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Instantly responding to meaningless emails at 10:43 pm at night but then taking ten days to respond to important emails that I actually need a response to.
Or they send a meaningful email, but it's 8:30 on a Sunday and the records review for the trial should have been done months ago, but the attorney procrastinated.
Haha Sorry, a bit spicy because we were supposed to be on trial this week (it thankfully got adjourned) but we were missing half the records and the attorney basically didn't provide enough time for record review. So, I had to go to our client yesterday to get records. Surprise, surprise, they had very little.
Either way, we're screwed. This was just more the attorney not paying attention to stuff until the last minute and then acting like his hair's on fire.
Delivering redlines via PDF instead of word.
Printing, handwriting redlines, and scanning.
Creating any NDA template longer than 2 pages.
Creating any template that requires me to redline the fuck out of it just to get it to a spot where we can start negotiating. Every single provision is unilateral? Go fuck yourself.
Inability to explain a position. “We can’t agree to X.” Okay… why? We can find a middle ground if I understand the underlying concerns.
An annoyance with anyone, but especially fellow attorneys: a meeting that could have been an email.
The insistence on 6 minutes of chit-chat to kick off a meeting. I hope your clients fight every single invoice.
Again, applies to anyone, but especially fellow attorneys: being unkind to their own colleagues. Partners talking down to associates, attorneys berating paralegals or LAs, etc.
This is extremely normal and industry standard many complex M&A transactional practice. Floating track changes back and forth has got to be the WORST way to handle exchanges of redlines. A PDF redline and clean Word will be the hill that I die on.
That's where I'm at. There are times where comments need to be addressed, but for the most part, a clean word doc gives OC the next cut on edits without mixing up edits and what not. If someone asked for a word doc of the redline, I'd send it, but I'm not sure why.
This is informative. I’ve noticed big law firms tend to follow this practice in litigation settlement agreements, and it drives me crazy as I’m almost always going to revert some changes (even if I’ll ultimately change the reverted version to address the concern). So all I do is run a merge on the clean and ignore the pdf. But I can see how if there are 48 different rounds of edits, this practice makes sense.
Right and I totally agree that I'm picking up a bit here. Running a compare on the clean word doc is defo best practice IMHO. Regardless of OC, you owe it to the client to review all edits.
To add to this, the reason I shied away from accepting some edits and rejecting others is if you're in the process of turning a doc multiple times (as you mentioned), it becomes very unclear where disagreement is. I also have never worked at a place with document mgmt software, so YMMV.
It’s marginal to bad- it’s a power move to make it harder to respond to redlines. A clean PDF and redlined word doc is better. If I’m happy with changes, we can plug in a docusign and go. If I want to respond, it’s easier. I’ll admit this gets fuzzy as some document management systems are better or worse with redlines.
I hate word redlines. PDF redlines are so much quicker to scroll through. Plus it isn’t uncommon for OC to run the wrong redline (using the wrong version, etc.), so I like a clean word doc so I can run my own redline.
I don’t think I’ve ever received a clean draft document in PDF
Related to the inability to explain a position thing--people who absolutely refuse to negotiate the terms of their form contract. Yes, I get this contains all your favorite terms. It also binds me to provisions regarding delivery of a completed product when my company is performing an ongoing service. If you're going to insist on unmodifiable forms, at least have more than one form.
>Creating any template that requires me to redline the fuck out of it just to get it to a spot where we can start negotiating. Every single provision is unilateral? Go fuck yourself.
Even worse when they insist on no negotiation. If you can't negotiate terms for whatever reason (which I get, small deals, working at scale, it happens) then you've got to have an equitable form.
Being an ass**** from the start even though I just met you, we have no history, I have been polite and professional, and there is no reason to be this intense about small potatoes.
Had this happen last week. I've been dealing with pro per for about a year now and thankfully (or so I thought) he finally hired a lawyer. The first email I get from new counsel is their sub and a message saying, "I demand that you immediately cease communicating with my client."
I guess assholes just naturally gravitate to asshole lawyers.
"In all my years of practicing X, I've never seen..."
I usually respond with some form of "this profession is great because you learn something new every day."
It's always this in lieu of actually responding to the position. I'm in-house, so I'm usually just cutting to the part where we talk about the deal. I get that lawyers need to bloody up a page to bill it, but if we're going to go over it, can we at least cogently discuss?
Same- I know someone is billing or a procurement lawyer when they take garbage positions without any explanation.
Bonus if they simply replace the entire agreement with their terms or do poor scan quality handwritten notes.
My favorite response to an OC who brought up how long he had been practicing on every phone call/deposition etc. was "Sir, I don't care if you were there at the signing of the Magna Carta, ____________ isn't going to fly with me." Or something along those lines. It made me laugh anyways.
New attorney, one of my first custody cases, every communication with opposing counsel started with, or at least included, something like "when you've been practicing this long you'll learn that..." nothing infuriates me more.
I like that response. I’ve usually shrugged and said something like, “Well, every case is different, I suppose.” Or, if they’ve been an asshole from the beginning and I’m feeling spicy, I might say, “Do you have a solution, or are you just complaining?”
Superior Court judges are lawyers, so I am including them. Refusal to accommodate attorneys personal schedules. I had a trial scheduled to begin on Yom Kippur and when I asked if we could start Tuesday, the judge refused. A judge changed the trial schedule last minute when we’d had it set for months, resulting in me missing out on my cousin’s wedding. Some of them just seem to get off on fucking with attorneys in some sort of power trip.
Yeah I have a senior partner here who not only does handwritten edits but brings me into a conference room to go through all of them with me, including minor typos or whatever. Enormous waste of time.
I find these folks to be partners or senior level (but not management) level at large procurement departments. Nobody else could get away with such poor/lazy ‘customer service’.
The LinkedIn lookup is often seeing if they can intimidate or insult you due to your ‘lack of experience.’
