I spent most of my career at Pallett Valo LLP, a medium-sized law firm in Mississauga, Ontario.
On my first day at the office, I met Mindy Dodds, a young woman who was initially assigned to be my Legal Assistant, but who soon became my Corporate Clerk.
“Blue Sky Law” refers to securities regulation. The expression is said to have originated in Kansas and refers to hucksters who could sell ‘a piece of the blue sky’ to unsophisticated farmers.
Back when I was more impressed with Big Law than I am now, we were approached by a senior lawyer who I will call Jake who wanted to leave Big Law and join our medium-sized suburban wannabe downtown law firm.
There was once a law firm with a small corporate department consisting of a law clerk and one senior corporate lawyer who I will call Carl. The partners of the firm had tired of Carl’s antics so they hired a bright young corporate lawyer who I will call Martin. The idea was that if Martin was any good, they would tell Carl to shape up or ship out.
I am not the handiest person in the world. In fact, my toolbox only has three tools in it, being a phone, a pen, and a cheque book. For this reason, I may not be the best person to be writing about hammers and nails. But I will anyway because I really want to use one of my favourite quotes.
Abraham Maslow wrote, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
I met more than a few lawyers who were ‘easily inconvenienced.’ For these individuals, any challenge, no matter how inconsequential it might have appeared to be to others, was a major problem. It was never a good time for their associates or assistants to take a vacation. Their work not being given top priority by an associate who reported to several lawyers – a catastrophe. Their shared assistant working for another lawyer at the exact moment that they wanted something done – a disaster. Staff members attending a half-day training session on new technology – a real problem. Funds for closing being delayed for an hour for whatever reason – the world was ending.
My father had a rocky start to his career. There were many years at the outset of his working life when he did not make much money and struggled to pay his bills. When creditors would call, he would explain to them about the payment hat. He would tell them that once a month he turned his fedora upside down and put all of his monthly bills in the hat. He described how he would then mix the bills up and pull them out and pay them until the money ran out.
Finally, he would warn the creditors that if they kept calling him and annoying him, their invoices were not going into the hat.
There was once a law firm which had a particular department which experienced some turn-over in its associates. Lots of turn-over, actually.
The department in question was headed by a lawyer with a ‘strong personality.’ I am not qualified to give a psychological diagnosis of this lawyer, but if I were, I would probably say that this person was a narcissist. If I was being nice.
Let me tell you about a real person, whose real name is not Emily.
Emily is a superstar. She does it all and has been doing it all for an awfully long time.
I met Paul at my very first job as a lawyer. Paul was a commercial real estate lawyer. He was hard-working and extremely capable. Paul thought quite a bit of himself and other people who he considered to be intelligent and diligent. However, Paul did not suffer fools gladly.
I was once hired by a dentist to help him disassociate from his partner. I will refer to my client as the “Good Dentist” and to his partner as the “Dentist from Hell.”