For all of those readers who are thinking about going to law school or in law school, the following should be an important lesson in how not to act. Hey, it's a good lesson for everyone, especially if you have a job and you use e-mail. Not that I'm assuming you use it for e-mailing dirty jokes to your co-workers. Anyways...I digress.
The following should be an enlightening lesson on the proper use of e-mail, as well as other topics like business etiquette and professional responsibility.
You're a newly minted lawyer for the state of Massachusetts. You go to a law firm and you have a good first interview. Then comes the call from the interviewer that she will be making a little less than expected (due to the hire of a second lawyer), but he was happy to have hired her. He also made the usual arrangements like making new stationary...etc. She said that may have to give it more thought.
After some more thought, she decides to decline the offer. According to her words in a newspaper article (after the mess became a story), she declined the offer because the reduced salary ''might have been realistic for other people to survive on, but I like nicer things. I like the finer things in life." Of course. She calls herself a ''trust fund baby" in the article. Her reason for responding to the job listing because ''I wanted to establish somewhat of a career for myself," she said. ''No one wants to be living off daddy." Her father is a lawyer. So she declines with the following e-mail:
After that, things went downhill. The reply:"Dear Attorney [BLANK]: At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer. After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I (sic) sew. Thank you for the interviews."
The counterpunch and where things go worse:"[BLANK] - Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose an e-mail and a 9:30 p.m. voicemail message to convey this information to me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional.
Indeed, I did rely upon your acceptance by ordering (sic) stationary and business cards with your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors."
The retort to the retort:"A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so. Again, thank you."
The final e-mail and where the prelude to nuclear holocaust begins:"Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community, especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really
want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?"
"bla bla bla."
If that wasn't enough, the attorney sends the exchange to a lawyer friend who asks if he can send this to other people. Not good. Not very professional. Neither side did very well.
Then again, this episode isn't as bad as this guy who made a total drunken fool out of himself while a summer associate. Not to insult the legal profession or law schools, but that commonly happens on a Thursday night or a Friday Night or a....you get the picture.
To sum up with very obvious lessons to be learned
1. Do not put anything in an e-mail that you do not want others to know about.
2. Business etiquette is a good thing. This means being polite in e-mail.
3. It is a good thing to act calm and rational about such matters.
4. E-mail spreads faster than most communicable diseases.
5. Lawyers have a bad reputation as being slimy. Please don't reinforce that stereotype.
That's all for now.
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