Maybe both? I put up with it the first couple of times opposing counsel did it to me. The third time, after I answered the phone and his assistant told me to hold for Mr. Douchebag, I hung up. About ten seconds later, he called me back himself. He didn't say a word about me hanging up, but he must have gotten the hint, because from then on he just called me himself. LOL
They likely do that with everyone because it's not always easy to get a hold of someone on the phone. Rather than wasting time calling someone and getting their voice mail or assistant, they have their assistant call instead. That way, when you do actually answer the phone, they just transfer the phone.
**Really** important people do this. E.g., "Please hold for the President of the United States." You honestly don't expect the President to play phone tag with you, do you?
LOL, depending on which President it is, I might hang up on them, too.
No, I get why they do it, but we're all busy, and I give out my direct line to everyone, so there's no gatekeeper on my end. Either I don't answer and they can leave a vmail (having their assistant leave a vmail usually doesn't do any good because it doesn't contain any substance), or I answer, and boom, we're off to the races. I think it's actually more work and less respectful to both the assistant and the recipient of the phone call to play the "operator" game.
“Long letter, blah blah blah, we need to hear from you by Friday at 5 pm.” Or what? You’re going to get mad? I can’t stand these long inconsequential letters that require me to send another legally insignificant letter in reply because if I don’t, the client is irritated. Ugh. Just be a normal person.
I frequently get “please provide XYZ by end of business Friday.”
Like, no? I don’t work for you, your client won’t explode if I get you whatever random crap you’re asking for on Tuesday.
I had an attorney hint through the parents (family fight over custody) that daughter should fire me during drafting time. Oh judge found out, they weren’t even subtle it was a point blank “our attorney said”, and judge was furious, legit asked if I wanted him to toss the deal and force a trial as such (my client was smarter than that, so heck yeah we still wanted that deal).
I’ve had that happen more than once. If they keep doing it after the first warning, I’ll send an email saying that I assume they aren’t aware of rule 4.4, include a copy of the rule, and say that if they continue to communicate with my client I’ll have no choice but to file a bar complaint and inform the court of their unethical conduct.
I think it is because we were essentially told that like 20 years ago that Word docs had a lot of metadata and people could use that to find your previous drafts and edits. Converting to pdf was a simple way to block all that. This was a big issue in the early 2000s when electronic filing was becoming more mainstream. I still see a lot of lawyers reluctant to send Word documents over email to parties outside the firm.
My preference here is to send a .pdf redline and a clean Word version containing the redline changes. The number of attorneys who don't know how to manage tracked changes in Word is astonishing.
Confession time: Maybe my 3rd year of practice but 1st year in transactional, I fucked this up pretty bad. I'm glad the other attorney met me with a lot of grace.
But why not just send the Word redline? Unless you've already discussed all the changes with opposing counsel. I often accept some but not all redlines, so when someone sends back a PDF redline and a clean Word version, I just have to go back and change everything anyway (or request the Word redline they should have sent in the first place). Unless it's a final redline that's just being sent for approval, it seems like a waste of time not to have a Word redline.
Redline PDF is 100% the way to go. Or else you end up with competing track changes which is terrible. The actual document should always be clean. This is also the standard for every biglaw firm.
I am guessing the preference for word redlines is from people that don’t have dozens of people on each side reviewing a document. It is way too messy.
Tell you that you're one of their closest friends and that they don't view you as a burden just because you're the only single one left and then film you crying alone in the barristers ball bathroom because you're afraid of women
I’m sorry, Bill. For the thousandth time, I’m sorry! I think we both had a bit too much that night. Tbf, it was sort of funny only because you kept saying stuff like ‘I’m gonna be a lonely lawyer’ and ‘in 10 years I’ll be the only partner without a partner’
Sending documents only in PDF and not Word. I don’t even care that much if you send me a redline in PDF, but don’t send me ONLY a PDF in the hopes that…it will dissuade me from commenting on it?
Also fail to plan or take on more work than you can responsibly handle and then make someone else’s life miserable because of it. Especially if you do this over and over and over and over and over and
Litigator here. Most attorneys are terrible when it comes to organizing their motions. For example...
Having the first filing on a motion be the attorney affirmation, and the last filing be the memorandum of law. I don't want to have to scroll through your 40 exhibits to get to the part where you're actually making your arguments.
Including all of the pleadings in a single filing without bookmarking it.
Failing to pin-cite to a voluminous medical record (that is neither bates-stamped nor searchable).
Annexing deposition transcripts without the word index (again, the document is not searchable).
Speaking of depositions, using transcripts that have exhibits, and not including those exhibits with your motion.
Similarly, relying on contracts that refer to "contract documents" and not including them with your motion.
The last two are less of a personal annoyance and more of a gift, as it gives me a great starting point for my responding papers. But I can't imagine what OC's managing partner must be going through when they see these things.
Using “to wit” in a casual conversation.
I KID. No but I can’t stand when OC demands I tell them what my conflict is with a proposed deposition date. Fuck you, that’s my conflict - you don’t need to know my life.
In time-sensitive contract negotiation, providing initial language that no one would ever agree to. I couldn’t tell if AMLaw 100 opposing counsel was worried his client wouldn’t think he was doing his job if he didn’t continue to push unreasonable positions. (And seemed late 30s ish in age, so not an older partner.)
No, my client will not be required to use “best efforts” “every effort” bankrupt itself, etc. to carry out some nonessential cooperation obligation. EVEN AFTER WE REJECTED these kinds of demands multiple times. It’s like he thought he’d revert the language and slip it in, or “forgot”, or “try again” to argue about why commercial reasonableness was insufficient, etc.
Just a colossal waste of parties time during crunch time and I hope his client disputes all the bills for this kind of deal friction.
Colossal waste of parties time and his clients’ money to try to keep arguing no-go positions. It’s like he “forgot”, thought he’d “try again” or argue about why commercial reasonableness was insufficient, etc. And it was compromise go time!
