In the intake below me at the firm I trained at there was an Oxbridge educated trainee who was asked to write a letter on behalf of her supervisor.  When she presented it to him for his approval he pointed out that his surname was spelled incorrectly and she pointed out that wasn't the normal way to spell his surname and proceeded to have a discussion with him which resulted in him pointing out that he knew how to spell his name and she could also check the sign on the office door if she wanted additional confirmation.

More visually funny than anything, and I was standing at the photocopier right behind him when it happened, but when I was trainee one of the litigation partners (who clearly enjoyed a regular fry-up) bent to lift a box of files and the seams in his pants at the butt part very audibly split down the middle. He was wearing red underwear.

May he RIP x

Again more visually funny was a inter office video call where a solicitor was on his own and trying to get the camera sorted only while he was doing so it was pointing right up his nose so we kept getting  a close up view of his nose hair and heavy breathing through it. What was funnier was that no one in our office could hold it together for the whole meeting afterwards. 

On a zoom call during the pandemic watching a colleague trying to talk on a serious topic while his cat is in the background knocking photos and trinkets off the mantlepiece one by one. Everyone cracking up and whatsapping. 

The one where in an office on my own when my roommate had gone out for lunch I let rip a fairly meaty smelling fart just before a very attractive NQ came in.  She stopped just within the door, sniffed and said "Naughty Buzz you've just had a McDonalds haven't you? Quite tempted to go for one myself now" completely oblivious to the fact she'd just gleefully inhaled a lungful of my pungent bum gas. 

Someone made an error and it was really funny. You had to be there. 

Reminds me of a video call with a prospective client which she was doing on her phone.  Part of the way through she needed to go to another room to get something and took the phone with her and while she moved between rooms I had a close up of her decolletage.

yes Buzz fart stories are an absolute hoot bravo sir 🙄

A partner was late to a meeting and explained this was because she had just had a mole removed. A colleague required how it got up there, which was quite funny then but probably wouldn’t pass muster now 

Enquired 

from many years ago, I had a colleague who used to bring a pillow and blanket to work so she could have a nap under her desk.. to be honest, she did an awful lot of charlie after work most nights so no wonder she crashed during the day.

Once spent a weekend in Florence and just wandered around, soaking it up. Some dickhead "Firenze expert" colleague started firing "did you see x, did you go to Y, did you eat at Z" etc. Exasperated he said "so 3 days in Florence and all you did was bum about?!" 

The only answer was "yeah, I was born to bum". 

I’m sure I’ve posted it before but my first job was in Liverpool. I clerked in a patient who took insulin. She told me she took 15 units at tea time and 25 at dinner time (or whatever). I was a little confused since the patient didn’t strike me as the sort who’d take high tea. However, I dutifully recorded it on the drug chart 1400 15 units, 1800 25 units. 

The ward sister then asked me WTF I was prescribing, ripped the drug chart up, and pointed out that tea was the evening meal and dinner was the midday meal. As an Oxford educated southerner it brought colleagues some laughs. 

We had an associate from the far north who talked about going to a client tea (resto in the evening with clients). Think she was jamming it up. 

That was typed as "hamming" but love that autocorrect. 

Shortly after I started my current job, the GC sent me a message on whatsapp a few minutes before we were due to meet.  He was off work that day because he had some kind of virus/infection and wasn't feeling well.  He meant to say that he wouldn't be able to meet me as he'd just had a shot and was feeling light headed and needed to rest but there was an amusing typo instead of "shot".  I'm not one to let that kind of "shot" go without making sure that he was suitably embarrassed. 

This might be apocryphal, but in a similar vein, the trainee from veh rural parts, who was the last to enter a taxi with partner and clients , didn't realise there were pull-down seats and plonked his backside down on the cab floor. 

I'll also admit to a taxi faux pas which is hugely outing, but I once opened the door of a taxi at the RCJ into the path of a bus and it was torn off. Not sure whether the irate taxi driver was worse than the fact that opposing solicitors, counsel and their client saw the whole thing and were p*ssing themselves. TBF I would have done the same. 

