OT ATM: If there's a government shutdown, does the IRS stop processing tax refunds?
You know what would help, LB?
Bicycles.
Or booze.
Emergency LB uplift meetup!
Bicycles would help. This should have been my first commuting week, but I had a statistically improbable number of court appearances.
I'm not sure what's going on. I don't feel as if I were particularly stressed or upset about anything, but maybe I am.
Our work here is nearly complete.
Is someone about to show me the Queen of Hearts before I go on a killing spree?
I would say the tactical advantage is that you are using legitimate procedural mechanisms to provide opposing counsel with disincentive to annoy you.
Actually, the effect on one of the victims was to make him confide in me about his wife's struggles with infertility, as well as the underlying sibling rivalry issues that make it more difficult for her.
I only wish I were kidding.
OK, dick check time (the relationship status one seems to be working!).
I'll go first: I relentlessly bait everyone at work all of the time. The only saving grace is that "everyone" includes my boss, and his boss (within job preservation guidelines).
I usually don't, because I really am vicious if I'm not paying attention, and I'd actually upset the baitees. When I warm up to people, I start teasing, and I've repeatedly had conversations with friends, after the fact, saying that they hadn't realized the sniping was affectionate when it started, and just thought I was incredibly mean.
9: What in the world did you say to prompt that? It's such personal information!
10: It's your world, Stormcrow, we're just livin' in it!
12: "[The opposing counsel] has clearly never had children, or he would never have made such a suggestion."
Maybe?
Nothing at all. Or, to be literal: "At least for you guys in private practice, time spent waiting around the courthouse is billable. In the public sector, it's a pure waste of time."
To which he replied that he never even thought about the billing, he had things to think about. Like his wife, heading into her third IVF cycle. "It's been really hard for her -- she's thirty-nine, and I tell her that doesn't mean anything, but she feels as if she's left it too late. And her sister-in-law is pregnant, and it's really bothering her: her brother's younger than she is, and she always thought she'd have kids first."
It was really odd. Delivered as if it were a perfectly normal thing to say to opposing counsel while you cooled your heels waiting for an Appellate Division court attorney to come listen to an argument on an emergency application.
13: Everyone take their clothes off. I've already started.
He kept going for a bit about how emotionally distraught she was, and how he couldn't console her because consolation just made her more upset. Trying to sound sympathetic (why? I don't know. I had no better idea.) I said "Oh, I can see that. Consoling sounds like minimizing the issue to her." He sat up straight, looked thunderstruck, and said "Minimizing! I never thought of that. Minimizing..." and the conversation died for another hour while we waited. Then the court attorney came and I kicked his ass up between his shoulderblades.
15: That is a lot to think about! And what do you even say to that? Third time's the charm?
I'd like to put you on retainer, LB.
I'd like to put on your retainer, LB.
To be clear, I've often thought that if I ever need a lawyer, or a vigorous advocate of any kind, I want LB on my side. So, after reading the post, I wrote that thing about wanting to put her on retainer. And then I thought, "Oh, it would be funny to say something about her retainer. In the voice of the weird opposing counsel!" But now, seeing it on the screen, I just feel like Will Saletan.
19: Well certainly better than putting this dude on retainer.
I like my lawyers like my coffee a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, emotional cripples who unprofessionally spill their guts to opposing counsel before arguing on my behalf.
I'm hurt, Dutch Cookie.
Also, the reason to be nice to opposing counsel is because it can make life way more pleasant, as well as being a good way to get things done in your case; pointless meaness is usually totally counterproductive. But since so many lawyers are total dicks for no reason, LB probably could be twice the jerk before anyone would notice.
I'm hurt, Dutch Cookie.
If you represented me, I'd spend all my time trying to convince you to eat some kale. Nothing would ever get done.
But I'd be happy to put on your retainer, Halford. Do you feel better now?
Dude, all I eat is kale. I would throw a muffin right in your face, though.
Fuck. Shouldn't have mentioned throwing the muffin. How am I ever going to get clients?
Huh. That's a really weird reaction in 15 and 17. I wonder if LB's definition of "nasty" passes for "friendly small talk" on the ordinary NY litigator spectrum, or maybe the people she was dealing with just heard the tone and didn't pick up on the content.
I don't think I could reliably be nasty and professional at the same time. I tend to either keep aggression tightly capped or else say things I probably shouldn't.
I definitely say things I shouldn't. And that's why I'm a transactional attorney. There's lots of time to review things you put down on paper. Also, patent attorneys have a reputation for being odd so by comparison I get to be considered normal!
15 "At least for you guys in private practice, time spent waiting around the courthouse is billable. In the public sector, it's a pure waste of time."
