So, back when Baby Lawyer was just a wee law student in the fall of her third year, she was going 'round and 'round the BigLaw interview circuit. One of the smaller, but more promising stops was a very prominent local firm (sort of a regional BigLaw) which kept bringing Baby Lawyer back for interviews, heaping her with praise and generally indicating that they were quite interested in hiring her. On her third round, she faced a veritable firing squad, headed by the supervising partners of both the practice group she wanted to join and the one in which she already had had oodles of experiences and wished to avoid re-entering (but was happy to perhaps make the allusion to the contrary and even suck it up there for a few years if that's what it took to get the shiny SLK she had her eye on -- bad shallow Baby Lawyer!), and attended by a number of various other partners and associates. The "conversation" that followed was a bit difficult to navigate, what with all the eyes to make contact with and reactions to gauge, but our heroine felt fairly certain she was doing well. Then, Supervising Partner of "Bad" Practice Group drops some long-winded allusion to a certain type of legal theory which was beginning to be bandied about in his practice area and asks me (too much of the third person is an awkward, annoying thing) what I think of some recent trial-level decision. At that time, I had already left the job where I was doing that sort of work, and so wasn't keeping up with the minutiae of the trial courts' decisions, so said as much to the SP. He looked down his long, patrician nose at me as if I was a tiny ant crawling up his shoe, snorted, and said, "Well, gentlemen, I think I'm done here," pushed back his chair and walked out. Needless to say, I did not get the job. And after a good pub session, I never gave the SP another thought (although I bitterly cursed his name for a few hours after the interview).
Well. Today, I got the appellant's brief on a multi-million-dollar case for which we were just hired to handle the appeal. The case happens to concern the Field I Shunned. The appellant's trial counsel was fired (due, presumably, to the extraordinary verdict entered on his watch), and the Regional BigLaw where I had interviewed was hired to replace them, and since it was such a big case, the SP was handling it himself. So after snarling at his name on the cover page for a minute, I flipped the brief open and began to read. Only to discover -- the man's a moron!!! There are at least three grammatical mistakes in the preliminary statement alone, and I believe he may have never been told that there are these funny fiddly things called "Court Rules" that one is supposed to follow, regarding style and content in appellate briefs, because WOW, does he flout practically all of them. (And oh, god, I wish I could copy for you here the national tragedy, which has nothing to connect it to this case, that he hijacks and tries to use in a specious attempt to win his case on an emotional, knee-jerk basis.) And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a huge grin on my face. I'm really tempted to send him a copy of the Court Rules, and one of my anal-retentively-compliant briefs, with a sweet little thank you note for not hiring me so that I could go on to work for a firm that actually knew what it was doing. hee!
(P.S. Yes, I know this is not exactly schadenfreude in its purest form -- but then again, it is certainly a misfortune to be as arrogant and yet stupid as this man. so kinda.)
Sadly, many, many briefs are poorly written, so much so that the courts can't even tell what the argument is. I just attended a CLE on appellate law and like, 3 of the sessions were devoted on writing briefs courts don't hate.
Posted by: E. McPan | May 16, 2007 at 09:34 PM
Ha! Sadly, many BigLaw lawyers are morons...
Posted by: teahouseblossom | May 17, 2007 at 07:03 AM