Gorlami,

You reminded me of an email I sent to a GC and called him Mike when his name was Richard.  From that day onward, for years every time he'd email me he'd give me a random first name.. spiteful eh..

and these are the funniest?

our firm name is very similar to a name of a place.  BUT NOT IDENTICAL when spelt in the native tongue.  anyway, we were negotiating a document with a bank and a well known global law firm were on the other side.  every time they sent the mark up back they'd amended the name of our firm through out (defined terms and all).  We'd then unamend it and send it back.  after the third time i rang the bank and said, look, whilst it's quite entertaining, it's a bit of a waste of time and fees so could you please reassure [global mega law firm] that we do indeed know how to spell our own name.

When i was a trainee (in the City, but a long time ago) it was normal for everyone to go out on a Friday lunchtime and drink.  And drink.

A colleague came back to the office and fell asleep on the floor of the ladies.  It was a single loo inside a single door.  she didn't lock it.  Just collapsed.  

The senior partner, leaving the office late, noticed the light was on.  He opened the door into my colleague, still on the floor.

Zoom hearing, during lockdown.

Youngest IMT, charged through the spare room/makeshift office in her birthday suit declaring..."Daddy! I want to get in the swimming pool!!!"

I quietly ushered her out of the room, into the care of her mum, but didn’t tell the judge or opponents that the 'swimming pool' was in fact an inflatable paddling pool in the garden.

The taxi door one is brilliant. 

Cheery thread! More please :)

I remembered an embarrassing one. When I got back from first maternity I was so used to just seeing friends that I met counsel at the Courthouse and he introduced me to a work experience person. Instead of shaking her hand I kissed her on both cheeks. I was mortified and she looked a bit surprised. I later texted counsel to say how embarrassed I was and he rather inappropriately said he was more disappointed he didn’t get a kiss too since I’d known him longer. 

A place I worked at had one of the lab techs briefly shagging one of the mortuary techs on the QT. The lab tech’s mother was one of the department seccies. When the lab tech finished with the mortuary lad he wasn’t a happy man, but wanted to return some stuff she’d left at his. By dumping it all, including her underwear, on her mother’s desk in the open plan seccie office. 

Since our work is essentially humour-free I have gone for Crypto’s workplace…

Mrs P was groggy from a pre-med and about to undergo an operation when the anaesthetist was chatting to her:

“Just checking, do you have any allergies?”

Mrs P “Avocados”

Anaesthetist: “Quick, nurse, remove all the avocados from the operating theatre!”

legal practice is not as funny as it used to be, it seems.

Ah well.

• I once tuned up to the Court of Criminal Appeals wearing odd shoes.
• I had a witness interview transcript produced by the police in which the witness had claimed that she could "state without fear of contraception" that her recollection was correct. 
• In the same case (clearly the police witness statement typist had had a bad day) the police officer was stated to have observed the defendant walking out of the pub into the car park and then, "after one or two murders, returned indoors". 
• I had a physical fight with a partner (RoF passim) 
• I had a witness in the Chancery Division light a cigar while giving evidence.
• We had an associate who had anger management issues who kicked the paper recycling bin which was made out of corrugated cardboard and his foot went through it and he stormed off across the room with it stuck on his foot and then tripped himself up and I nearly shat I was laughing so much. 
• Same chap farted in a round table team meeting. It was a chirpy one and everyone went awkwardly silent. The managing partner said "thanks for your contribution Peter". 
• A partner in my team had a picture of himself naked in a frame in his room.
• One Christmas party a secretary was dancing with an associate when her bf came to collect her. He pushed the associate off her, said "get off" and she slapped him saying she'd dance with who she wanted thanks, he slapped her in the face, a partner came over and said wait wait wait what's going on here and he was knocked out cold on the floor and then another secretary intervened and punched the lad and he shouted "YOU CAN FU CK OFF TOO - AT LEAST I'M NOT  F UCKING MY BEST FRIEND'S BOYFRIEND" and there was a beautiful silence and everyone looked across the room at another seccy who screamed "FUC KING DIRTY BITCH" as she stabbed her in tit with a fork.   That was all absolutely ace entertainment.

