Proper cock-up.
Lawyers have been counteracting the January blues with cheering stories of professional mishaps, both theirs and their colleagues'.
Hard to beat: “I once opened the door of a taxi at the RCJ into the path of a bus and it was torn off”, admitted one poster on the RollOnFriday discussion board.
“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”, he said.
Also on the meter, the apocryphal story of the trainee from 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”.
Back at the office, a head of department “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’”.
A Clifford Chance lawyer found himself weeing at the urinals next to then-Senior Partner Stuart Popham in the loos backing onto the management's offices, and was so overwhelmed that he filled the silence by saying, "Isn't it weird that we're both standing here with our cocks out and nobody has anything to say, but if we were both one 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."
Parties full of booze are a recipe for professional success, as was the case for the assistant who 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”.
At the same shindig “a shell-shocked managing partner" came up to one lawyer "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.”
"One Christmas party a secretary was dancing with an associate when her boyfriend came to collect her", said another lawyer. "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 f**k off too – at least I’m not f**king my best friend’s boyfriend!' and there was a beautiful silence and everyone looked across the room at another seccy who screamed 'F***ing dirty b**ch' as she stabbed her in the tit with a fork".
But work can also be a sanctuary. One colleague came into the office after a big night out after missing his train, said Londonhead1.
“Security wouldn't let them onto the office floor, but said they could go 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”.
A 1PQE solicitor got themselves into a bigger pickle while taking a witness statement. “Realised my flies were undone. And worse, there was a hair protruding. Tried to surreptitiously pull it out. I then realised it was not one of my hairs but 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. No-one said anything. They just stared in horror and then carried on with the meeting.”
A solicitor’s presentation at a client's office with a junior associate went even less well. “After helping ourselves to coffees from the client's kitchen, I earnestly presented to the 20+ board and senior managers on 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.”
Behind closed doors, lawyers feel far more free to foul up, like the associate with anger management issues who kicked a recycling bin 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”.
For schadenfreude, how about the "bully boy litigation partner" who was swearing at a junior lawyer the day before a hearing.
"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 f***ing case and if I want to f***ing swear I will f***ing swear you f***ing little sh*t'. 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".
"At that point I shouted, 'I said don't swear at me'" and shoved the table "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 and the first bit I got hold of was his neck. So I held tight and slammed his head and body against the wall".
"I said, ‘I am going to let you go and you are going to leave’", which he did. "At this point I breathed, looked around and saw my roommate standing there with her phone in her hand, slack jawed". After that, the partner was always "mild and borderline charming".
Payback also arrived in the courtroom where a egotistical prosecuting counsel “had a terrible cold” and was “blowing his nose lots into a massive handkerchief while cross examining an officer”, said a lawyer who was a pupil at the time.
When the pompous brief finished, he knocked a glass of water over with his lever arch file, mopped it up with his handkerchief and rang out the cloth into the tumbler.
“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”. Ugh. Got a story? Add it to the comments or send it in.
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Comments
266
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I once wrongly sued 555 postmasters, pocketing millions in fees and neglecting to disclose relevant information about the functioning of an IT system.
16
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Wow, who knew a boredom-inspired post would inspire a main article?!
18
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Rof's thanks to you, CounselCymraeg!
24
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this "news" article is really stretching the meaning of the word "EXCLUSIVE"
Is Jamie looking to be poached by the Daily Mail?
63
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I once bought several law firms, stole client money and completely koked the whole thing up
12
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Fair point Heffalump!
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Junior associate... "and then everyone stood up, applauded, and my 7-year-old xim/zer shouted 'which box for leave'. A cheer went up from the gathered crowd. My heart is so full. I have never been so proud."
Seriously, that story is one for DHOTYA.
19
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Come on 🤡 @ 9.08
WE once wrongly sued 555 postmasters, pocketing millions in fees and neglecting to disclose relevant information about the functioning of an IT system.
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God, lawyers are so fucking weird 🤣
36
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Good article. After a firm Christmas dinner, someone had the bright idea that we should go back to the office and raid the firm's drinks cabinet. So, already somewhat drunk, about 30 of us (c 20 employees and some random folk we had met in the pub after the dinner) let ourselves into the office at c 1am, and proceeded to drink the entire cabinet. Things got out of hand. The glass top on the main boardroom table was broken. Somone got locked in a toilet and a door had to be smashed. Someone found a CD player, and some of the women started doing strip-teases on the table, gyrating in time to various Abba songs. Fights broke out. Various attempts at coitus were made, including some married people. One of the receptionists confessed loudly that she had always wanted to have a shag in the deeds room, among all the dusty shelves, and so she and someone disappeared in there. I left at c 5 am, and my last memory of the night was of the IT Manager lying in a corner, very drunk, laughing as someone sprayed champagne onto the ceiling. Fortunately, I was off skiing for the next week. Unfortunately, the next am, one of the partners showed up to collect a document or some such, and apparently the first thing he saw was one of the receptionists, naked, passed out on the couch in reception, and a trail of damage and other people nursing sore heads etc. To the firm's credit, absolutely nothing was said about it. I guess they couldn’t be bothered to sack 20 people lol.
