I just realized today that I have not posted in a while and so I thought I'd do a catching-up post. Life has been pretty busy recently, but a good busy. I got a new job!
Now, generally speaking I have always had a rule about not writing about my job on my blog, especially my paralegal jobs. Lawyers tend to get very nervous when staffers write blogs. They are paid to get nervous about such things...
I thought it might be interesting to point out some ways the law office world has changed since I graduated from paralegal school in 1985 and started working.
My very first job in Knoxville was with a firm where my dad knew all the lawyers because his office was in the same building, and he used the law firm a lot. Dad was a trust banker, and many times needed help from lawyers related to wills, estates, trusts, and sometimes tax issues. So he knew my boss well.
The night before I started Dad sat me down and said: "They probably hired you because of me, so you need to always remember that. Work hard. Don't goof off. Always be polite and respectful. They are doing you a favor by hiring you because you have no experience. Don't embarrass me! I told them if you don't do a good job FIRE YOU. I won't hold it against them."
So here you see how The Old Boy Network works. Nepotism at its finest -- but with a catch. IF I had screwed around and truly NOT done a good job, Dad would have heard about it and I would have been in deep s**t. Dad wasn't kidding. He had a fierce work ethic. He went to work no matter how horrible the weather was, or how sick he was. He didn't believe in "personal" days for any reason. I would not have wanted to work for him!
In that first job there were some days it was really snowy outside and I woke up thinking, "I can't get to work! There's a big hill up to my apartment!" First time I had that thought the phone rang and it was Dad. "Bundle up and walk down the hill to the main road. I will pick you up in 30 minutes." He drove me to work. A lot of times that meant I was the only female in the office -- suddenly I was the receptionist, the secretary, the paralegal, everything. Good training, but stressful.
It was fun working in the same building as Dad. Many Fridays he would take me to lunch at a downtown restaurant called The Brass Rail, and we would eat their wonderful fried fish. Dad would collect me at 11:30 and we would walk over there, sit down, order the fish, eat chat, and leave. I was usually back at my desk by 12. Dad didn't linger over lunch. Ever.
One time I regretted working in his vicinity. I got home one night and the phone rang. It was Dad, livid. "I saw you walking down the street, SMOKING! Ladies do NOT smoke on the street! I better never catch you doing that again!" I reminded dad I was a grown woman and I could smoke wherever I wanted to. [I quit about ten years later after Dad died of cancer.]
I have never paid much attention to "ladylike" behavior, as anyone who knows me well will tell you. However, I have never consciously embarrassed my parents in public either.
My second paralegal job was for another firm where Dad knew all the lawyers, and it was also in Dad's building. However, I had decided to go to graduate school and this job was set up so I could make my own hours, fitted in around my class schedule. That was a huge blessing, as many of my classes were only offered during the day. I lost a lot of weight and got very fit walking between campus and downtown Knoxville where I worked.
The lawyers at the second firm were much more laid back, and I stayed there for 5 years.
Example: I was joking around with some of the younger lawyers one day and we were talking about money. I had very little money because of school. I laughingly said "I'd walk down Gay Street [the main road downtown] butt nekkid for a hundred dollars." One of the lawyers pulled out his wallet, slapped a hundred dollar bill down on my desk, and grinned at me. Of course, he was married, and I was really not interested, but I laughed. I also told my dad. That lawyer never even jokingly suggested anything like that again..
Being a paralegal in the 1980's was quite a ride. Most lawyers really had no idea what a paralegal could or should do. You couldn't go to school and get a degree in paralegal studies like you can now. When I went to The National Center for Paralegal Training here in Atlanta in 1985 it was the only program in the southeast. I could choose Litigation, Real Estate, Corporate Law, or Family Law. I chose corporate law. Then I finished and got a job as a litigation paralegal and never worked as a corporate paralegal. That's okay. Litigation is much more exciting.
The profession has changed tremendously since I started in 1985. Here are a few ways:
COMPUTERS
When I started my first legal job I didn't have a computer. Nobody did. The fax machine was considered really high tech and the office manager had to review every fax before it was sent.
About two years in, the lawyers decided to get the secretaries computers -- not the paralegals. We dictated into dictaphones just like the attorneys.
I had been a paralegal for 8 years and moved to Atlanta and I finally got my own computer. I was thrilled. I had taken classes in WordPerfect.
I was 34 before I got a home computer. It had no internet and was slow as molasses but I was thrilled.
CLOTHES
In my first job I had to wear business attire. Skirts, dresses, or dress pants. Pantyhose. Makeup. Suits were preferable. The term "business casual" wasn't invented yet. There was no casual -- not in downtown Knoxville anyway. I had just finished college and had no decent clothes. My mom took me shopping and I had to conform. To this day I think pantyhose were invented by the devil...
I always kept a pair of tennis shoes at my desk because I never knew when I would be told to walk to one of the courts. The county court was a few blocks away, as was the United States District Court, Bankruptcy Court, and every other court in Knoxville. I got a lot of exercise.
When I moved here to Atlanta in 1993 I thought I could retire my tennis shoes. Nope. I got to go to the local courthouses around here by car twice a month, but in downtown Atlanta there was enough walking so I wanted to wear tennis shoes.
FILING
Most lawyers generate a LOT of paper, every day. Every legal pleading has to be signed by an attorney and there is always a Certificate of Service saying a copy was sent to the opposing attorney. I have dropped what I was doing many times to help the secretary get all the bazillion copies made and stuffed into envelopes and to the mailroom before 5 o'clock. Then file copies have to go into the file.
Many times attorneys were nervous about mailing an important pleading and insisted I walk or drive to the courthouse, to stand there while the docket clerk took the filing and stamped FILED on my copy.
Nowadays everything is filed electronically, using a computer.
Legal files used to be all paper. Always. Often many heavy file "buckets" spilling over into many file drawers or boxes. Nowadays many firms have "gone paperless." Everything is scanned in and the entire "file" is electronic, with little or nothing being kept in paper files. Much easier on one's back, I can attest.
DEPOSITIONS
Almost all legal cases involve depositions -- where the lawyers get in a room with a witness and ask the witness questions, often for hours, with a court reporter there recording the answers. A person who has initiated a lawsuit [the plaintiff] almost always has to have their deposition taken.
It used to be it would take weeks to get the transcript back. Nowadays it usually happens in far less time. Court reporters talk into voice cones, their spoken words are immediately turned into typed words, and then it's just a matter of cleaning it up. In a real rush situation a lawyer can get a rough transcript within 24 hours.
Depositions are usually taken in the law office of the attorney whose client or witness is being deposed. Not always. One attorney I worked for here in Atlanta took a deposition in a Waffle House. Another time an attorney I worked with took a deposition in a hospital room, because the witness couldn't make it to the law office. Sometimes attorneys have to go to small towns and take depositions and I have to hunt around for a place where they can do the deposition -- a hotel room, the back of the library, etc.
I once had a lawyer taking a deposition in Virginia, near an amusement park. He loved rollercoasters. He asked me to set it up so right after the deposition he could change clothes and go ride the rollercoaster next door.
One time in Knoxville, the attorney had me sit in on the plaintiff's deposition because he had hurt his hand and couldn't take notes. I sat there and filled a legal pad with copious notes. Later the lawyer told me not to worry about typing them up because he was going to settle the case.
Okey dokey.
My new job allows me to work from home. I stay connected to the rest of the office by phone and computer. It's very doable. I can make my own hours. I much prefer this. I can still watch after Mom and Lola and be available if Michael needs me. Win win!
Below, a couple of photos of me and Dad, late 1980's. [He died in 1996]
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