This is vicious?
||
This could be dangerous. A bakery a couple of blocks from my house has started making a dessert which is puff pastry filled with apple and bacon topped with a think layer of cream cheese frosting.
I'm not generally a fan of the, "put bacon in everything" trend, but this sounds like it could be a winner.
|>
If your lawyering is even half as efficient and effective as your relationship advice to weird opposing counsel, LB... Well, then you are really quite skillful.
There is this one person who sort of supervises/supports me who is not my direct management supervisor. I really don't respect her, and I disagree profoundly with her on so many things, and I wind up venting in front of her too much in a way that I shouldn't.
I got a survey that I'm supposed to fill out evaluating one of our residential programs, and because I'm supposed to e-mailit back it won't be anonymous (I filled out another one too). I'm really uncomfortable with this, because there's so much wrong with the program. Is it truly recovery-oriented? Well, they have some distance to go, they are currently only giving one of the clients $5/day instead of her $35 per week to control her (considered a human rights violation.)
This supervisor person said, "Well, I can't really see how being honest could get you in trouble." I'm pretty burnt out, and I wonder sometimes whether I have a subconscious desire to get fired, because my eyes bulged, and I went through a lengthy list of all the ways it could backfire. Anyway, she's supposed to be mentoring us, and I felt totally unsupported in discussing my discomfort and sense of being unsafe.
I need a new job. I am surrounded by burnt out miserable people, and I don't even get paid well.
6
I would say the tactical advantage is that you are using legitimate procedural mechanisms to provide opposing counsel with disincentive to annoy you.
Maybe in theory, in practice I suspect it inclines them to keep annoying you.
I'm not sure what's going on.
Menstrual cycle? [ducks, covers eyes and groin]
15: He was trying to make you feel bad for being mean, thus regaining the upper hand. Or, if that failed, merely to get in your head for a moment. And you are (or were recently) still thinking about it.
30: The implication is that the other lawyer is screwing over his client by doing pointless things to rack up billable hours.
I think.
Sounds like LB, like me, has spent a lot of time learning how to insult people to their face and make it sound like a compliment (provided they're not so smart or not paying attention).
What in the world did you say to prompt that? It's such personal information!
Dude is desperate to confide in someone about his problem. But he works for a litigation sweatshop, and he has no life outside of work. He doesn't trust anyone at work with this kind of talk, because at best it shows weakness, and at worst if could be used against him somehow. LB's small talk was the first hint of friendly conversation he has had in three weeks (apart from with his wife) that was neither professional nor transactional in nature. He jumped at the opportunity.
My theory, anyway.
Shame no one has told him about unfogged.
30: That actually wasn't the vicious bit, I was just making conversation. He wasn't really someone I'd been all that mean to - I was just snippier than I usually would have been about a bit of sharp practice he'd tried to pull earlier.
I'm hurt, Dutch Cookie.
Von is German, not Dutch, while wafer is English.
-- the Dutch != German committee.
NMM to Warren Christopher. (Quite possible the most meaningless injunction of this sort ever.)
apart from with his wife
Probably including his wife.
41: Nonetheless, his namesake's nickname is the "Dutch Cookie." We are Americans and can call things whatever we want.
I wasn't present at the creation of this pseud and don't know the rationale behind it, but I think it would be piquant to adopt the pseud Lindsey Vonn Wafer.
The basketball-inspired pseud "Jimmer" is now available available for delurkers or LB-enraging pseud changers.
Sounds like LB, like me, has spent a lot of time learning how to insult people to their face and make it sound like a compliment
The best response to this is to smile and look for someone more pleasant to talk with.
LB, this doesn't sound particularly nasty. But who knows, maybe I'm used to people speaking this way to me. Maybe I work with Stormcrow?...
I haven't actually quoted any of the unpleasant things I've said this week -- they all need a lot of background in the history of the individual cases and so forth to come across. But the comment about billable hours wasn't meant as anything but neutral small talk. Someone touchy could have taken it as Benquo suggested, but I didn't mean it that way. While the entire litigation was pretty frivolous, the courthouse waiting we were doing was perfectly ordinary, and not his fault at all.
50: Oops. Consider me appropriately embarrassed.
However, I do think there's plenty of place for that kind of opener, when you think someone is part of an enterprise with no or negative social value, and you want to find out where they stand on it - i.e. whether they disagree with your factual judgment, or don't care, or broadly agree but have some specific personal reasons for doing what they do.
I've been on the receiving end of queries like this from time to time, and appreciate the skill put into *offering* that particular conversation without *forcing* a defensive response.