Was at a meeting (about 1 year PQE) taking a witness statement and realized my flies were undone.

And worse, there was a hair protruding.

Tried to surreptitiously pull it out. 

I then realized it was not one of my hairs but was a very long synthetic thread that looked like a blonde hair from my bed blanket. 

And once I had started I had to keep pulling and had to use both hands to wind it round my hand to get it out and then zip up my flies.

Noone said anything. They just stared in horror and then carried on with the meeting. 

HEH

Anyway, that's enough focus on my MASSIVE BLONDE PUBIC HORROSHOW, let's get on with the matter in hand

Board member stood in front of me trying to photocopy an Ipad to share a news article Literally putting the ipad into a photocopier perplexed why it was just showing a black square when copied.

Had to explain how to screenshot, and/or copy and paste the link into an email.. 

In court when I was a pupil, the prosecuting counsel had a terrible cold. He was blowing his nose lots into a massive handkerchief while cross examining an officer. I felt quite sorry for my client having to endure the snorting and coughing as he was brutalised by this bullyboy of a barrister who should have been doing better work than this. I had developed a big dislike of him over the course of the hearing.  At the end of his cross-ex he sat down but he knocked a glass of water over with his lever arch file. He quickly mopped it with his handkerchief but the water was still creeping across the desk to his notes and the bundles.  He rang out the cloth into the glass then he mopped some more. There was about half a glass of cloudy murky grey liquid in there.  Then we had to send the jury out because we had an argument on an evidential issue. He behaved like a total prick and made ad hominem points about my conduct of the matter. He started to really get into it and then finished his submissions with a real twinkle in his eye and a swishing sort of ta-da ending with much arm movement for elan. The judge was unmoved so he sat down, and drank the glass.

Another farty one courtesy of my former head of department who would very often if he were standing next to you at the urinals drop an extremely loud fart and say "and that, sir, is my client's best and final offer".

Someone came into the office after a night out as they missed the train. Security wouldn't let them onto the office floor but said they could got to the sofa in the client area as it had cameras they could watch them on. He then pissed in a plant pot and tripped over the sofa, on CCTV, which he had to watch back with the department head and HR later that week. 

heh

As a hungover junior I once found an empty office being used to store boxes of files and made a kind of nest under the desk. I was very pleased with myself as i settled down for a mid-morning nap. Less so when I woke up and realised everyone across the road in the firm's other building could see me sleeping through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me. 

Hints of that a&o partner, without the shagging.

• As a trainee, managed to snag a good cm or two of cock skin in my flies (a la 'There's something about Mary') immediately before an interlocutary before a v aged Chancery Master. It was contended with a barrister attending for the other side. Bizarrely, I succeeded but it may have been due to sympathy as the Master very sincerely asked me if I was OK on the way out...
•  Attended a disclosure meeting on site at a client's office with a junior associate. After helping ourselves to coffees from the client's kitchen, I earnestly presented to the 20+ board and senior manages what disclosure is, the risks and benefits etc. Unfortunately my colleague's previously innocuous mug of coffee started to heat up and with it a photo of an enormous erect cock appeared on the mug as he drank it, which detracted a bit from my presentation. 

Goodness.

Muttley’s angry associate story reminded me of an angry associate at a previous firm who became angrier when drunk. Towards the end of the firm’s Christmas party, there were a bunch of brownies and other sweet things left over and one of the waitresses asked if she could take them home. For some inexplicable reason the angry drunk associate found this to be an intolerable demand and shouted  “No! These are not your brownies, they are [firm’s name]’s brownies!” before smashing his fist through the whole tray of brownies thus rendering them nobody’s brownies.

I was working with a new junior in A&E and she wrote in the clinical notes "child attended with grandpa covered in incest bites". 

The Taxi story is interesting because I know a (former) colleague who claimed that he was the partner in question and that he then asked the trainee to take some notes as he spoke.  From the floor. Notebad balancing on his knees.  Always felt it was a bit of a cruel story!

