Rug Burn Junky on 3/12/2004 at 23:42

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EDIT: (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1462151#post1462151) Update Below.
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Our firm has been looking for a new associate for the bankruptcy group, so there has been a steady stream of interviewees for the position. I work with the bankruptcy guys on a regular basis (restructuring deals-gone-bad) but am not really part of that group, so I technically have no say in the process.

So, last week, one of my friends (we'll call him "S") walks past with a guy who is obviously interviewing for the job (we'll call him "D"). He walks him over to someone else's office and drops him off, and I catch S in the hallway on the way back.

Me: "He used to work as a para at [the-firm-downstairs-from-us], right?"
Him: "Yeah, how'd you know?"

So, here's how I know. Before I went to law school, I worked as a paralegal myself. At this very firm. My job was as a court clerk, so every day I would trek to the courts, and file papers/monitor decisions/etc. There's a whole cottage industry of guys who do this for the big firms in NYC. If you're there every day, you get to know everyone else, because you see them so regularly. It was a good mix of guys/girls. Some were "lifers" who did this for the long haul. Others were just doing it as a stop gap to make ends meet. Others, like me, did it for the experience because we were eventually going to law school.

Now, despite what you guys may think of me, I am VERY social, and very friendly. I quickly made friends with a bunch of clerks from other firms, and even the ones that I wasn't friends with would acknowledge me, and we'd all hook each other up. This was the late 90's and just about all of us had a dog in the hunt with the tobacco litigation, so we'd all let each other know when decisions came down in cases we had in common, sometimes even getting extra copies of big decisions, or ones that we were able to snag before they were truly publicly available (shhhh. We all had our methods/connections).

Now, D was one of the other paralegals, a year behind me, both in starting as a para, and then in going to, and graduating from, law school. He, like me, was one of the future law school guys. Unlike me, he was way uptight about this, and used to look down his nose at everyone else. As much of an arrogant prick as I may come off as here, I'm very laid back and down to earth in real life, and would joke around with everyone. Nobody, especially him, really had me pegged as one of the future lawyers, because I was so not a Type A personality, and did it as "just a job," without getting cut-throat about it. Unlike D, who totally was, to the point where he'd never socialize with <i>anyone</i>, and was borderline antagonistic in dealing with files that others were in on.

The kicker for me was that we worked in the same building. So, not only did I see him in the same courthouses on a daily basis, and occasionally on the same subway trains, but hell, I'd ride the same elevator with him. Not once, in all those times, did he ever even acknowledge any of my "Hey, how's it going?"

So now, years later, the guy walks out of the interview, and I casually talk to my good friend S about him. I don't say anything out of line, I'm actually questioning more than saying anything. I just let him know that I thought he was a tad antisocial.

Fast forward to today. I get called in to one of the partners offices, and asked what I knew about the guy. Not much, I replied, since I didn't interact with him all that much when we worked there, just found him to be a bit standoffish. I found out that they were thinking of hiring him, but had a couple of reservations. For one thing, this would be his third firm in three years after law school, never a good sign, and another, they couldn't get a read on him socially. I was asked point blank: "Would you want to work with him?"

"No."

"Alright, that's enough for me."

And that was that.

Guy just lost a job, because six years ago, he didn't say hi to me in an elevator. Funny how life works sometimes.

jstnomega on 4/12/2004 at 00:34

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Shameless. This guy must be your hero (http://www.rkmc.com/firm_news.asp?newsId=105) :mad:

Rug Burn Junky on 4/12/2004 at 01:04

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Shameless? How so? You don't even know who we were representing. ;)

There are valid points on either side of the litigation, and yet I would still have a hard time condoning either the plaintiffs or the defendants. The fact that there was a legitimate argument means that <i>someone</i> has to take the case for each side, so I had no qualms about being a document monkey (on behalf of a third party, btw - neither a Tobacco Company nor a plaintiff).

That said, that was actually the experience that turned me off of litigation. Stuff I do has nothing to do with a courtroom. My job now is to keep my clients from ever getting to that point in the first place.

Oh yeah: What Monkeysee said.

Rug Burn Junky on 4/12/2004 at 01:16

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No, but I have told other lawyers to shove things up those same bodily orifices. ;)

aguywhoplaysthief on 4/12/2004 at 02:05

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You don't need a job to shove shit up into your body Tocky.