Name the most ridiculous micro-managing by partners that you experience.

I’ll go first: MP told me that on initial emails, I am always to start with “Hello [name],” but after the initial email, I am not to address her by name again in the same thread. Initial greeting can only be “Hello [name] ” because just first name is too brisk and a “Hi [name]” is too informal. Had a 5 minute, in depth conversation as to why she prefers it this way…

likefunny
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Partner doesn’t like when we reply with “No problem” because it sounds like it would be a problem otherwise. 😐

likefunnysmart

“No problem” is better than “If I have no other fu$king choice” which is what honest communication would demand

likesmart

MP told me that I should say documents are “enclosed” rather than “attached.” I’m sure he thinks about these things on his carriage-ride home on gaslamp-lit streets since he’s clearly living in Victorian times. Emails have attachments, Sherlock

likefunny

my Outlook says "You may have forgotten to attach a file"

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Recent IconRecent

Insurance Defense: Partner emailed me in middle of day that I billed 0 hours so far (I just didn’t put my time in yet) and told me I should be taking a vacation day if I’m not working

likefunnyuplifting

oh. my. god. no.

A senior associate who is the partners’ lap dog requires me to confirm receipt of any of his emails with “Received, sir” and then request approval to work on the assignment he assigned in his email for him to “confirm” that I can work on the assignment.

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Judge. Male court clerk. C-Suite or other high level business partner with the juice to get me immediately fired no questions asked.
- People I call “Sir”

And here I was trained to use "Hi Name" all the time.

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Usually my default too, but not anymore lol😂

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I had a mid level ask me to rename all deal documents (100+) because I bracketed the word Executed in the title instead of using a hyphen and then saying Executed. This was after the deal closed, post-closing work was done and the closing book was done…AND she insisted it had to be done in the middle of a busy day and I couldn’t log off for the night until it was done. She rage quit biglaw a few months later because it was too stressful on her…

likefunny

Amazing

I’m sorry you all went through this stuff but some of these stories are absolutely hilarious.

likefunny

Partner told me never to print a document to PDF and insert the scanned signature page, but rather to print the document to paper, then scan it all in with the signature page 'so it all looks the same'.

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What a Boomer

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Partner who demanded that every email closing had to be “Thanks,” because you should always be thanking them for their business. Even if you already said “Thanks for the email” one line prior. Also would edit out every single “shall” because he swore he’d lost a case based on the ambiguity of that word 🙄 I know I have so many more from that same guy, who I mercifully don’t work for anymore, but they’re escaping me at the moment.

likefunny

This sounds all too familiar. In emails to clients, did he also make you write “privileged and confidential” at the end of each subject line?

A mid level wanted me to take notes on a diligence call so he could focus on the call (which he wasn’t even running…), so he called every other deal time I was on and told them I’d be out of pocket during those few hours…I had deals closing on that day and the guy never even asked me before doing it. My other teams were all mad. I ended up suggesting his secretary join to take notes and he thought it was brilliant. I swear some people just don’t have any sense of efficiency.

likefunny

This week I had a senior associate make me edit and rerun 20 redlines because in the draft stamp header (you know, the part that doesn’t actually have any legal significance) I had put “[firm initials] draft” rather than “[firm name] draft”.

funnylike

Wow — also, firm initials is way better unless identical…

This is back when I was a paralegal.

I worked for an estate planner, and my cubicle was within his office. He was a very particular dude. Nice as hell — but super weird about how the work should be done. Part of my job was to help prepare the ancillary documents for an estate plan (i.e. the ones you can pretty much just change names, addresses, and signature blocks.)

To reduce the risk of a typo being made, he was super specific in his training. He really wanted you to type the name of clients ONCE and forever copy and paste it afterwards. He even went out of his way to tell me about all the keyboard shortcuts he used to copy, paste, highlight per letter, per word, per line.

There was more than one occasion when we were both working that I would hear him say, “Why do I hear so many key strokes?”

Because I know how to spell David, bro.

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I was told that referencing documents attached to an email as "attached hereto" is too formal for non-lawyers.

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Please find attached (document). 🤷🏼‍♀️

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Provide well-formatted and fully coherent call notes within 5 mins of a call ending, highlighting doubts and questions as well. Follow up emails on this request in 10 min intervals.

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Noooooooooo

Telling me that I always need to rearrange the people in cc in order of 'importance', even when I don't send the original email

likefunny

Insist on removing double spaces in a statement of defence that was already 2 hours overdue at 2 AM…

likefunny

Just find all replace lol

Partner called me in his office and asked if I knew we had a deadline to amend complaint to add parties today… I said yeah? Said I should have reminded him before the weekend and the morning of (Monday) to let him know of the deadline to be proactive….He would also send me emails after I sent emails out noting his “pet peeves” so I could learn his style of writing…I left after 3 months.

likesmart

This is wild. The MP at my former firm told me all of his pet peeves and issues so that I could learn how to write like him (among many other things). Left after 6 months.

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Partner will revise just to put two spaces between sentences and an extra ghost line after the signature.

likefunny

Was working for a client on two transactions. One supervised by a partner and the other by an associate. The associate insisted i send him my draft emails for review and never talk to the client without him. So I would talk to the client independently on the partner run deal and then have to loop in the associate if the conversation migrated to the other deal.

Same associate scolded me for not entering client contact names in an email in order of seniority …. When replying. So he expected me to REORDER the “to” field

likefunny

Nope. Just an associate that was a regular asshole 😂

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One time I was doing a deal with an of counsel and his only comments to the transaction documents were to nitpick whether the miscellaneous boilerplate sections were all identical. Literally handmarked the boilerplate. Do I look like a legal assistant?

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My statement still stands. I’d be happy for someone to do that annoying tedious work of conforming boilerplate. I would take his tracked changes and tell my secretary to move it into the document or just save over the system version if there aren’t version control issues. Take a nap and let the old geezer do it. 😆

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