1.Met a new client, and throughout the hour consultation had a feeling that he was a bit uncomfortable, and didn’t want to make eye contact.

Saw him out to the lift, and I needed a pee. 

Upon entering toilet I looked in the mirror and realised I had a humungeous bogey hanging from my nose. 

Client didn’t return.

2. Office Drinks Party, pressed the call button, and lift doors opened to find receptionist giving senior partner a blow job.

Back in the day we'd use the internal mail to send presents to unsuspecting colleagues.

Typically condoms or porn videos with a post-it saying "thanks for the loan" etc., although someone once managed to stuff an inflatable doll into the envelope (not inflated at the time obvs).

Of course this only really worked if the recipient opened it in the presence of a partner or seccie.

Some fellow trainees were engaged in internal post wars along this theme.  One, a real full equity trainee, was in the pompous habit of making his seccie open his post.  She did so and duly passed him a very graphic flyer on dealing with erectile disfunction, much to the mirth of his chums.

Some months later, the trainee ended up in bed with that seccie.  When faced with his engorged glory, she said with concern "Oh, I fort u woz incompetent"...

Office Christmas party again (both from same one)

1.Assistant was totally smashed and dropped her handbag on the dance floor. She started scrabbling around on all fours frantically picking up all the coins. It took a good 2/3 minutes before someone was able to explain she was picking up the cardboard discs from party poppers.

2. A shell shocked managing partner came up to me (think I just happened to be closest) and told me that a pissed trainee had just - in his words - sidled up to him and told him he'd like to "rip him one up the sh1tter". Don't think he was kept on.

An old school M&A partner announced during a meeting that he had to have a break due to having  a “barbarian at the gate”

Jesus this reminds me why I left private practice. Just a bit tame. First year in my job (been there for 15 now) at a formal dinner I was drunk driving a golf buggy down an internal corridor served and managed to get it wedged in Austin powers style. Abandoned it and ran off as one of the seniors started shouting 

Was this your lot too?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEh7xyRAteY

Not seen a lawnmower but there was a period when people were into naked mini Moto racing

The drinks party tales remind me of handing round canapes and watching someone reach out and take a quails egg of the plate I was carrying without really looking.  Unfortunately he'd picked up one of the ones with the shell on which was being used to decorate the plate and without noticing he happily took a big bite of it and then started slowly crunching eggshell before slipping the remaining half into his jacket pocket.

Ipad photocopying reminds me of the technomisic partner who dictated a long whole-team email to his secretary - then asked her to print it out and hand out copies to everyone.

Not funny but on the surprisingly clueless front I had a CTO recently tell me he couldn’t mark up the unencrypted word doc I had circulated cos it  was  “Read only “

I once had to explain to my boss what tea bagging was

With or without a demonstration?

I did have one of those moments where you say what you are thinking once and it seemed fine until I said it out loud. 

Stuart Popham was the sr partner at CC. There was a floor in Uppe Bank St where the mgmt were sat. The men’s loo had a wall with urinals on it, the other side of which was SP’s office. I was having a pee. Standing there and in walks SP. Silence. Awks. I suddenly said ‘isnt it weird that we are both standing here with our cocks out and nobody has anything to say but if we were both 1 meter further that way there’d be hell to pay’

The silence continued for a bit and then he started a hissing endless laugh. The whole thing is disturbing even now, 20 years on. 

Muttley, some great ones in your list further up. I've tried to find the RoF passim for your fight with a partner but not had any luck. Would you please oblige us by regaling that story?

Back in the day when dress down days and emails were still a novelty, a boss (in a very straight laced finance department) came in on a Friday  in ripped jeans and t-shirt.  We all thought he'd had a breakdown, but he was trying to be edgy in showing how to dress casually - unfortunately he'd not mastered how to send a group email and ended up only sending it to himself...

