Recently, I had the pleasure of dining with some former co-workers. While we were waiting for our table, a couple walked in to the restaurant. The man was loudly conversing on his cell phone. It seemed that he wanted everyone to hear his conversation. He was an attorney. No, I’m not a psychic, but he repeated the phrase - “well, as an attorney, I can tell you this” - about a hundred times before he got off of the phone.

When he completed his call, he asked his wife how long the wait would be. Apparently, he wasn’t happy with the fifteen to twenty minute wait because he stormed up to the hostess and demanded to be seated immediately. The hostess asked whether he had a reservation. He didn’t. So, she told him that there was nothing she could do, but she was certain that tables would be available soon. This is when Mr. Esquire figured that he could get a seat faster if he informed the hostess what an important person he was because he was an attorney. This is how the remainder of their conversation went:

Mr. Esquire: Listen, I’m an attorney and I have an important case that I need to get back to. I can’t wait to be seated.

Hostess: Right. I heard you, but like I said before, without a reservation, there’s nothing that I can do. You’ll have to wait like everyone else.

Mr. Esquire: That’s ridiculous! You mean to tell me that there are no exceptions. I’m just supposed to sit here and waste time. I’m an attorney.

At this point, more people were coming into the restaurant and the hostess had to tend to them. She apologized to Mr. Esquire and looked away. Mr. Esquire was not relenting and demanded to see her manager. The manager comes along and Mr. Esquire repeats his argument to him. The manager is trying his best to pacify Mr. Esquire and offers him an appetizer on the house. So one of my co-workers interrupts and asks the manager what would a table of two judges and three attorneys get for waiting so patiently. My co-worker quickly added that he wasn’t being serious. Mr. Esquire looked at us as if he were shocked that he wasn’t the only attorney in the restaurant. He sat down next to his wife and waited. Now, I’m not sure if he stopped his tirade out of shame or perhaps, fear that one of the judges would report his behavior to the ethics board. But, either way, it’s people like him that give our profession a bad reputation. Shame on you, Mr. Esquire!!

As a solo, I don’t have access to office culture and camaraderie, so it can get pretty lonely at times. But, on the flip side, I don’t have to deal with borderline psychotic colleagues on a daily basis, like “Michelle.”

“I work at Dechert, and I just witnessed an attorney throwing a temper tantrum in the office.  Actually, this is not the first time that “Mike” has had these flare ups.  At least four days a week, he is in his office kicking his trash can like it’s a soccer ball or slamming books or flinging papers.  He’s always grunting and cursing about something.  I can’t understand why this dude is so stressed out.  It’s rumored that he’s on steroids.  I don’t know if that’s true or not.  He is pretty solid and he’s always talking about going to the gym a few times a day.  He has the typical bodybuilder swagger - you know, the I-can’t-put-my-hands-down-at-my-sides-when-I-walk-because- my-pythons-are-colossal swagger.  Anyway, when he’s not in a rage, he’s a nice fellow…I guess.  But, today, he was in his Incredible Hulk mode and decided go in the break room, hug the refrigerator, and attempt to lift it.  I have no idea why.  Everyone in the break room just sat there in silence staring at “Mike”, who is getting angrier and angrier that the refrigerator won’t budge.  When he gets like this, no one knows what to say or do, so we usually just stare.  Then, all of a sudden, one of the employees whispered to everyone else: “shhh, play dead.”  Everyone just started laughing.  ”Mike” hadn’t heard the whisper because he was too busy grunting, but when he heard the laughter, he finally walked away.”

If you have a story you’d like to share on DirtyLAWndry, you can email it to blog@dirtyLAWndry.com.

Watch out, people!  This Connecticut attorney takes fighting for her clients rights very seriously.   Apparently, she tried to prevent immigration enforcement agents from arresting her client for deportation. She went as far as to hide her client in her office and then pushed an officer. Now, I’m all about zealous representation, but I am not losing my license or freedom for any of my clients. You can read the rest of the story on Courant.com.

Here’s an email from “Stephanie” about her colleague’s quest to catch the office thief.

“For quite a few months now, someone’s lunch has gone missing at least a couple times a week. It gets annoying when you bring your lunch from home only to have to buy lunch when you’re trying to save money. Apparently, one of the attorneys here has had this happen to him one time too many. He brought in a decoy lunch and laced it with laxatives in an attempt to catch the lunch bag thief. Once, we heard groaning from the mens’ room, we knew that his plan worked. We are now rid of the lunch bag thief.“

Now, everyone who has ever worked in a big firm and had their lunch stolen, stand up and applaud this attorney.

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Today’s post comes from an outraged Dechert paralegal, who’s dishing the dirt on one of her colleagues.

“So I just got a phone call from an associate attorney - “Nancy” - asking me to meet her in the conference room.  I had no idea what it was about.  I was kind of nervous  because we’ve had numerous lay-offs recently, and I didn’t want to hear that this was going to be my last day of work.   When I got to the conference room, there were two other paralegals waiting.  Two staff attorneys came into the office asking if we had received a mysterious phone call from “Nancy” as well.  Then “Nancy” came in to the room and asked “Have any of you guys seen my bra?”  We all stood there kind of confused because 1) we definitely weren’t expecting that question and 2) we were all wondering how she lost her bra in the first place.  She didn’t even seem embarrassed by the situation.  She even revealed that her and another associate (who’s actually married) had “hooked up” (is this high school or Dechert?)  and she forgot to put her bra back on.  I guess she was excited about it and wanted to give details to anyone that would listen.  Well, I don’t know how secure my job is at the moment, and I’m definitely not going to get caught standing around in the conference room helping this lady retrace her steps to her undergarments.   I just caught wind of her asking other female staff if they’ve seen her bra.  Thank God, it’s Friday!”