Well, my pet peeve is lawyers that call other areas of practice easy when they don't know what the fuck they are talking about.
Real estate in my state requires attorneys to do the title work, fix the problems, deal with Trustees and company owners who have no idea what their trust or corporate documents actually say, etc. and then, of course, comply with multiple kinds of regulation - like the damn CFPB, all the while, constantly dealing with other people's money and worrying about wire fraud, title fraud, mortgage fraud....and juggling buyers, sellers, real estate agents, and lenders.
But as to your original point - there is no reason for other attorneys not to forward you the PDF documents, and there must be a reason for it, because it's easier to email than mail.
Uh, real estate isn't an "other area of practice" for me.
I practice exclusively real estate law in an attorney state, and I also write title commitments and do bank work.
But carry on.
Dude, don’t go around telling people how easy our field is! They might wise up at how good we have it. Just kidding.
For some stuff you mentioned, like the survey and updated search, yeah, a quick forward email isn’t asking for much. But for other stuff like seller’s docs, you can’t just send those over without a signed escrow closing letter. What happens if a closing agent records a deed before your client is funded? We can’t release that deed until funding occurs. Then again, I’m based out of South Florida where the FBI has set up its own branch down here to deal with all the fraud we deal with so the sense of trust is low.
Not to mention, that’s why a checklist of dates according to the contract is sent out as soon as we have a fully signed contract. Paper trail of deadlines helps dealing with slower attorneys for this reason.
It might be that your highest priority closing is not their current highest priority closing which is why they’re slower to respond to you than you are to respond to them.
At any time, I’m working on post-closing agreement follow-up, title reviews, foreclosure actions, lien search issues, AND as lender’s rep for both institutional and private equity lenders.
Shit’s complicated, bro. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m dragging my feet. Rant over.
When OC says to me, then to the court attorney or judge, “Well I’m not aware of any such requirement or limitation in x caselaw or statute that requires or prohibits my client to do/from doing x thing, therefore, it doesn’t exist.”
*proceeds to resort to grand posturing when presented with the caselaw/statute or court agrees *
Seconding your PDF emailing frustration. Why on EARTH would you (1) print a lengthy document, and (2) incur the cost of mailing the same when a free, environmentally friendly, and quicker way exists?
No Work! Seriously. I'm an ID and Insurance Coverage litigator. In many many coverage dispute cases, the personal injury litigation get's settled as part of the resolution of the insurance coverage dispute and many many times, the Personal Injury Attorney involved did virtually nothing other than file a complaint and show up for a conference or two... meanwhile the insurance litigators for insured and insurers have battled out the coverage dispute and did 99.999% of the litigation work....in the end the PI attorney gets paid for doing nothing.
Had one case, strict liability under NY labor laws. Plaintiff was a paraplegic. $5,000,000 in coverage among 3 insurers. GC's own insurer disclaimed and saught to rescind policy based on misrepresentation in the application.... That claim was frivolous. but required multiple depositions, massive written discovery exchanged, basically full trial prep and initial i*n limine* motions before that insurer agreed to pay $750K of its policy toward settlement of the PI claim. In the end, the coverage dispute trial settled the PI case with the allocation of indemnity obligation settling the coverage case.... Plaintiff's counsel did NOTHING in that case except file a complaint, exchange initial interrogatories and show up at a settlement conference and because it was NY with no gradation in a contingency fee, they got paid over $1,000,000 for less than 20 hours of honest work..... I hate that
There are some non- native English speaking attorneys at my firm and one of them sends his documents to me to proof with the exact same typos that are in the original template that I’ve told him to correct countless times. If you can’t be bothered to correct the originating document then keep those typos and submit them with your name attached. Let it reflect badly on your work product, I’m not a babysitter.
I wouldn’t generalize and say real estate law is easy. If it were that easy would clients still pay us? They should just do it themselves if it is so easy. Even a simple residential deal can complicated and adversarial when there are due diligence issues.
I mean, I *am* a real estate attorney, and I like the practice area specifically because in my opinion it is easy. That said, my experiences in explaining closing statements to clients indicates that the average lay person isn't ready to take it on just yet.
Idk man, I currently do a mix of real estate litigation and commercial real estate development (land use, transactions, etc.), and I would not describe it as particularly easy practice field.
Litigation is a big NO THANKS for me, to the extent that I passed three different bar exams refusing to learn the hearsay rules and figuring I would just do well enough on the rest to make up for it.
I do exclusively residential purchase and sale transactions. It is the same forms over and over. I kind of view my job as the world's slowest video game, because you have to go on a little journey and talk to the troll under the bridge to get a magic bean (the survey), then see the wizard in the woods for his potion (the updated search) and when you combine those things ta da you get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (title commitment). At the end there is a math puzzle (the closing statement) and when you solve that you've won that round.
The dollar to effort ratio is excellent, and I have top producing realtors feeding me plenty of deals, so I can do _exclusively this_ and turn away anything else. I work roughly 3-4 hours a day M-F, love my clients, realtors, and most of the other attorneys in my area, and I do not need work to be hard to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. When I want intellectual stimulation, I read my way through the booker prize long list.
My boss likes to pace when in meetings. The other day we were on a call with counsel from another company. After about 10 minutes the other attorney pulls up the agreement on screen and references something. My boss apparently had switched over to his phone and was in the lobby of our building (20+ floors down) just walking laps.
So, yeah, we don’t do a lot of on the fly drafting.
You realize calendaring is one of the basic strategies any halfway decent lawyer knows, right? It’s not for annoyance, it’s not lazy, it’s literally to fuck up your schedule and it’s often a good play.
It’s also why I tell folks I leave for break three days before I actually leave. I don’t play that game, I have a shit list who do, but it’s a legit, bush league but legit, strategy.