Back in the day I was fire warden for a (Big 13) firm based on the 13th floor.  This when  a warren of cubicles still dominated working life.  There was an old lady (Maisie) who was deaf as a post, who'd been there whilst the partners were teenage accountants in short pants.  Annual fire alarm test went off - couldn't locate Maisie so assume she'd gone down the stairs with the team, but she'd gone to the toilet and not heard the alarm.  The head count revealed she was missing, and we later found her at her desk blithely working away.  Still the biggest bollocking I've ever received.  I never forgot Maisie again!

There was. Bloke who trained with me and laz back in the day.  One of those older trainees.  Maybe 30?  Properly ancient anyway.

He had an all nighter signing and then got absolutely blootered.  He went back to his office and did a hige technicolour yawn all iver his supervisor's desk.  On which she had left all the wet ink pages.  He was too hooplahd to do anything about it so staggered off home, leaving it for her to find and have everything re done.

Last time i looked he was head of insolvency.*

*at a different firm

The son or whatever relation of the CEO of a client was given undeserved work experience.

He was asked to some pretty menial tasks as was pretty clear he didn’t really want to be doing any work experience.  Asked to holepunch a load of copy documents and put them in folders, he holepunched each page. Individually.  

Pages weren’t quite straight….

This thread tragically records how little anything which has ever happened in law has ever been fun, or funny. 

CounselCymraeg18 Jan 24 17:57

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Muttley, some great ones in your list further up. I've tried to find the RoF passim for your fight with a partner but not had any luck. Would you please oblige us by regaling that story?

Happily.

Was having a hard time with bully boy litigation partner who had no self control and huge work stress issues. He used to take ages to focus and would then ruin your life from about 7pm to the late hours. We were doing a complex worldwide freezer (Mareva injunction in old money). He had been a total shit for days and I was tired of him. The client was stressed and he was double stressed. 
On the day before the hearing he came into my room with his skeleton (he was a solitor advocate and was worrying about the application). He started snarling and spitting and swearing and throwing papers around. I was on the cusp of resigning. I said dont swear at me. He carried on. I said very calmly do not swear at me. He stood up and leant across the desk and snarled ‘it’s not at you it’s about the fookING CASE AND IF I WANT TO fookING SWEAR I WILL fookING SWEAR YOU fookING LITTLE SHIT’. I stood up too. We both had hands on the desk and were leaning our heads towards each other. He was spitting and red faced and seemed to be nearly crying. 

He has been sitting in a swivel chair on  casters before he stood up. He slumped back into it and said ‘you fooking see now?’ And at that point I shouted ‘I SAID DONT SWEAR AT ME’ and with a lot of angry energy my hands, on the desk, pushed it back at him and the whole lot - him, chair, desk - shot back and thumped against the wall behind him. He clambered out of his chair trap and climbed on the desk. so I got on it too. He swung a fist and missed and I put a longer arm out to hold him back (he was small and solid) and the first bit I got hold of was his neck. So I held tight and slammed his shitty head and body against the wall and he gurgled something at me so I held on. He was swishing fists and missing now - short arms. I said ‘I am going to let you go and you are going to leave’ and he gurgled again so I let go. He slumped back and, curiosly, collected his red Bic biro and papers and left the deatroyed room without another word.

At this point I breathed, looked around and saw my roommate standing there with her phone in her hand, slack jawed and eyebrows raised in shock, mouthing WTF IS HAPPENING HERE??

I tidied up. He called and, like all bullies stood up to, was mild and borderline charming. We will say no more about it, he suggested. 

Story I heard about someone who later became a 'heavyweight' MC partner was that when he was living together with his gf in a l-t relationship, he began an affair with another woman. When the jilted gf found out about it, she had her dad come round to collect all his belongings from their place and take them round to his firm's office and dump them on the pavement right outside the client entrance. A sure way to make the whole office aware of what had happened!

We had this sex pest at work who would make creepy comments to women in lifts. He was also really shit at his job. He got called into a meeting room one time. He thought it was to tell him he was being made team-lead. So he was super chuffed going in. In reality, he got fired. 

A loud arse quack that lights up the picture of the offender on a team or zoom call is always quite good value