who's at the top of my Most Hated list? (at least for today, I mean - tomorrow's list could be totally different and likely will be topped by whatever liquor I heedlessly drank too much of tonight).
Plaintiffs' attorneys. More specifically, old, male, plaintiffs' attorneys who are acting as arbitrators in cases in which I represent a scruffy, somewhat shady but nonetheless not-really-liable defendant who happens to have the deepest pockets in the room. Even more so when the reason my client's not-so-liable is due to a somewhat novel but still valid and perfectly logical argument. Because then -- ooooh, then, when I start presenting my argument, and the attorney for the actual plaintiff (who is also, naturally, old and male) starts INTERRUPTING ME every THIRD WORD, and I start to get very calm and cool in requesting that he do me the courtesy of staying quiet until I have FINISHED TALKING, the evil plaintiffs' arbitrator starts waving his hands and turning to me with this condescending little smirk on his face and going "Whooooooa there, kiddo. Just slooooow down. Let's let Mr. Plaintiff's Counsel here have a chance to finish his sentence, cause, I mean, he really has a point here, and I promise, then it'll be your turn."
WHAT??!! It already WAS my turn! He STOLE my turn! What is this, third grade? With teacher-approved bullying? But, okay, whatever, fine. You, Mr. Snarky Arbitrator, are making the decisions at the end of the day (much as it chills me to the marrow of my bones), so I'll make nice with you. Let's let Mr. Comb-Over "finish his turn" there. Oh, good, my turn now? <Begin somewhat-novel-but-well-reasoned argument, complete with case citations to cases decided just two days ago, and get interrupted two sentences into it by -- you guess it, Mr. Comb-Over>. Oh, no, that is it! You not only had your turn, you had MY turn too, and now you want ANOTHER one?
The upshot invariably is that I lose my temper in the most restrained way possible, the plaintiff's counsel rounds out his argument premised on "Because I said so" with "And every other arbitrator I've ever had has always done it!", and my client gets found to be 50% at fault (while my older, male-r partner wins outright with the same argument in an identical fact pattern a week later). And I only very narrowly avoid throttling plaintiff's counsel on the way down in the elevator when he smarms all over me trying to look down my top. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I must start looking into less misogynistic lines of work -- like pole dancing.
Those crotchety, sexist old male attorneys are the worst. As a young (and young looking) Asian female attorney, I run into crap like that all of the time..all we can do is bide our time until those dinosaurs die off!!
Posted by: teahouseblossom | September 09, 2007 at 11:35 PM