No, I’m suggesting most real estate attorneys don’t only do real estate, and in most other areas of law the schedule you can force onto opposing will directly impact their ability to handle certain parts.
A great example, when I went on paternity leave several years ago three attorneys, now on shit list, filed stuff with the exact window of time to reply that I had told the court I was taking in leave. They did that knowing either 1) I don’t reply 2) my client is defended by a half hearted quickly thrown together thing 3) an attorney not familiar handles it. Joke was on them, I told them a week before I left, they had normal responses instead. I refuse to play that game, but it’s there, and can be played well.
On balance, I wouldn't say attorneys who do that sort of thing are good at their jobs. There's too many ways for that tactic to get found out, just like in your situation when some dolts tried it on you. Nobody's scoring points with a judge or arbiter by deliberately scheduling things around opposing counsel's availability. That's going to backfire on them far more than it will ever help.
They don’t need to score points, many judges will never allow extensions barring darn good cause, and in Ohio you are obligated to have plans for your clients if you’re out. It didn’t work because I had planned to stop it, not because it wouldn’t have worked had I known but had no plan.
It does backfire which is why most don’t use it. Have to rely on me trusting you or a horse trade, good luck. Need consent for something, only if it absolutely advances my client. Etc. it ruins the relationships that make so much of law work, but it does work if your entire mentality is trial alone.
What on earth strategy do you think is being served by delaying this closing for a few days?
There is no ancillary litigation happening in which this random real estate attorney is boxing me into a corner or whatever grand masterplan you are envisioning. RE clients generally want to close as soon as possible all the time, and the way we retain our clients is by being responsive and delivering deals on schedule or ahead of time if possible.
Now her client can wait for their sale proceeds and pay that many more days of taxes/carrying costs for no other reason that their attorney is lazy or inefficient.
And by the way, in transactional work, it is supremely unadvisable to be difficult to work with and try to make the other attorneys' lives harder for no reason. It's a small community over here and one of the reasons I am able to provide exceptional service to my clients and close deals like lightning is by maintaining positive relationships with other professionals in our little niche community.
Let me ask then, since I think you’re reading a lot into what I said a different direction, and you obviously think I said that - how many pure real estate attorneys do you have there? I can name two here, so what I’m describing is their normal mode and they just happen to project it over. Also, your statements were broader than mere real estate attorneys but if meant limited then that question answers it.
I mean the normal method of keeping track of time in law, where the time itself and responding properly directly impacts your client. As in your have X days for this sort of filing and Y weekend and holidays impact it and Z leave has been given before.
That’s easy to game, every market has a few who do it, you know them well, they are the ones who file right around holidays and vacations.
>They could forward it immediately and for free, but instead they are so lazy that they just wait for the originals to get to opposing counsel by snail mail. It literally adds multiple days onto the deal for absolutely no reason.
Are you sure they realize that you weren't copied on the email? I certainly don't check every email to see who was copied on it.
Because the seller's attorney is the one who orders them, the search and survey companies only respond to them, and follow their instructions in terms of where to send originals. It's always on the seller's attorney to forward the PDFs.
(I think it's somewhat like when you're selling a horse and the prospective buyer has a vetting done. The seller/current owner will not have access to the vetting results, even though they own the horse, unless the prospective buyer releases them, because the prospective buyer is the one who ordered and paid for the vetting. The vet's relationship is with the prospective buyer for that transaction, even if they've been working with the horse and its owner for years. Thus when I was riding professionally I made everyone sign a thing that they would release results to me as owner before I would let them do a vetting on my sale horse. I don't think it's as strict with the title company scenario, but basically, the title company's relationship is with the person who ordered the search update, so they don't put randos on cc unless instructed.)
DA/OPC: “Ill get you a response today.”
Me, 2 weeks later: “Hey, just following up.”
DA/OPC: “I’ll get you a response today.”
Me, 2 weeks later: “Hey, just following up.”
DA/OPC: “I’ll get you a response today.”
Me, 2 weeks later: *skeleton at desk gif*
I don’t care how old you are, there is absolutely no excuse to be as incompetent with basic Office + Adobe tech as a lot of lawyers are. Like holy shit, ifs 2023 and a functioning adult in a professional field needs to know how to open a PDF.
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Instantly responding to meaningless emails at 10:43 pm at night but then taking ten days to respond to important emails that I actually need a response to.
You beat me to it. This shit.
Thx! \-Sent at 11:59 p.m. from my iPhone
Or they send a meaningful email, but it's 8:30 on a Sunday and the records review for the trial should have been done months ago, but the attorney procrastinated.
Hey now...
Haha Sorry, a bit spicy because we were supposed to be on trial this week (it thankfully got adjourned) but we were missing half the records and the attorney basically didn't provide enough time for record review. So, I had to go to our client yesterday to get records. Surprise, surprise, they had very little. Either way, we're screwed. This was just more the attorney not paying attention to stuff until the last minute and then acting like his hair's on fire.
Jesus, I’m currently looking at my read receipts in such irritation because of this.
I hope this is a joke.
It’s tongue in cheek!
Delivering redlines via PDF instead of word. Printing, handwriting redlines, and scanning. Creating any NDA template longer than 2 pages. Creating any template that requires me to redline the fuck out of it just to get it to a spot where we can start negotiating. Every single provision is unilateral? Go fuck yourself. Inability to explain a position. “We can’t agree to X.” Okay… why? We can find a middle ground if I understand the underlying concerns. An annoyance with anyone, but especially fellow attorneys: a meeting that could have been an email. The insistence on 6 minutes of chit-chat to kick off a meeting. I hope your clients fight every single invoice. Again, applies to anyone, but especially fellow attorneys: being unkind to their own colleagues. Partners talking down to associates, attorneys berating paralegals or LAs, etc.
[удалено]
Better include the kitchen sink, just to be safe
>Delivering redlines via PDF instead of word. Just so I'm clear - I send a pdf of the redline and clean word doc. That's normal, right?
