Friday, April 29, 2011

Work Bits

Yay for more work rants.

Update from the prior post about subpoenas. I just found out that said sec'y who didn't know how to fill in said subpoena with a person's name or an accident date, failed to have said subpoena actually signed and stamped by the Court before she sent it out to the hospital and police dept. for the records. Now you might (and I mean MIGHT) get away with that with a small doctor's office, and that's even up for speculation considering HIPPA laws these days and doctors' general awareness of said laws. But no way is a hospital or a police dept. going to respond to a subpoena that's not signed and stamped. I mean really. I just can't believe this sec'y didn't know the basics. We had to redo the subpoena, get it signed/stamped, and re-served.

But then again, I asked her today if she sent out a document we just received yesterday for an estimate on its translation from German, and she honestly did not recall getting it (forwarded by my sec'y as I was out) and forwarding it onto the translator. Its like total swiss cheese in there. She honestly can't recall what she did the day before. I feel like I'm dealing with Momento. Its a good thing email can document these things.

Not that my own sec'y is any better sometimes. I specifically asked her to look through the file to find a witness phone number my boss wanted me to contact for a trial appearance (we represented non-party plaintiff employer on plaintiff's third party injury claim). I suggested starting with his depo transcript, and if it wasn't there to check discovery, attorney notes, correspondence. It wasn't in the depo. She asked Swiss cheese sec'y, who said she saw it in the attorney notes file (I can't believe she remembered that). However, the attorney notes file was missing (possibly accidently taken by my boss on his business trip - he forgot to take it out of his briefcase). Did she look elsewhere? No. Oh she said she did, but she clearly didn't because when I looked through the correspondence folder later, I found it. Of course, it would have been nice if someone had maybe typed up a list of the witnesses with their address and phone on a computer document. I do that because I if I lose the paper, I can look it up easily. But no one else thought to do this.

About the only thing that makes my sec'y better is that I know she doesn't know things. I know she doesn't know what an "affirmative defense" or a "new matter" or a "cross-claim" is. That's why I have to refer her to a specific document #1, cut and paste paragraphs 10 to 19, then go to specific document #2, cut and paste paragraphs 25-30, then specific document #3, etc. and I do it in order. She can at least follow those orders.

My boss assumes his sec'y knows what all those things are, so he just says "do standard affirmative defenses/new matter claims and std cross-claim for indemnity" and she has no idea what that is and of course, comes and asks me because she doesn't want to ask the boss. I do the work, and I bill for it. If my boss asks me why I billed for something (which he rarely, if ever does), I'll explain.

I suppose I could tell him about things as they are, but I'm not entirely sure it'll do all that much good. Besides, it helps me get to know the cases ahead of time, so I'm not caught too off guard when he asks me a question about the case (that he hasn't previously told me about).

I have to remember to keep these work rants very general, not be specific about any names, cases, etc. Was at an employment law seminar for two days and was reminded about confidentiality challenges in the electronic age, and the importance of googling oneself now and again. That's rather an interesting thing to do, its amazing what info gets out on the web. Like, how in the world did my name get attached as a "debt settlement attorney"? I have no idea, I've never done that sort of work. I also had to contact a few places that listed by work address as an attorney with my home address. Asked to have the address changed. I don't mind people having my work info, but not to publicize my home address.

I'm pleased that my facebook profile shows almost nothing for the public. I will always keep it that way, no one gets to be my "friend" unless I really know who they are. I've declined invites from people who said they knew me in high school or even elementary school and I didn't recall them. I've made some MMORPG people "friends," some that I've never met IRL too, which is about the farthest I'll go.

Of course, pretty much everything has the potential to be exposed with a subpoena.

Monday, April 4, 2011

I'm Doing Two Jobs

Double post today, but this is annoying me.

I have a full time job. Actually more than full time. However, most days, I feel like its really two jobs. It may be close to three. Apparently, I have to seriously calendar and double check every thing at work that I give to my boss (or his secretary). I can't rely on my boss' secretary to have anything calendared for when stuff has to be filed with the court, or provided to the client, or otherwise followed up on. I have to double check that when I give something to my boss for him to review, a court filing, a letter to the client, that the document has subsequently been signed, filed with the court, mailed, etc. I have to double check everything that is created by my boss for filing, service, etc. because his secretary will not do anything extra.

The last couple of weeks were just amazing. We have a settlement conference in a case coming up. My computer reminds me two weeks before that I have to do the statement and have it filed with the court a week before the conference. I do the statement, give to my boss. The last day for filing, my reminder comes up (should have been the day before, next time). I never got the statement back from my boss (which he'd do if a change was needed), so I ask my boss' secretary if she filed it with the court. She looks on the computer to see if it was electronically filed (our local court does that for 90% of documents). I have to remind her that it won't show up on the computer because the settlement conference statement is hand filed, not electronically filed. She should know this.