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Many moons ago at a firm Xmas party I saw a a fellow trainee who I didn't know very well resisting the advances of someone from office services. Feeling sorry for the poor girl (and encouraged by many glasses of champagne) I approached them and asked if she wanted to dance (yes, it was at a time and place where Xmas parties involved dancing). She sighed in relief and promptly accepted my offer, thanking me for rescuing het from the annoying bloke. We danced a bit but eventually went our separate ways - which was fine as I knew she had a boyfriend and at the time I had a girlfriend too. A few further drinks later I started having silly ideas but could no longer find her, so I asked a friend for her number and texted saying "If only we were single...", signing off with my first name - to which she didn't reply over the course of a long and embarrassing weekend. On Monday I fought off the embarrassment to go to the office, and, as I was arriving, my Nokia 3310 beeped with a message from her saying "Let's not let that stop us". Having suffered over the whole weekend for apparently no reason, I had to respond asking what took her so long, to which she said: "I danced with three [Pauls] that evening and wasn't sure which one of them had texted me, so had to wait until Monday morning to check whose number that was in the firm's directory". The good old days.
16
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Once lost a sealed claim form. Limitation has passed. Found a scanned version on file and served by fax. Other side filed an AOS.
To my delight.
Did a line in the toilet and later had a drunken snog in pub with colleague who I proceeded to shag all the way from Friday night to Sunday evening. The power of coke.
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@papercuts 19 January 24 11:46 - sounds like a regular friday night at the now ex SJB!
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A colleague of mine gave his brightly coloured branded firm t shirt to a homeless man after a firm charity event.
The next day, the Managing Partner drove into work past a homeless man pushing a shopping trolley with the firm’s name emblazoned across his chest.
11
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Once, as an overworked trainee, I accidentally signed off a client-facing email 'kind retards' instead of 'kind regards'. In my defence, those two keys are right next to each other.
12
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I once had a massive whitey and thought it would be a good idea to sue my government client for not awarding me a tender.
16
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This is probably the funniest piece I’ve ever read on ROF. Outstanding.
15
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@ ex DWF
Take it you were Manchester office...
12
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Was handed a disc as a trainee and told to make a copy of it. Except I misheard “make copies of it”. Proceeded to get copies made of the documents on the disc - 3000 of them. Turns out they meant a copy of the disc.
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Anonymous 20 January 24 15:10
How did you guess? 😆
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As a lowly trainee I worked on a big case to be heard at the RCJ. On the morning of the first day of trial my role included of course moving boxes of files from our London-based office, to our transport, then on to court. When bending down to pick up a box at the office I felt an unearthly sensation - my trousers ripped open at the buttocks. And not just a tiny rip you could easily disguise, we are talking wide open. But (as anyone who has been there on a frantic morning of the first day of the high court) there was simply no time to do anything about it. So cue me having to move boxes of files to and from Court, in the middle of a busy London Monday morning, with my ass hanging out and the colour of my boxers for all to see. I don't think I will ever forget the expression on the partner running the case when I had to interject a conflab he was having with the head of team to tell him what had happened. But we just had to get on with it. The partner (even at that time in his late sixties) I think saw the funny side and had some fun with it. When we were all in the courtroom before the Judge came in he got me to go up to where the Judge was to be sat to make some checks to his core bundle, knowing full well that another office minion could have done the same thing and spared my blushes in showing my pants to the whole court. The morning of the trial was one of the longest of my life and I couldn't wait for lunch to be called so I could nip out onto the Strand and buy a hasty replacement. But even then the partner (no doubt having some extra amusement to himself) expressed annoyance at my proposal and tried to prevent me from going to buy some replacement trousers, but to get me to come to a conflab with counsel instead. But some situations are too excruciating even to save one's career, so I told him no in no uncertain terms and nipped to the nearest tailor, who also (as you would expect) saw the funny side, as do I, to this day 12 years on.
12
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Some of this feels like 🧢 what we creating movie scripts now lol?