Happy Friday, Readers!

Dirty LAWndry reader, Angela, is extra pissy about her fellow Alumni today.  She wanted to vent about a situation that occurred today.  Apparently, she was in a setting where she couldn’t verbalize what she was thinking at that moment, so she dropped me an email to share with all of you.

“So, there I was standing in the lobby of Pepper, when all of a sudden I hear someone say my name.  It was a girl (”Lacy”) that I knew from law school.   We weren’t friends, but we had a few classes together and participated in some activities outside of school.  After graduation and during bar review, I was pregnant so I decided to postpone the exam, but I continued to take the bar review classes.  During this time, “Lacy” kept hinting to me that I was never going to be an attorney because I’m pregnant and how difficult I just made my life by deciding to keep my child over a career.  She wouldn’t say it directly, but she would quote statistics related to my situation.  When the results were announced, I got a phone call from “Lacy.”  Actually, she left a message stating that she was sorry that I didn’t pass the bar exam and yada, yada, yada.  I guess she looked up whether my name was listed as a successful candidate on the bar exam website.   Meanwhile, I had already given birth and was planning on taking the bar as soon as possible.  I couldn’t afford to sit for the February exam, so I decided to continue saving until I could. I didn’t think it was necessary to call “Lacy” back to correct her.

Let’s fast forward three years to the lobby at Pepper.  I’m now an attorney doing document review.  I haven’t even had my license for a full year yet.   So, here I am in the lobby with Lacy who’s asking what I’m doing at her firm.  So, I said I work here.  And she kept repeating loudly - you work here? - as if I didn’t belong there.  So, I told her that I finally got my license to practice.  And she started snorting and screwing up her face saying that she wasn’t aware that I had passed the bar exam.  Apparently, this heffa has been checking the bar exam results since to see whether or not I had passed.  She said she must have missed a year by accident.  WTF?

So, of course, now she wants to know exactly what I’m doing at Pepper.  I told her I was doing document review.  And she started laughing and saying that I didn’t work for Pepper I was just doing document review.  I didn’t mean to imply that I was a Pepper employee.  I just meant that I was going to work.  Anyway, I asked her what she did there and she told me that one of the partners had her doing briefs at the moment so she was very busy and would pay me a visit later.   A Pepper associate that I knew overheard the conversation and felt bad for me so he looked up “Lacy’s” information.  It turns out that “Lacy” is also a document reviewer and has been doing document review for the past three years.  Furthermore, she doesn’t have any assignments from any of the partners.  I doubt they even know her name.

Needless to say, I’m pissed off at this snaggle-toothed, barren, wombat of an attorney.   Leave me the f**k alone and stop worrying about what I’m doing with my life.  I am not ashamed about doing document review.  It helps to pay my f*****g bills and contributes to my family’s income.  How dare you think that you can put me down?  Do you even know that I also started a solo practice and I have a few clients?  What about you?  If doing document review is supposed to be so shameful, why are you still doing it after having your license for three whole years?  Get a f*****g life and while you’re at it stop using Pepper’s address as your business address on the attorney look-up website as if you’re their employee.  I guess you’re not the only one who can look people up, huh ,b***h!”

Now, tell them why you’re really mad, Angela.  Just kidding!  Thanks for sharing, Angela!  Speak on it, people.

Why is it that partners in smaller firms feel the need to bring their mothers to work for the sole purpose of terrorizing the office staff?  At my first job out of law school, the partner’s mother “worked” at the firm.  I didn’t know exactly what her job description was.  She had her own office, but she wasn’t an attorney.  She didn’t interact with clients, answer phones or file any paperwork.  She basically walked around the office scowling at everyone, except her “one and only baby boy. “  I noticed how everyone stayed out of her way and chose not to interact with her.  I thought maybe they were intimidated by her leopard print leggings with matching heels and matching fur courts.  Or, maybe it was the fact that she looked like Mr. Burns’ (think Simpsons cartoon) twin sister.  Anyway, one day I had the misfortune of finding out the real reason.

Normally, the file clerk handles the mail.  Our boss was on the cheap side, so sometimes he would make the clerk hand deliver the mail if it were in a twenty block radius from the firm in order to save on postage.  But, one evening after the clerk left, there were some documents that needed to be sent to opposing counsel overnight.  I knew that the clerk was not coming in for the rest of the week.  And I certainly wasn’t going to hike to opposing counsel’s office, especially when the only reason this package was being sent so late was because of the partner’s strategy of holding on to production documents until a motion for sanctions has been filed.  When I told the partner about the situation, he asked if I wanted to meet opposing counsel in person by hand delivering the package.   After a moment of me looking at him like he had lost his damn mind, he said I could send the package overnight using the Fed Ex office pick-up feature.  You mean to tell me that all this time this freaking bastard was paying for this service and still had our poor file clerk hiking throughout the city, even when she was pregnant.

About three weeks later, I was approached by the partner’s mother, who was furious with me for using the pick-up feature.  Apparently, she was in charge of making sure that the file clerk was “earning her keep” by keeping track of the mailing labels and making sure that the file clerk was hand-delivering those items that were less than twenty blocks away.  People, I am not kidding.  This woman went on an on about my having the “audacity” to spend her “baby boy’s money” in such a “frivolous manner” and how she “always knew that a female attorney would bring problems.”   She was actually screaming at the top of her lungs.  Finally, she finished by warning me that the next time this happens it would come out of my paycheck.

I’m going to sum this up by giving a message to all those partners, who keep bringing mommy dearest to work.  If you don’t want your mother to get cursed out or disrespected in any way, it is best to leave her at home and keep her away from underpaid and disgruntled employees.