Updating the Boss Lawyer
Tue., October 8, 01:41 PM
I first worked for Boss Lawyer several years ago. He never hires people directly, but uses the temporary agency I work for. At the time I said I had dragged him – kicking and screaming – into the twentieth century, just in time for the twenty-first.
When I first came here, the height of his technology was electric typewriters. A so-called word processor was no longer operating except as a typewriter, although the girl working before me never mentioned that to him; she just retyped. We also have a typewriter with a broken daisy wheel, and I resist using that whenever I can.
He didn’t trust computers, and I didn’t mind doing the some of the standard form letters on the former word processor. But I was damned if I was going to re-type a twenty-page brief every time he made a change! So, when we had more involved materials, I took them home and created files on my home computer. I pointed out that we would still make hard copies for his file, and I didn’t charge him much time for working at home.
Eventually he acquired a second-hand computer, onto which I transferred what I had begun on my own. I set up computer files for his cases, worked up some forms and templates, and put complicated financials into Excel so that we didn’t have to worry about arithmetical errors. I even designed letterhead and envelopes for him, which turned out to be much cheaper than what he had been buying. That’s the way I work. Overall, I would make his office run more efficiently, and he could – in theory – accept more cases.
However, as I may have mentioned before, Boss Lawyer is not very ambitious. What I never took into account is that he did not want more cases. What he really wants is more time to go hiking or shooting or whatever. Although I had been glad to take off early when my husband was in the hospital that year, I found that there was little to do if I stayed longer. I felt I was wasting his money. In addition, the longer I worked this way, the less able I would be to find a better job. So I asked the agency to place me elsewhere, which they did.
After two years, I was once again available, and the agency told me that Boss Lawyer was looking for a secretary again. He was willing to pay more, and by that time I was sick of fighting the system. (I will never again have what I call a really good job. But this one will do.) At least this time we would start with a computer.
During the time I was gone, they had updated Windows and Microsoft Office, and they had also bought a diskette of court forms. All I had to do was get back into the routines of a law office. (Sometime I forget to use Lawyerspeak and lapse back into English.) Boss Lawyer has not yet grasped that what used to take an hour now takes ten minutes, so he generally leaves me lots of free time, and he told me it was worth it to him that I be there, even if I just read a book. Until he ran out of money. And then, well, I’ve already ranted about that.
The only benefit of hiring that girl was that she needed money so badly she sold Boss Lawyer her computer. Yes, it’s better than the old one; it runs Windows Millennium Edition, even if has only 63 MB of RAM. We also have her printer, one of those cute little desktop jobs that can’t do “heavy-duty” work – such as two-page documents. And then, of course, she got another job. Farewell, Girl! In the long run, it would have been cheaper just to buy a new computer, since he represented her in two cases that she didn’t pay him for, and then her mother decided that she should get another lawyer. But he is soft-hearted. He has since said that, if he starts to do something like that again, I should kick him!
After the departure of the Airhead Intern (I told you he was soft-hearted), he brought in a young woman who just finished college and is thinking things over until she decides on graduate school. On the surface, this is no different from the Airhead, but she is much smarter. For one thing, she really does have computer skills; he barely knew how to turn the computer on. For another, she understands the filing system and the logic of office procedure. Actually, she is really too smart for this job. She already realizes that Boss Lawyer expects us to complete a task far slower than we do; he still doesn’t comprehend how much time a computer saves. Perhaps Boss Lawyer will allow her to sit in on some of his client conferences and learn more about the practice. He would do that if she expressed an interest in law school. Otherwise, she will find something more interesting to do, and I will suggest that he look for a paralegal instead of a secretary. If he had a good paralegal (he could try a student from one of the local schools), he might find that he could run the office from the Boy Scout camp!