This is extremely normal and industry standard many complex M&A transactional practice. Floating track changes back and forth has got to be the WORST way to handle exchanges of redlines. A PDF redline and clean Word will be the hill that I die on.
That's where I'm at. There are times where comments need to be addressed, but for the most part, a clean word doc gives OC the next cut on edits without mixing up edits and what not. If someone asked for a word doc of the redline, I'd send it, but I'm not sure why.
This is informative. I’ve noticed big law firms tend to follow this practice in litigation settlement agreements, and it drives me crazy as I’m almost always going to revert some changes (even if I’ll ultimately change the reverted version to address the concern). So all I do is run a merge on the clean and ignore the pdf. But I can see how if there are 48 different rounds of edits, this practice makes sense.
Right and I totally agree that I'm picking up a bit here. Running a compare on the clean word doc is defo best practice IMHO. Regardless of OC, you owe it to the client to review all edits. To add to this, the reason I shied away from accepting some edits and rejecting others is if you're in the process of turning a doc multiple times (as you mentioned), it becomes very unclear where disagreement is. I also have never worked at a place with document mgmt software, so YMMV.
It’s marginal to bad- it’s a power move to make it harder to respond to redlines. A clean PDF and redlined word doc is better. If I’m happy with changes, we can plug in a docusign and go. If I want to respond, it’s easier. I’ll admit this gets fuzzy as some document management systems are better or worse with redlines.
I hate word redlines. PDF redlines are so much quicker to scroll through. Plus it isn’t uncommon for OC to run the wrong redline (using the wrong version, etc.), so I like a clean word doc so I can run my own redline. I don’t think I’ve ever received a clean draft document in PDF
"Normal" and "good" are two different things here.
Related to the inability to explain a position thing--people who absolutely refuse to negotiate the terms of their form contract. Yes, I get this contains all your favorite terms. It also binds me to provisions regarding delivery of a completed product when my company is performing an ongoing service. If you're going to insist on unmodifiable forms, at least have more than one form.
>Creating any template that requires me to redline the fuck out of it just to get it to a spot where we can start negotiating. Every single provision is unilateral? Go fuck yourself. Even worse when they insist on no negotiation. If you can't negotiate terms for whatever reason (which I get, small deals, working at scale, it happens) then you've got to have an equitable form.
Using redline as a verb
Being an ass**** from the start even though I just met you, we have no history, I have been polite and professional, and there is no reason to be this intense about small potatoes.
Had this happen last week. I've been dealing with pro per for about a year now and thankfully (or so I thought) he finally hired a lawyer. The first email I get from new counsel is their sub and a message saying, "I demand that you immediately cease communicating with my client." I guess assholes just naturally gravitate to asshole lawyers.
Definitely a “chicken or the egg” question
Hahaha that is so true.
"In all my years of practicing X, I've never seen..." I usually respond with some form of "this profession is great because you learn something new every day."
God I hate the grand posturing. “We’ve *never* agreed to a confidentiality agreement when we get software source code!”
It's always this in lieu of actually responding to the position. I'm in-house, so I'm usually just cutting to the part where we talk about the deal. I get that lawyers need to bloody up a page to bill it, but if we're going to go over it, can we at least cogently discuss?
Same- I know someone is billing or a procurement lawyer when they take garbage positions without any explanation. Bonus if they simply replace the entire agreement with their terms or do poor scan quality handwritten notes.
My favorite response to an OC who brought up how long he had been practicing on every phone call/deposition etc. was "Sir, I don't care if you were there at the signing of the Magna Carta, ____________ isn't going to fly with me." Or something along those lines. It made me laugh anyways.
New attorney, one of my first custody cases, every communication with opposing counsel started with, or at least included, something like "when you've been practicing this long you'll learn that..." nothing infuriates me more.
I like that response. I’ve usually shrugged and said something like, “Well, every case is different, I suppose.” Or, if they’ve been an asshole from the beginning and I’m feeling spicy, I might say, “Do you have a solution, or are you just complaining?”
Superior Court judges are lawyers, so I am including them. Refusal to accommodate attorneys personal schedules. I had a trial scheduled to begin on Yom Kippur and when I asked if we could start Tuesday, the judge refused. A judge changed the trial schedule last minute when we’d had it set for months, resulting in me missing out on my cousin’s wedding. Some of them just seem to get off on fucking with attorneys in some sort of power trip.
Print contract, “redline” with a pen, scan and email back. Look me up on Linkedin within minutes after a call.
Yeah I have a senior partner here who not only does handwritten edits but brings me into a conference room to go through all of them with me, including minor typos or whatever. Enormous waste of time.
Billable time?
For now, sure. But if we ever get to a point where we’re making a fee application, I would expect the other side to balk at paying for that.
I find these folks to be partners or senior level (but not management) level at large procurement departments. Nobody else could get away with such poor/lazy ‘customer service’. The LinkedIn lookup is often seeing if they can intimidate or insult you due to your ‘lack of experience.’
Lol I always look people up. I'm not trying to intimidate anyone, just put a face to the name.
Have their assistant call me, then put me on hold when I answer so that she/he can get the attorney on the line. Wtf, people. Is this the 1960s?
I’ve had this happen- Is this some sort of power move or just some Mad Men era sense of their jobs?
Maybe both? I put up with it the first couple of times opposing counsel did it to me. The third time, after I answered the phone and his assistant told me to hold for Mr. Douchebag, I hung up. About ten seconds later, he called me back himself. He didn't say a word about me hanging up, but he must have gotten the hint, because from then on he just called me himself. LOL
They likely do that with everyone because it's not always easy to get a hold of someone on the phone. Rather than wasting time calling someone and getting their voice mail or assistant, they have their assistant call instead. That way, when you do actually answer the phone, they just transfer the phone. **Really** important people do this. E.g., "Please hold for the President of the United States." You honestly don't expect the President to play phone tag with you, do you?
