Throughout the day people ask lawyers a bunch of seemingly random legal questions. One approach to these questions is to do research. You go to google type in what you think are a few key words, pull up a legal blog or two and there's the answer.
The only problem is that it's jsut such a waste of time. You might spend five to ten minutes on each of these complex questions if you have to boot up your computer first. Even worse, you will have to stop watching the online auction you are hoping to win, or updating your facebook just to find out the answer to some ridiculouse question.
On the other hand, you have been through three years of law school. You know the law. Well you generally know which way the law should come down on something, Well at least you know what the law should sound like. So why bother looking it up.
Roll the dice, say section followed by the number from the twenty sided die followed by the number from the ninety-nine sided die, then say says and blather out whatever you think the law should be in complex and seemingly incomprehensible jargon. After all that's how you passed the bar; they just didn't tell you how handy a pair of dice could be.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
A bottle of white out, ok depending on the client, maybe a barrel of white out..
Remember, a bottle of white out should be used to correct documentation, not to alter or destroy evidence. Destroying evidence would be a violation of your ethical duties as an attorney. On the other hand, correcting documentation before presenting it to the court is your ethical duty. You are always supposed to ensure that evidence that could be put before the court is genuine and that documents contain the correct facts.
You may feel a little awkward the first time that you have to correct all the dates on invoices for a specific chemical to show they were bought between three days earlier, and twelve years, three months, and two days earlier than the original documentation shows. It may also be a little suspicious that the chemical was banned by the EPA twelve years, three months, and 1 day before the date on the latest of the original invoices. But, in the end, it's best to think of the situation this way: what are the odds that a chemical company your firm has been advising for the last twelve years and three months, would just now realize that they were importing something that had been illegal to import for all that time.
It is especially unlikely that they would do so when your firm has a copy of a letter from the company specifically asking about a new regulation of that particular chemical and one of the firm's most prominent partners (who has been there for 13 years) has initialed the letter to indicate that he called the client twelve years, two months, and twenty-eight days ago to resolve the question.
You may feel a little awkward the first time that you have to correct all the dates on invoices for a specific chemical to show they were bought between three days earlier, and twelve years, three months, and two days earlier than the original documentation shows. It may also be a little suspicious that the chemical was banned by the EPA twelve years, three months, and 1 day before the date on the latest of the original invoices. But, in the end, it's best to think of the situation this way: what are the odds that a chemical company your firm has been advising for the last twelve years and three months, would just now realize that they were importing something that had been illegal to import for all that time.
It is especially unlikely that they would do so when your firm has a copy of a letter from the company specifically asking about a new regulation of that particular chemical and one of the firm's most prominent partners (who has been there for 13 years) has initialed the letter to indicate that he called the client twelve years, two months, and twenty-eight days ago to resolve the question.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
1 Crowbar
Congratulations on your new job. Like most young associates, one of the many tasks you may be expected to perform is document review. This sounds like a nice cushy desk job, but the reality can be quite different and you should keep a crowbar with you at all times.
It turns out that the client you have been assigned to assist maintains a warehouse of documents that has no climate control in the middle of an office park about the size of New Jersey. Instead of getting the documents that might be useful in a neat little folder, book, binder, box, cart, or truck, you have been asked to go to the euphemistically labeled "storage unit" for something called on site review. Which translates, dig through the boxes yourself because we may be your client but won't do anything that could actually be helpful.
After two or three months of staring at cartons of paper for 16 to 18 hours a day, six days a week you make the tragic mistake of falling asleep. While you are dreaming of the bed you get to visit for a few hours a night you miss the clanking sound of the door to the storage unit being closed and locked.
When you wake up and look at your watch the first thing you realize is that in two hours you need to meet your assigning partner's cousin (who happens to work for the client company) outside the door so he can unlock your own little version of purgatory. After a string of expletives runs through your head, the second thing you realize, is that you are locked in and have to have a freshly pressed suit on every day in order to maintain your firm's "professional appearance" while spending time with a client. (even the brief time it takes them to let you into a cobweb infested, dusty, leaking, old warehouse where your suit will inevitably be soiled)
And now, more than ever, you will be happy that you have a crowbar in your brief case. Insert the crowbar behind the hinges on the door, a few quick wrenches and you're free. Go home, take a shower, put on a new suit, and go back to ask, yet again, to be allowed to continue the epic quest known as, on site review for discovery of all relevant documents pertaining to the contract between two corporations that don't exist any more but whose liabilities may or may not have been assumed by other corporations through convoluted acquisitions over the last two decades. But, don't forget your crowbar.
It turns out that the client you have been assigned to assist maintains a warehouse of documents that has no climate control in the middle of an office park about the size of New Jersey. Instead of getting the documents that might be useful in a neat little folder, book, binder, box, cart, or truck, you have been asked to go to the euphemistically labeled "storage unit" for something called on site review. Which translates, dig through the boxes yourself because we may be your client but won't do anything that could actually be helpful.
After two or three months of staring at cartons of paper for 16 to 18 hours a day, six days a week you make the tragic mistake of falling asleep. While you are dreaming of the bed you get to visit for a few hours a night you miss the clanking sound of the door to the storage unit being closed and locked.
When you wake up and look at your watch the first thing you realize is that in two hours you need to meet your assigning partner's cousin (who happens to work for the client company) outside the door so he can unlock your own little version of purgatory. After a string of expletives runs through your head, the second thing you realize, is that you are locked in and have to have a freshly pressed suit on every day in order to maintain your firm's "professional appearance" while spending time with a client. (even the brief time it takes them to let you into a cobweb infested, dusty, leaking, old warehouse where your suit will inevitably be soiled)
And now, more than ever, you will be happy that you have a crowbar in your brief case. Insert the crowbar behind the hinges on the door, a few quick wrenches and you're free. Go home, take a shower, put on a new suit, and go back to ask, yet again, to be allowed to continue the epic quest known as, on site review for discovery of all relevant documents pertaining to the contract between two corporations that don't exist any more but whose liabilities may or may not have been assumed by other corporations through convoluted acquisitions over the last two decades. But, don't forget your crowbar.
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