TO-WIT: Beat The Clock
(Author’s note – Lookit, I know I owe you the second part of a two-part article and this is not it, but I had an unexpected and disconcerting filing deadline crop up and it threw me off. The article that follows, by the way, is purely fictional.)
Though I have practice law for nigh on to twenty years, I am still a sane and fairly balanced individual. In fact, I pride myself on how well I am yet collected, losing neither temper nor aplomb in public. Oh, I have had a few major bouts of disassociative behavior, but for the most part those unfortunate episodes have been confined to judges’ chambers, where whichever His or Her Honor was present merely assumed I was primping for a seat on the bench.
But now I appear before you, bereft of all dignity, to openly and humbly apologize for my outrageous conduct of some weeks back. There was simply no excuse for it, and to my many close, caring and supportive friends, especially those of you who called the police on me, I bow my head with reverence and say through gritted teeth how truly sorry I am.
I need to explain. On the day in question, completely unprepared for the events that lay ahead, I awoke early, and with nothing noted in my appointment book, I stayed at home to write.
My writing that morning was especially brilliant. I know, I know, what else is new, right? The morning passed quickly, as time is wont to do when one is engaged in a pleasurable pastime. (Perhaps that is why all my marriages have seemed so ungodly long.)
I came into the office a little before 1:00, feeling exhilarated. My secretary was still out to lunch, but I paused at her desk to pick up my telephone messages. Nestled there amidst the pink and gloomy was a tickler slip, one of those clever devices I employ to limit the number of deadlines I miss. This particular tickler slip reminded me to prepare and file a brief and record on a certain civil case that I had appealed to the Superior Court. (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s the only court that I could appeal to.)
From what my secretary had written on the slip, it appeared at first that the brief and record in question were due this very day. It appeared at second the same way. That had to be a mistake. You see, our tickler system is set up to notify me about filing deadlines with three different notices on three different dates in advance of the event, not contemporaneous with it, and this was the first notice I remember seeing on this case. The brief was not started, the record not compiled. It was surely a mistake I knew it was a mistake. It had to be a mistake. My palms were sweating for no reason at all.
My secretary returned from lunch as sweet and innocent as a lamb before the slaughter. “How could you write the wrong date down on this slip,” I demanded, as if by misdirecting the inquiry I could avoid the truth. She retrieved the file and, alas, verified that today was in fact the filing deadline.
I won’t beleaguer you with the details of the breakdown in my tickler system. As usual though, it was my secretary’s fault. She failed to make certain that I was reading my messages.
Being as intuitive as ever, I panicked and I began pulling out my hair. It didn’t help. Then I pulled my secretary’s hair. That didn’t help either but it felt better. Getting a hold of myself, I threw a heavy ashtray through my picture window. It’s a good thing I had the presence of mind to shriek first, as it gave people on the street below ample warning to get out of the way of the flying shards of glass. At least that’s the position my liability carrier is taking.
It’s truly remarkable how heightened one’s analytical powers become at the moment before death. I instantly recalled that I had written a masterful brief in the lower court. Leaping to my computer, I soon found that the brief was still on disk. Within seconds, I was rewriting it for the Superior court, deleting as many complex words as I could. I knew that the redrafted brief had to be more persuasive than the version I had filed with the trial court, as there was a reasonable likelihood that this time it might be read, even if only by a law clerk.
Meanwhile my secretary had begun working on the ancillary documents for the brief and record. Fortunately she had furtively photocopied and kept a copy of the lower court’s opinion, knowing from past practices that I always react to adverse opinions by burning them. Within two hours or so, we had together produced an original brief and record. we only had to photocopy, bind and mail everything and we were done.
Now although my copy machine is the sort that sorts, it decided out of some deeply harbored mechanical instinct for revenge to take this very opportunity not to. then, as if on cue, the fancy electronic stapler I acquired for just this purpose quit. Luckily, it fit nicely through the hole in the window, taking with it not one additional shard. We were out of the fancy tape to cover the staples, but without the staples, we didn’t need the tape anyway. You know, It’s amazing how well photocopy paper sticks together when it is licked.
We got the brief and record out, in brief and record time, four and one-half hours from beginning to end, suffering naught but the loss of some hair and a bad case of dry mouth. I have decided to honor my secretary’s request for overtime pay since it exactly equals the amount I intend to dock her for screwing up.
And what have we learned? Just that the practice of law is as it has always been, a difficult and precarious profession, constantly full of pitfalls, pratfalls and bumps, and no matter the years of experience or the degree of expertise, no one is perfect, not even my secretary.
Copyright 1990, S. Sponte, Esq.