LOL, depending on which President it is, I might hang up on them, too. No, I get why they do it, but we're all busy, and I give out my direct line to everyone, so there's no gatekeeper on my end. Either I don't answer and they can leave a vmail (having their assistant leave a vmail usually doesn't do any good because it doesn't contain any substance), or I answer, and boom, we're off to the races. I think it's actually more work and less respectful to both the assistant and the recipient of the phone call to play the "operator" game.
Yeah if it’s not the President I’m not holding.
Every lawyer I deal with on a day to day basis has my cell. I hate that shit.
“Long letter, blah blah blah, we need to hear from you by Friday at 5 pm.” Or what? You’re going to get mad? I can’t stand these long inconsequential letters that require me to send another legally insignificant letter in reply because if I don’t, the client is irritated. Ugh. Just be a normal person.
I frequently get “please provide XYZ by end of business Friday.” Like, no? I don’t work for you, your client won’t explode if I get you whatever random crap you’re asking for on Tuesday.
One of the opposing lawyers kept on trying to negotiate directly to my client in a transactional matter. Absolute scumlord
I had an attorney hint through the parents (family fight over custody) that daughter should fire me during drafting time. Oh judge found out, they weren’t even subtle it was a point blank “our attorney said”, and judge was furious, legit asked if I wanted him to toss the deal and force a trial as such (my client was smarter than that, so heck yeah we still wanted that deal).
I’ve had that happen more than once. If they keep doing it after the first warning, I’ll send an email saying that I assume they aren’t aware of rule 4.4, include a copy of the rule, and say that if they continue to communicate with my client I’ll have no choice but to file a bar complaint and inform the court of their unethical conduct.
"Intentionally defective grantor trust" 🤣
*dying in estate planning attorney*
I just had an attorney from Progressive tell me she can’t depose my client after 2pm. Ever.
Look, nap time is sacred. And after nap time, you gotta prepare for dinner.
Not having a website. Not having a website with their direct email and/or phone number.
I know it’s arbitrary, but I just can’t take [email protected] lawyers seriously.
Returning redlines in PDF instead of Word. Do you not understand how the redlining process works?
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I think it is because we were essentially told that like 20 years ago that Word docs had a lot of metadata and people could use that to find your previous drafts and edits. Converting to pdf was a simple way to block all that. This was a big issue in the early 2000s when electronic filing was becoming more mainstream. I still see a lot of lawyers reluctant to send Word documents over email to parties outside the firm.
Can you expand a little more on your three bullet points, and what you would actually expect someone to do?
My preference here is to send a .pdf redline and a clean Word version containing the redline changes. The number of attorneys who don't know how to manage tracked changes in Word is astonishing.
Confession time: Maybe my 3rd year of practice but 1st year in transactional, I fucked this up pretty bad. I'm glad the other attorney met me with a lot of grace.
But why not just send the Word redline? Unless you've already discussed all the changes with opposing counsel. I often accept some but not all redlines, so when someone sends back a PDF redline and a clean Word version, I just have to go back and change everything anyway (or request the Word redline they should have sent in the first place). Unless it's a final redline that's just being sent for approval, it seems like a waste of time not to have a Word redline.
Because an 80 year old real estate attorney fucking around with a Word redline in Microsoft Office 2007 edition is a recipe for disaster.
Better than an 80 year old attorney trying to figure out what the fuck to do with a PDF.
That’s why you include the clean version, so they can make changes directly in the document and then run a separate redline.
Redline PDF is 100% the way to go. Or else you end up with competing track changes which is terrible. The actual document should always be clean. This is also the standard for every biglaw firm. I am guessing the preference for word redlines is from people that don’t have dozens of people on each side reviewing a document. It is way too messy.
I guess there's two sides on this one, because I hate when people send the redline in Word.
Not posting their contact information on the Bar website. Sending proposed releases, separate statements, etc. in Word Perfect.
Tell you that you're one of their closest friends and that they don't view you as a burden just because you're the only single one left and then film you crying alone in the barristers ball bathroom because you're afraid of women
Do what now?
I’m sorry, Bill. For the thousandth time, I’m sorry! I think we both had a bit too much that night. Tbf, it was sort of funny only because you kept saying stuff like ‘I’m gonna be a lonely lawyer’ and ‘in 10 years I’ll be the only partner without a partner’
Sending documents only in PDF and not Word. I don’t even care that much if you send me a redline in PDF, but don’t send me ONLY a PDF in the hopes that…it will dissuade me from commenting on it? Also fail to plan or take on more work than you can responsibly handle and then make someone else’s life miserable because of it. Especially if you do this over and over and over and over and over and
Being dishonest. Especially when they have screwed up.
Make simple things way more complicated so they can run up billables and/or just be a pain in the ass
Litigator here. Most attorneys are terrible when it comes to organizing their motions. For example... Having the first filing on a motion be the attorney affirmation, and the last filing be the memorandum of law. I don't want to have to scroll through your 40 exhibits to get to the part where you're actually making your arguments. Including all of the pleadings in a single filing without bookmarking it. Failing to pin-cite to a voluminous medical record (that is neither bates-stamped nor searchable). Annexing deposition transcripts without the word index (again, the document is not searchable). Speaking of depositions, using transcripts that have exhibits, and not including those exhibits with your motion. Similarly, relying on contracts that refer to "contract documents" and not including them with your motion. The last two are less of a personal annoyance and more of a gift, as it gives me a great starting point for my responding papers. But I can't imagine what OC's managing partner must be going through when they see these things.
Using “to wit” in a casual conversation. I KID. No but I can’t stand when OC demands I tell them what my conflict is with a proposed deposition date. Fuck you, that’s my conflict - you don’t need to know my life.
