On this date in 1993 I started my very first paralegal job in Atlanta. I remember it only because it's the same date as my parents' wedding anniversary. I was smart, a hard worker, and completely unprepared.
I had been a paralegal for more than seven years, but I knew nothing about Georgia law. Atlanta is a very large metropolitan area with the largest airport in the world. The town is encircled by interstate 285, a/k/a the Indy 500. Knoxville is the largest town in East Tennessee but its population is roughly a tenth that of Atlanta. It would take probably a full day to walk all over downtown Atlanta. You can walk all over downtown Knoxville in less than an hour. Most Knoxville lawyers file cases in Knox County, which encompasses most all of the city and county. In Atlanta, you have Fulton County, DeKalb County, Cobb County, etc.
In Knoxville, in 1993, most lawyers were very civil Southern Gentlemen and Ladies, who all played by the same rules. In Atlanta, practicing law as a litigator was more like a bloodsport.
In Knoxville, I once watched an attorney call a judge's secretary and sweet talk her into postponing his trial because he was scheduled to be out of town on a fishing trip. In Atlanta, trial calendars are published in the local legal publication and lawyers have to either settle or be ready to go with a couple hours' notice.
My job as a paralegal was rapidly evolving. At my last job in Knoxville I had a nice office with a window but no computer. Not even a typewriter. In Atlanta I didn't have a window but for the first time I had a computer! Shortly after I started, we got color monitors. We used WordPerfect. I had taken a class in WordPerfect in Knoxville but it was still a learning situation for me. I got a lot of emails from my very demanding boss.
Everything was paper in those days. All court filings were done in person. In Knoxville, I could walk to all of the places downtown where filings were done, and I never had to get in my car. All the paralegals in the Atlanta firm took turns going to the local courthouses [DeKalb, Fulton, and sometimes Cobb] and filing pleadings, copying things out of court files, delivering letters to judges, etc. The Courthouse Run usually took several hours and you had to use your car. I kept sneakers under my desk and quarters in my car to feed parking meters.
Sometimes the Atlanta lawyers would wait until the last minute to file pleadings in court and then two paralegals had to "tag team" -- one driving and one jumping out of the car and running into the courthouse to file the pleadings right before the court's filing desk closed. Downtown Atlanta between 4 and 5 pm on a weekday is not for the faint of heart.
In Knoxville I had only known one female attorney, and she just did legal research and stayed in the background. In Atlanta, I worked for a female attorney who was so ferocious that local paralegals didn't want to work for her, which is why I was hired, from Tennessee.
I had no idea what I was getting into. My Atlanta boss was a really hard taskmaster but I did learn a lot. I never went on vacation or stayed home sick that she didn't call me at least once, and sometimes multiple times a day. I had pneumonia once and was out sick for a week, and she called me and said if I didn't come back to work my pay would be docked. I went back to work. She was really a character. She used to routinely make plaintiffs cry in deposition -- and the secretary, associate and I would make bets how long the poor deponent would last before breaking down in tears. Usually it was accomplished by page 10 in the transcript. I devoted many pages to that attorney in my recent memoir, Talking Back: Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years. Of course I didn't use her real name. She is now retired.
Of course, my gameplan in 1993 was to simply work until I got married and started having children. That didn't happen.
Now that I'm older I look back sometimes and marvel at how energetic and optimistic I was as a young woman. I didn't give up on finding a husband until I turned 40, but I was relieved to throw away my pantyhose and buy stretchy pants, and go to work in the legal department of a company, which is FAR less stressful than working in a firm.
As the saying goes, "You either win, or you learn."
#paralegallifelessons, #paralegallife, #lawinatlanta, #paralegalmemories
below left, me in 1989, in Knoxville; below right me about ten years later, in Atlanta
