Legally Brunette

Our office did some work for a client in the summer of 2006.  Well over a year ago.  Client left us hanging for ~$200.00.  Phone calls, letters, emails - nothing.  We finally just wrote it off as bad debt.

Out  of the blue, client calls our office last week - she wants OddFellow to look over a contract she has before she signs it.   That’s absolutely fine - she’ll pay off her balance and we’ll get a full hour’s fee for some pretty simple stuff.  Great!

She comes in this morning like a tornado - rushes in, looks around frantically, and says “he’s not here?!?!?”.  He’s here - he’s just not in his office.  He’s off talking to EstateGuy.  I ask her to have a seat, and go let him know that client is here.  He clears off his desk and brings me a file before inviting her back to his office.  As she gets up to follow him, she turns and whispers to me:  “He’s put on weight, hasn’t he?”

o_O

On what planet  is is considered socially acceptable to make random comments about someone’s weight?  Admittedly, yes, OddFellow HAS put on some weight.  He’s had a tough year.  Lots of personal problems and some medical issues that have affected his weight.  But he’s on a diet, working out, and is making great progress to take off the pounds.  And really, Client, you’re not paying him to be a fashion plate.  You’re paying him to read your bloody contract.

*headdesk*

For the non-geeks out there, FTW is shorthand for “for the win” - which is geek-speak for “freakin’ awesome”.

http://www2.cali.org/

Our Torts professor - bless her heart - has assigned us a bunch of CALI exercises  as extra credit for our midterm.  The midterm is worth 15 points, and if we get a 60% or better on 14 specific CALI exercises (mostly dealing with intentional torts), she’ll give us 5 bonus points on our midterm grade.  That’s a HUGE percentage, and a huge relief for us sad little 1L’s who are going ballistic over midterms coming up in three weeks.

Plus, you know, I actually learn stuff when I do the exercises.  Awesome.

I’ve gone through about half of the assigned ones - I need to actually go through them again and use them to make notecards/flashcards for the midterm.  They’re insanely helpful, so try ‘em out.  Seriously.

Of course, the drawback is that I’ve been totally addicted to the immediate feedback that the CALI exercises have, and I’ve done exercises all day instead of actual reading.  So now it’s 8pm and I still need to read.  And I’m tired.  *yawn*  CivPro does not interest me at all - I really should have done that earlier in the day when I was more awake.

Now I’m just procrastinating.  *sigh*  Back to work.

…. I don’t know if it’s like this in every city, but HERE, the legal world is like high school.  Except with jail and bar complaints.

Seriously - right now I’m sitting in my office, diligently working updating my blog.  In the office next door, OddFellow is gleefully gossiping with TrafficGuy, and other independent attorney who works down the hall from us.  This happens at least two or three times a week - they run in slightly different circles, so they both always have GREAT gossip for each other.  Who has switched firms, who totally *bleeped* up, who’s boinking their secretary, who’s breaking up with their wife/husband/mistress…. it goes on and on and on.

The courthouse is just as bad - cliques and alliances form over lunches, and if you don’t have the support of your clique, you just don’t get as far.  It’s *essential* to make friends, schoomze, hobnob, and go out to bars every once in a while.  That’s where all the connections are made - forms are traded, clients are referred, and alliances are made.

It’s like high school, only real people’s lives are at stake.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so utterly astonishing.

 That’s the sound of my head hitting the desk.  I am SO very tired.

This morning = court. Nasty custody negotiation where OddFellow taught me some interesting tactics to get the opposing party to agree to what we wanted. Lots of subtle manipulation and negotiation tactics that I need to learn. Thank God we’re only a few blocks away from the courthouse - we were able to negotiate what we wanted for our client without having to go into an actual hearing, so I ended up running back to the office and drafting up the order then and there. It’s nice to be confident enough with my drafting skills to be able to do that.

I’m going to start making OddFellow take me to court more often. It takes time away from my work at the office, but it makes me much more comfortable in that environment. I am not a very open public speaker or terribly outgoing, so this is *definitely* going to be a learned skill for me. I also tend to be very passionate in my speech when I feel strongly about something - so I need to learn to curtail that and be more measured in my conversations with people. The more I watch OddFellow and others interact in the courtroom environment, the more I’m learning how I want to develop (and, conversely, what I DON’T want to do!) as an attorney.

I felt bad for one poor guy we saw - we was defending himself pro se in a debt defense action. We only caught the tail end of it - seems that he had a contractor he had hired to do some roof/gutter work hadn’t held up his end on the bargain, so the homeowner just stopped paying him. The contractor filed suit against him to claim on the debt. Today’s hearing was simply an administrative hearing - something about allowing the contractor to modify the complaint - and a trial was scheduled for November. This poor guy was trying to plead the facts to the judge, and she kept trying to tell him that this was just to deal with this one issue - and that he’d get his “day in court” in November. He just was not having ANY of that. Poor thing - I can understand his frustration, but that’s when he needs to hire an attorney to help walk him through the process.

Ah well. Off to try to clear some stuff off of my desk before the weekend. Tonight: homework. Tomorrow: homework. Sunday, homework. You sense a trend? Midterms are coming up, and I’m determined to be ready for them.

My husband - let’s call him “Mr. Brunette” - is also a student.  He’s working on finishing up his bachelor’s degree in business, and is able to do it through a distance learning program that our state college system offers.  (No, this isn’t that University of Phoenix nonsense!)  One of the classes he’s taking is business law - and bless his heart, he’s really enjoying it.

Which is great!  I appreciate that he’s enjoying it, and I love talking law geek stuff with him.  But not at 11pm at night.  You see, my daily schedule is as follows:

• 7:30am - get up, shower, get ready for work
• 8:30am - stumble into work.  Read blogs.  Check bank balance.  Read CNN and try to be a nominally informed citizen.
• 9am - give up on trying to wake up naturally. Walk two blocks to get coffee and scone.
• 9:30am - 5:30pm - actually get work done.  I’m a paralegal, and my boss is annoying very kind, and pushes me to do more lawyer-y stuff.  Heavy thinking.  Try to look like I know what the *bleep* I’m talking about.
• 5:30pm - 6:15pm - drive to school.  Listen to NPR.  Try to be a nominally informed citizen, but secrety hope that they’ll just play a short story by David Sedaris.
• 6:30pm - 9:30pm - school.  Try to absorb torts, civ pro and legal reasoning.   Mostly absorb torts, kinda absorb civ pro, fight strong urge to throw sharp pointy objects that the legal reasoning professor.
• 9:30pm - 10:30pm - drive home.  Talk to friend who is going through a messy divorce on the phone.  Thank God, Allah, Buddah, and the Great Unknown that my personal life is relatively drama-free.
• 10:30pm - get home.  Finally.  Thank Mr. Brunette profusely for being drama-free.  Eat… something.
• 11pm - Sit in my large comfy chair.  Watch ‘The Simpsons’, ‘The Office’, ‘Doctor Who’ or ‘Torchwood’.   Turn the brain off and morph into vegetable matter.

Basically, my brain in “on” law from 9am - 9:30pm.  Which means that at 11pm, all I want to do is watch mindless TV before I go to sleep and do it all again the next day.  Which means, unfortunately, I really do NOT want to debate the case that Mr. Brunette’s class is discussing that day.  I try my best to be a good wife and a supportive partner, and engage in conversation… but really, I’m *tired*.  About all I can handle at that point are the finer aspects of Homer and Marge’s marriage.

I love him, but I might just have to hide his business law book.