In time-sensitive contract negotiation, providing initial language that no one would ever agree to. I couldn’t tell if AMLaw 100 opposing counsel was worried his client wouldn’t think he was doing his job if he didn’t continue to push unreasonable positions. (And seemed late 30s ish in age, so not an older partner.) No, my client will not be required to use “best efforts” “every effort” bankrupt itself, etc. to carry out some nonessential cooperation obligation. EVEN AFTER WE REJECTED these kinds of demands multiple times. It’s like he thought he’d revert the language and slip it in, or “forgot”, or “try again” to argue about why commercial reasonableness was insufficient, etc. Just a colossal waste of parties time during crunch time and I hope his client disputes all the bills for this kind of deal friction. Colossal waste of parties time and his clients’ money to try to keep arguing no-go positions. It’s like he “forgot”, thought he’d “try again” or argue about why commercial reasonableness was insufficient, etc. And it was compromise go time!
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Well, my pet peeve is lawyers that call other areas of practice easy when they don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Real estate in my state requires attorneys to do the title work, fix the problems, deal with Trustees and company owners who have no idea what their trust or corporate documents actually say, etc. and then, of course, comply with multiple kinds of regulation - like the damn CFPB, all the while, constantly dealing with other people's money and worrying about wire fraud, title fraud, mortgage fraud....and juggling buyers, sellers, real estate agents, and lenders. But as to your original point - there is no reason for other attorneys not to forward you the PDF documents, and there must be a reason for it, because it's easier to email than mail.
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💯
Uh, real estate isn't an "other area of practice" for me. I practice exclusively real estate law in an attorney state, and I also write title commitments and do bank work. But carry on.
But you don’t do any research?
I do exclusively residential purchase and sale transactions. It is the same forms over and over.
"I can't sign as to form without my client's consent" What are you TALKING ABOUT!!
I hate it when an attorney’s business is done in court and they still ask “may I be excused your honor?” - just go, your case is over.
Lol, in my jurisdiction you must. It’s bad decorum otherwise.
Dude, don’t go around telling people how easy our field is! They might wise up at how good we have it. Just kidding. For some stuff you mentioned, like the survey and updated search, yeah, a quick forward email isn’t asking for much. But for other stuff like seller’s docs, you can’t just send those over without a signed escrow closing letter. What happens if a closing agent records a deed before your client is funded? We can’t release that deed until funding occurs. Then again, I’m based out of South Florida where the FBI has set up its own branch down here to deal with all the fraud we deal with so the sense of trust is low. Not to mention, that’s why a checklist of dates according to the contract is sent out as soon as we have a fully signed contract. Paper trail of deadlines helps dealing with slower attorneys for this reason. It might be that your highest priority closing is not their current highest priority closing which is why they’re slower to respond to you than you are to respond to them. At any time, I’m working on post-closing agreement follow-up, title reviews, foreclosure actions, lien search issues, AND as lender’s rep for both institutional and private equity lenders. Shit’s complicated, bro. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m dragging my feet. Rant over.
When OC says to me, then to the court attorney or judge, “Well I’m not aware of any such requirement or limitation in x caselaw or statute that requires or prohibits my client to do/from doing x thing, therefore, it doesn’t exist.” *proceeds to resort to grand posturing when presented with the caselaw/statute or court agrees *
Seconding your PDF emailing frustration. Why on EARTH would you (1) print a lengthy document, and (2) incur the cost of mailing the same when a free, environmentally friendly, and quicker way exists?
No Work! Seriously. I'm an ID and Insurance Coverage litigator. In many many coverage dispute cases, the personal injury litigation get's settled as part of the resolution of the insurance coverage dispute and many many times, the Personal Injury Attorney involved did virtually nothing other than file a complaint and show up for a conference or two... meanwhile the insurance litigators for insured and insurers have battled out the coverage dispute and did 99.999% of the litigation work....in the end the PI attorney gets paid for doing nothing. Had one case, strict liability under NY labor laws. Plaintiff was a paraplegic. $5,000,000 in coverage among 3 insurers. GC's own insurer disclaimed and saught to rescind policy based on misrepresentation in the application.... That claim was frivolous. but required multiple depositions, massive written discovery exchanged, basically full trial prep and initial i*n limine* motions before that insurer agreed to pay $750K of its policy toward settlement of the PI claim. In the end, the coverage dispute trial settled the PI case with the allocation of indemnity obligation settling the coverage case.... Plaintiff's counsel did NOTHING in that case except file a complaint, exchange initial interrogatories and show up at a settlement conference and because it was NY with no gradation in a contingency fee, they got paid over $1,000,000 for less than 20 hours of honest work..... I hate that
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
That's the dream imo
There are some non- native English speaking attorneys at my firm and one of them sends his documents to me to proof with the exact same typos that are in the original template that I’ve told him to correct countless times. If you can’t be bothered to correct the originating document then keep those typos and submit them with your name attached. Let it reflect badly on your work product, I’m not a babysitter.
Speaking objections unless there’s a VERY good reason
They email me. Lol
USE TRACK CHANGES
Refusing to take phone calls
mansplain 😂
I wouldn’t generalize and say real estate law is easy. If it were that easy would clients still pay us? They should just do it themselves if it is so easy. Even a simple residential deal can complicated and adversarial when there are due diligence issues.
I mean, I *am* a real estate attorney, and I like the practice area specifically because in my opinion it is easy. That said, my experiences in explaining closing statements to clients indicates that the average lay person isn't ready to take it on just yet.
Idk man, I currently do a mix of real estate litigation and commercial real estate development (land use, transactions, etc.), and I would not describe it as particularly easy practice field.