However, she also doesn't find a cover letter of service to the other parties. I look in her redwell of documents for filing in our office files. Sure enough, there's the Settlement conference statement, signed by my boss, just sitting there ready to be put in the case folder. Not filed with the court (no stamp). Not served (no cover letter or proof of service). Fortunately, the courthouse is across the street, so we can get it filed and served on the last day.

How does she just put something in her filing folder without looking at it? Without knowing it has to be filed with the court? She supposedly has experience, but seriously she has to be told every little thing.

When we got a copy of the filed statement back, I double check the client correspondence file. My boss' last letter to the client, dated a month previously, said we'd let him know about the settlement conference when it was scheduled. No letter since then. With the conference a week away, I draft a letter to the client, enclosing the statement and asking him to call us before the conference to discuss our position. I print and give to my boss.

Now, three days before the conference, I find out that more than likely, the letter never got emailed. Oh, the letter is in the client correspondence folder, but its not signed, there's no email attaching it, and the settlement conference statement never got scanned in to be an attachment. Again, a document gets put in the file, by my boss' secretary, without actually having anything done with it. She can't recall a day or two later that a letter she's filing never got sent?

My bosses secretary also needed me to sign some cover letters today to serve subpoenas (because my boss is out). Good thing I had to, since I do read "routine" letters before I sign them. She hands me four subpoenas for records we need to get, one for accident/investigation records, two for medical records, one for employment records. The subpoenas simply say that, "Investigation records for accident." "Medical records and documents." "Employment records and documents." Nothing about um, like WHOSE records we're requesting. Nothing about um, like WHAT accident (date, location, something). I'm sure the hospital going to say, "Oh nice, a subpoena for somebody's medical records, that narrows it down." The Police Dept. says, "an accident report? How about a date maybe?"

I just can't believe this secretary was going to let those subpoenas be served. She says, I just type what he (my boss) tells me to. I want to say, don't you think he assumed you fill in whatever info is necessary, like a name, date, etc.? Haven't you ever done a subpoena before, since you're supposed to have been a legal secretary for 15 years? Don't you even read what you've typed from the point of view of the person receiving it? Did you really think the hospital records clerk is going to have ESP to know to which of the thousands of patients your subpoena referred? While most of the time, yes we're subpoenaing the plaintiff's records, in this case, we were also subpoenaing a co-defendant's records. The Hospital isn't going to know that. You really want to tell the boss you didn't know to put a name on the subpoena, or who he was referring to and then didn't ask him, when he inevitably gets the letter from the hospital saying "We have no idea what you want, the subpoena doesn't say what patient"?

The second excuse, that my boss probably looked at them when he signed the Notice of Intent (which has to be served on opposing parties 20 days before you serve the subpoenas, so they can object) and he didn't have any problems and opposing counsel didn't object, is also without merit. She knows my boss doesn't review what he considers to be 'routine' items. I doubt he even looked at them, he just signed the Notice of Intent and cover letter, and probably didn't read those either (the subpoenaes are signed/stamped by the court clerk, not the attorney).

My boss barely looks at discovery we serve. He had one set of "standard/form interrogatories" that had about 10 questions that needed to be slightly changed each time for the particular case facts (change names, dates, address, etc.). His prior secretary always made those changes, so he never bothered looking at them, he just signed the last page. The new secretary didn't make those changes (even after I pointed it out to her), so we started getting a bunch of "not applicable" or "I don't know what you mean" answers to those questions. We had one plaintiff threaten to file a motion with the court because our questions implied she had other problems with her house that she wasn't aware of, but that was only because the questions were from a different case. I finally had to take my own time to redraft "standard interrogatories" for each type of case and court system (state and federal) so that they didn't require any changes for the different cases because it became obvious that my boss' secretary was never going to individualize the rogs for each case.

Finally, of course, opposing counsel isn't going to object to vague subpoenas that aren't going to produce anything. Its not his problem if we don't get his client's medical records. He'd probably prefer we didn't, or at least that we cost the client more money so the defendant will want to settle.

This mindless, 'I just following the literal instructions,' is annoying as hell. Its not that difficult to think a little bit. Read what you type. Does it make sense? If not, figure out what will make it make sense.

