the letterhead! We were wrong. I suggested he circle his name in the letterhead and draw a line from that to his misspelt name in the body of the letter. We then waited to see if she would change his name in the letterhead to her preferred misspelling :) No such fun though.
On Valentine's Day, a male Associate received a card from a "Secret Admirer" who said something to the effect of being unable to stop thinking about him. The card had a big picture of the new gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain". It also contained a newspaper cut-out of celebrities people most wanted to date - with all the female celebrities' pictures crossed out. The Associate is not gay (as far as I know) and the card appears to be a practical joke on him. We hope anyway.
The people who work for us are strange sometimes.
Work days are stressful for litigation/arbitration lawyers. We run 20 to 30 cases at the same time (all in different stages of the legal process) and we need our Secretaries, Pupils and Associates to assist us otherwise we'd never be able to handle all the work. Lately though, I've experienced some bizzare behaviour amongst them.
A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine proposed to act for a plaintiff in a defamation claim. He turned it down when it was pointed out to him that the prospective defendant was one of our Pupils. Generally, the firm tries not sue its own employees. It sounded like a bum claim anyway.
Then yesterday, that same Pupil showed me a Third Party Notice naming him. It was apparently some traffic accident matter and the defendant was claiming that the Pupil's poor handling of his car caused the defendant to crash into the plaintiff. The Pupil is painfully aware that his job is to try to get into cases as a lawyer and not as one of the parties. That didn't stop me from making fun of him though :)
Last Friday, my Secretary showed me her draft of a letter I had dictated to her. It involved an arbitration hearing at a social club called "The Legends @ Fort Canning". In that one letter, she spelt "Legions @ Fort Canning", "Legend @ Fort Canning" and finally "Legends @ Fort Canning". Even if she misheard what I said, I would nevertheless have thought she would have been consistent in her misspelling. I was wrong.
It brings to mind an occasion some years ago when a colleague showed me a draft letter prepared by his secretary of 6 months. She had misspelt his name. Twice. Both identical misspellings. You'd think they'd know your name if they worked for you for 6 months. Especially since in those days, we still had all our names listed on the letterhead! We were wrong. I suggested he circle his name in the letterhead and draw a line from that to his misspelt name in the body of the letter. We then waited to see if she would change his name in the letterhead to her preferred misspelling :) No such fun though.
On Valentine's Day, a male Associate received a card from a "Secret Admirer" who said something to the effect of being unable to stop thinking about him. The card had a big picture of the new gay cowboy movie "Brokeback Mountain". It also contained a newspaper cut-out of celebrities people most wanted to date - with all the female celebrities' pictures crossed out. The Associate is not gay (as far as I know) and the card appears to be a practical joke on him. We hope anyway.
The people who work for us are strange sometimes.
# posted by Fore! @ 4:38 PM 