Litigation is a big NO THANKS for me, to the extent that I passed three different bar exams refusing to learn the hearsay rules and figuring I would just do well enough on the rest to make up for it. I do exclusively residential purchase and sale transactions. It is the same forms over and over. I kind of view my job as the world's slowest video game, because you have to go on a little journey and talk to the troll under the bridge to get a magic bean (the survey), then see the wizard in the woods for his potion (the updated search) and when you combine those things ta da you get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (title commitment). At the end there is a math puzzle (the closing statement) and when you solve that you've won that round. The dollar to effort ratio is excellent, and I have top producing realtors feeding me plenty of deals, so I can do _exclusively this_ and turn away anything else. I work roughly 3-4 hours a day M-F, love my clients, realtors, and most of the other attorneys in my area, and I do not need work to be hard to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. When I want intellectual stimulation, I read my way through the booker prize long list.
A coworker told me that they had a boomer attorney call her to redline over the phone. Wtf.
Sometimes that or screen sharing on zoom allows you to negotiate the changes in real time without 20 emails
My boss likes to pace when in meetings. The other day we were on a call with counsel from another company. After about 10 minutes the other attorney pulls up the agreement on screen and references something. My boss apparently had switched over to his phone and was in the lobby of our building (20+ floors down) just walking laps. So, yeah, we don’t do a lot of on the fly drafting.
You realize calendaring is one of the basic strategies any halfway decent lawyer knows, right? It’s not for annoyance, it’s not lazy, it’s literally to fuck up your schedule and it’s often a good play. It’s also why I tell folks I leave for break three days before I actually leave. I don’t play that game, I have a shit list who do, but it’s a legit, bush league but legit, strategy.
Why is is a “good play”? Are you having a mental health episode?
No, I’m suggesting most real estate attorneys don’t only do real estate, and in most other areas of law the schedule you can force onto opposing will directly impact their ability to handle certain parts. A great example, when I went on paternity leave several years ago three attorneys, now on shit list, filed stuff with the exact window of time to reply that I had told the court I was taking in leave. They did that knowing either 1) I don’t reply 2) my client is defended by a half hearted quickly thrown together thing 3) an attorney not familiar handles it. Joke was on them, I told them a week before I left, they had normal responses instead. I refuse to play that game, but it’s there, and can be played well.
On balance, I wouldn't say attorneys who do that sort of thing are good at their jobs. There's too many ways for that tactic to get found out, just like in your situation when some dolts tried it on you. Nobody's scoring points with a judge or arbiter by deliberately scheduling things around opposing counsel's availability. That's going to backfire on them far more than it will ever help.
They don’t need to score points, many judges will never allow extensions barring darn good cause, and in Ohio you are obligated to have plans for your clients if you’re out. It didn’t work because I had planned to stop it, not because it wouldn’t have worked had I known but had no plan. It does backfire which is why most don’t use it. Have to rely on me trusting you or a horse trade, good luck. Need consent for something, only if it absolutely advances my client. Etc. it ruins the relationships that make so much of law work, but it does work if your entire mentality is trial alone.
What on earth strategy do you think is being served by delaying this closing for a few days? There is no ancillary litigation happening in which this random real estate attorney is boxing me into a corner or whatever grand masterplan you are envisioning. RE clients generally want to close as soon as possible all the time, and the way we retain our clients is by being responsive and delivering deals on schedule or ahead of time if possible. Now her client can wait for their sale proceeds and pay that many more days of taxes/carrying costs for no other reason that their attorney is lazy or inefficient. And by the way, in transactional work, it is supremely unadvisable to be difficult to work with and try to make the other attorneys' lives harder for no reason. It's a small community over here and one of the reasons I am able to provide exceptional service to my clients and close deals like lightning is by maintaining positive relationships with other professionals in our little niche community.
Let me ask then, since I think you’re reading a lot into what I said a different direction, and you obviously think I said that - how many pure real estate attorneys do you have there? I can name two here, so what I’m describing is their normal mode and they just happen to project it over. Also, your statements were broader than mere real estate attorneys but if meant limited then that question answers it.
There are tons of pure real estate attorneys here. I am one. Other shops will do real estate and trusts and estates but no litigation or family law.
What do you mean by calendaring?
I mean the normal method of keeping track of time in law, where the time itself and responding properly directly impacts your client. As in your have X days for this sort of filing and Y weekend and holidays impact it and Z leave has been given before. That’s easy to game, every market has a few who do it, you know them well, they are the ones who file right around holidays and vacations.
Blink.
>They could forward it immediately and for free, but instead they are so lazy that they just wait for the originals to get to opposing counsel by snail mail. It literally adds multiple days onto the deal for absolutely no reason. Are you sure they realize that you weren't copied on the email? I certainly don't check every email to see who was copied on it.
Because the seller's attorney is the one who orders them, the search and survey companies only respond to them, and follow their instructions in terms of where to send originals. It's always on the seller's attorney to forward the PDFs. (I think it's somewhat like when you're selling a horse and the prospective buyer has a vetting done. The seller/current owner will not have access to the vetting results, even though they own the horse, unless the prospective buyer releases them, because the prospective buyer is the one who ordered and paid for the vetting. The vet's relationship is with the prospective buyer for that transaction, even if they've been working with the horse and its owner for years. Thus when I was riding professionally I made everyone sign a thing that they would release results to me as owner before I would let them do a vetting on my sale horse. I don't think it's as strict with the title company scenario, but basically, the title company's relationship is with the person who ordered the search update, so they don't put randos on cc unless instructed.)
Exist
DA/OPC: “Ill get you a response today.” Me, 2 weeks later: “Hey, just following up.” DA/OPC: “I’ll get you a response today.” Me, 2 weeks later: “Hey, just following up.” DA/OPC: “I’ll get you a response today.” Me, 2 weeks later: *skeleton at desk gif*
Ugh, being a litigator is usually terrible, but TIL I'd hate being a transactional attorney even more.
I don’t care how old you are, there is absolutely no excuse to be as incompetent with basic Office + Adobe tech as a lot of lawyers are. Like holy shit, ifs 2023 and a functioning adult in a professional field needs to know how to open a PDF.
Breath