I need you to come into work this weekend

Office observations​

-Owner, protege and owner's personal accountant were in a closed-door meeting yesterday for 3 hours

--Protege asked me to work on a brief last Friday: (a) in order to file the brief, Court permission is necessary...when I reminded him of this he said "don't worry about it, I don't need permission"; (b) on Monday, I had completed half of the brief based upon the notes the client provided - however, the client's notes only covered half of the fact pattern - as such, I emailed Protege about this and asked him to either email the client to find out where the rest of the notes are or, allow me to contact the client directly -- rather than email me back answering my question he said "Do the best with what you have" -- I then emailed him back stating I could not write anything else as I have no facts to work from and need to either have him contact the client or have him give me permission to contact the client directly; (c) on my way into the Owner's office a few minutes ago, the Protege asked me to stop in and said the Owner "could wait" - he asked me if the brief was finished and I told him he should already know it isn't as I never heard back from him on getting the rest of the facts - he then informed me how "busy" he is and "how many cases" he is handling and that I should have emailed him every day to remind him (I am not his F'g secretary!)

---meanwhile, the Owner asked me to work on another brief and, as I reviewed the file, I realized the brief was wholly unnecessary - I brought this to the Owner's attention and was told to "stop worrying about what you read in the file and do what you're told"

----OMG I am pi$$ed!!!!!!!! A couple of secretaries and attorneys were just talking about a case and a funny thing that happened in Court
The owner's assistant comes over and tells us the Protege told her to tell everyone we are being too sound and it is unprofessional as he is on a phone call ( meanwhile, his office is about 30 yards away) -- as I am the loudest one (due to some hearing loss as a baby), the assistant basically told me the comment was not-so-subtly directed at me


-----Then, the paralegal who just passed the bar exam was told by the Owner that, perhaps he is not cut out to be an attorney and should rethink being sworn in next month


------The Owner's assistant is on the verge of tears and said the Owner has been relentless in berating her today but won't clue us in on exactly what was said.

Quote: aceofspades

-----Then, the paralegal who just passed the bar exam was told by the Owner that, perhaps he is not cut out to be an attorney and should rethink being sworn in next month

Does the owner have any say here? I.E., does a candidate need a firm to sponsor them like you do for Series 7?

Quote: AZDuffman

Does the owner have any say here? I.E., does a candidate need a firm to sponsor them like you do for Series 7?

You don't need a sponsor (only if you are submitting yourself to be sworn into the Federal courts)

And it begins already...

Owner calls me in and points out an extra space after a period in a draft brief I wrote

He proceeds to tell me that "other attorneys" have complained to him that my drafts sometimes contain typos (i.e. the Protege)
I did a scan of the document and the typos do not show up on my word processor but appear when printed - considering the technology used in this office, it does not surprise me that there is some form of disconnect between computer and printer

He then tells me (in front of his personal assistant and one of the secretaries) that my style of writing makes the firm look "dumb" and handed me back his notes - one of which was:





Meanwhile - I have been doing this almost 20 years and, without trying to brag, have won a vast majority of the motions I've written - I guess the judges who found in favor of my clients did not think my writing was "dumb"

Does that say "grade 3" as in, writing like a 3rd grader?

Seriously dude, you need to get out of there. If finances are still tight, start interviewing when you can and keep the job for now. But it's clearly eating away at your soul.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Does that say "grade 3" as in, writing like a 3rd grader?

Seriously dude, you need to get out of there. If finances are still tight, start interviewing when you can and keep the job for now. But it's clearly eating away at your soul.

Indeed, it says "Grade 3"

FML

Quote: aceofspades

And it begins already...

Owner calls me in and points out an extra space after a period in a draft brief I wrote

How young is this proteee?

Maybe tell him that two spaces after a period is proper? Ask him, in front of people if possible, where he learned how to type. Slap him down.

FWIW I was on a crew where we had a guy reviewing our work. Standard practice, four eyes are better than two and he had been there a few years and knew exactly the format needed. He told me even if he did not know I was older he would know I was older as I was on of the only ones on the crew who put that extra space after a period.

Both one space and two spaces after a period are correct. It is a style, not a mandate.

Quote: Mosca

Both one space and two spaces after a period are correct. It is a style, not a mandate.

Not where I learned to type.

One space after a comma. Two after a period.

Quote: AZDuffman

Not where I learned to type.

One space after a comma. Two after a period.

In the time of typewriters, this was true. I'm not saying you learned incorrectly, just that times change. FWIW I also learned 2 spaces after a period, and while I don't do a lot of formal writing these days, I now do just one.

Lots of good history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

Copypasta for those who don't want to click through. Emphasis mine.

Quote:

Until the 20th century, publishing houses and printers in many countries used additional space between sentences. There were exceptions to this traditional spacing method—some printers used spacing between sentences that was no wider than word spacing.[3] This was French spacing—a term synonymous with single-space sentence spacing until the late 20th century.[4] With the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century, typists used two spaces between sentences to mimic the style used by traditional typesetters.[5] While wide sentence spacing was phased out in the printing industry in the mid-20th century, the practice continued on typewriters[6] and later on computers.[7] Perhaps because of this, many modern sources now incorrectly[3] claim that wide spacing was created for the typewriter.[8]

The desired or correct sentence spacing is often debated but many sources now say additional space is not necessary or desirable.[9] From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers,[10] and the majority of style guides that use a Latin-derived alphabet as a language base now prescribe or recommend the use of a single space after the concluding punctuation of a sentence.[11] However, some sources still state that additional spacing is correct or acceptable.[3] Many people prefer double sentence spacing because that was how they were taught to type.[12] The few direct studies conducted since 2002 have produced inconclusive results as to which convention is more readable.[13]