As a first-year I was helping prepare an expert for a trial the following year. We had scheduled a meeting with the expert to discuss his analysis of opposing expert's report and to sketch out the timeline for our own work. It was mainly supposed to be a refresher for the expert on what the case was about and what we needed from him, because it had been several years since he last worked on the case. Partner asked me to prepare 6 copies of various materials including a transcript of the expert's deposition. I relayed the things we needed to the paralegals on the team and checked that all the materials were prepared and ready for the meeting.

The meeting was to be held in one of our firm's conference rooms. At prior meetings with the team, I had always brought just a legal pad and paper, instead of my laptop. That had never caused any problems. So for this meeting, I did the same and gave no second thought to whether we needed a laptop.

During the meeting, which was going well, a small issue came up regarding whether the opposing expert made a particular point, either in his deposition or in his report, or somewhere else, or perhaps never made that point at all. I didn't remember seeing that point made anywhere, but couldn't be 100% certain it didn't exist.

The junior partner on the case, who was the person I worked for, wanted to check the deposition transcript copies to see whether that point was made during the deposition. He picked up a copy and looked for an index in the back that tracked the page numbers on which words and phrases appeared. There was no index.

Apparently, when you print out these deposition transcripts, there are options available for what to include with the printout, including whether to make an index. I had no idea, because every other transcript copy I saw in the case came with an index. It did not cross my mind at all that the program would default to printing without an index.

When he couldn't find the index, the partner lost his shit and became visibly upset and red in the face. He looked at me in the middle of the meeting and said "We can't find what we're looking for. These copies don't help at all." He paged through the transcript for 5-10 seconds. "Where's the index? Why wouldn't you print the index?"

I didn't answer his question but instead offered to go upstairs to my office and bring my laptop down so we could run some searches. "We don't have time for that now, can you look through this copy and find whether the expert said [the point]?" He handed me the copy, obviously knowing that I wouldn't be able to do what he asked. Like a beta first-year bitch, I made an attempt to look for the statement, and then said "I don't remember him saying it anywhere, but I'll need to search the database later to confirm."

During this back and forth with the junior partner, the expert and his assistant, as well as the senior partner on the case, who was far less anal, remained silent and seemed embarrassed. We moved on to other issues and the meeting concluded 15-20 minutes later.

Back in my office, I seethed. I recognized that what happened was, in some sense, my fault, because I could have checked for an index (even though I wasn't aware of the possibility that the transcript would be printed without an index), and I could have brought my laptop to the meeting so that it was easier to access. But regardless, what was especially grating about the situation was the way the partner handled it. Had he been someone kinder and more charismatic, he could have minimized my mistake and moved the meeting along. He could have asked me to go upstairs and search for the point, or allowed me to get my laptop when I offered. But instead, he made the whole situation strange and embarrassing. It's almost as if his goal was to make me feel like I fucked-up rather than to actually address the issue.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32861479)

you're clearly not anal enough for BIGLAW

(which is a good thing.)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32862454)

Submitted a brief with a ton of mistakes. Partner made a ton of last minute (literally, hours before filing) changes and I only had caught some of the dozens of typos, erroneous references, etc. he inserted into the brief. I reread it a month later and thought "holy shit, this is bad." Not just biglaw nitpicking a typo here or there, but mistakes you see from shitlaw firms.

Once edited and proofed a brief given to me by co-counsel. It seemed fine. Had our in-house cite checkers cite check it. They missed a dead wrong cite - a clearly overturned case - that the other side then spent half a page on in their reply discussing how we were dishonest, etc. etc. The court didn't really care but the senior associate on the case went nuts.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32861660)

using stuff I learned in my law and economics class, I included a big section about how "you know, this transaction type is economically equivalent to this other transaction type" and then a bunch of caselaw related to transaction type b.

the partner who assigned it to me took one look at the memo, and was like wtf is all this irrelevant stuff about the other transaction type

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32861672)

I worked for one once who INSISTED that I be in at 9 (I used to come in around 9:15 or so, which really irritated him). I once came in to his business card sitting on my office chair as some sort of mafia-like sign to let me know that he knew that I wasn't in my chair at 9.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32861808)

Fucking partners

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32861785)

monsters.

the firm i'm at now is pretty good about this tbh. i don't get a ton of make work. secondary market.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32863605)

partner was a huge cunt

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32862478)

"indices" if you're talking about metrics, "indexes" if you're talking about reference pages

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32862372)

Interesting that "indexes" is preferable when talking about a book but in the same context "appendixes" is wrong.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32862542)

And really it should have been five, because of some technicality. We corrected it subsequently somehow. People didn't care.

I also missed a bad case once, got cited by oc in response, partner was angry Bc he thought we should have referenced it first in our brief even though it wasn't technically dispositive

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32862505)

I found ways to strategically fuck her over in the future. Things like seeing a mistake she made in drafting and not correcting it, ignoring her emails on weekends so she would have to input her own goddamn hand comments because she didn't trust word processing to do it. Just little things to make sure her life was harder than it otherwise would have been.

And that's why you treat people working for you well.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32863227)

I did something similar to what you did; not correcting the partner's errors or going out of my way to read the entire memo instead of the section the partner requested. Backfired on me and led to a shitty review. Got bitched at for not putting forth the extra effort to do what's needed, such as reading the other memo sections. Fuck that partner and the firm. Also, partner was always bitching a out billing too much. Why did u spend 1 hr on this? I only wanted u to proofread it! (but expected much more)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32863484)

And I LOVe the shit you describe int he last sentence. Don't spend too much time on this, but so help me god if I find a single em-dash where an en-dash was appropriate you are the worst fuckign associate in biglaw history GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32863566)

TLDR is that I missed a change in a redline from opposing counsel that could cost the clients millions (or could never be relevant, it depends). Since I caught it post-signing, there is nothing I can do but hope nobody ever notices.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3557229&forum_id=2#32870410)