I have the same complaint about my own secretary. She just types what she thinks she hears/reads, and doesn't bother to determine whether the sentence makes any sense. This is why most of the time, I do my own typing. I can type what I want to say in half the time it takes me to dictate, proof-read, make corrections, proof-read my corrections, make more corrections, proof-read those corrections, etc. Its bad enough that I have to do my time-sheets twice. Write them once (sometimes twice if I scribble), then review them again after my secretary types them into the time program, usually requiring multiple fixes.

Secretaries are supposed to help us do our jobs. They are supposed to be a back up for dates, names, etc. It does not help me, and in fact makes my job twice as hard, if I have to track down and follow up on every thing I give my boss, or that my boss does to make sure its been done right, or even done at all.

I better get a good raise next review time.

Government Jobs and Vacation

I was watching Bill Maher's show on Saturday (recorded from Friday night). I don't always agree with him, particularly on extreme anti-religious views. Some yeah, I can agree with, like how so many people just take on face value what a priest, or pastor or other church leader tells them is "God's word" or what God wants them to do, without doing any investigation on their own, without asking any questions, just being told "you must believe it" and they do. In this day and age, when there are so many resources available to people, you have question, you have to investigate, and yes, you may then have to just follow your heart, but you just can't blindly believe.

But besides that, I tend to agree with a lot of Maher's politics (again, not all, he's a bit too liberal on drugs, for example), but I have no qualms agreeing with his socialism. Maher had an excellent panelist, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. He was so articulate and clear about the health care law and education (we're cutting funding for millions of kids, but the Republicans are saying "but wait, we're helping 1700 kids in DC, yay us").

Another point brought up is how the corporations pay little, if anything, in taxes, yet they complain about raising corporate tax rates. Of course GE might be upset if the tax rate got raised from 35% to 39%. GE might actually have to pay taxes instead of getting a 3.2 billion refund/rebate on its 14 million in profits. In addition to the huge sums that corporations don't have to pay in taxes, these corporations cut jobs, freeze wages, cut/freeze or just never provide benefits, like sick and vacation time.

Then the corporations get its employees all worked up against public employees who do get sick and vacation time. Thus, instead of being mad at their bosses, the CEOs, the management, for only getting 2 weeks vacation, if that, the private sector workers get mad at the public sector employees who do get sick time and 5 weeks vacation. Its like having 20 cookies to share amongst a CEO, a Teabagger, and a union worker. The CEO takes 19 cookies, then tells the Teabagger to watch out for that greedy union worker stealing the last cookie. And the Teabagger falls for it.

Why isn't the Tea Party riled up against corporations who aren't paying their fair share of taxes? Heck, so many billion dollar corporations don't pay any taxes and yet the Tea Party is worried about people making less than $50,000 a year not paying enough taxes, having health care and getting too much vacation? Are you kidding me? Seriously, if you want that 5 weeks of vacation so much, why don't you rise up against the CEOs of these corporations rather than trying to take it away from other workers?

Already today, workers in America work far more than any other industrialized nation in the world. We work the longest hours and get the fewest number of paid vacation days. No, providing more paid vacation days would not necessarily have to lead to higher prices on goods and services. GE could well afford to have slightly less profits, or at least a lower tax refund.

And don't tell me that one just has to negotiate for better benefits. Even in the "boom times" I didn't know anyone who got more than 3 weeks vacation. One worker cannot adequately negotiate with a business/corporation, that's why there are unions, that at least bring collectively bargaining, the strength of thousands, to have some possibility of equal bargaining power with a corporation. Many places have never had unions, and realistically, the vast majority of employees can't dictate their salary and benefits. Most of us, are extremely fungible. Maybe you can get a little more, IF you have some special/rare skill, IF you are highly desired by the company and IF you have multiple offers for your services. But really, how often does that happen? Even the lowest fast-food employee in France gets 5 weeks vacation, I never got paid vacation when I worked at Burger King, you really think I could have negotiated for that?

I might be more sympathetic to corporations if they maybe used their profits and lower taxes for better work benefits or even jobs here in America. While current reports show that many corporations are making new jobs, those jobs are in China, India, Indonesia, where they can pay workers $1 a day. Come on, we're not even talking about minimum US wages, let alone union wages that are reportedly so outrageous. Do we really want to force US workers to live on a $1 day? Do we really want that standard of living?

I'd have a helluva lot more respect for the Tea Party if they weren't complete and utter tools of the Republican (Corporation) party. All they talk about is cutting spending to reduce the deficit. How about raising taxes on those billion dollar corporations and millionaires? How about raising more money to lower the deficit. Why take it out on kids, the poor, the sick, rather than those that can truly afford it. Don't blame unions or government workers who only want to eat 1 cookie, blame it on the 19cookie hoarding corporations.