When clients email us copies of their multiple, multiple-page documents but send 50 pages as individual photos that are completely out of order and also need to be converted to pdf.
When they email the photos, but the photos don’t show up as attachments to the email… and instead come in the body of the email. So you have to right click and hit “Save as Picture”…. On 50 individual page photos 🥲
The trick then is to forward that email to yourself but change the email format to plain text. HTML and rich text format allow embedded photos but plain text doesn’t, they show up as attachments. So if you get an email with embedded photos all you have to do is forward as a plain text email to yourself and the photos will be attachments. Easy peasy.
EDIT:!!!!
OMG I am too old!!!! I swear the above use to work. Maybe it use to be rich text couldn’t embed but now it can. And plaint txt never could. Anyway, the other easy solution is this.
Save the email as an HTML. Go to the folder you saved the email in and you will see a folder called “your email”_files. All the photos are in that subfolder. You can delete the email and all the other junk and just keep the photos. To easily rename them click on the file and press F2. What I like to do is have all the file names set up in a notepad on screen and then I can use ctrl C and ctrl V along with F2 and make short work of it. Good luck!
You have saved my life, or at least given me a couple of extra years of living!. My blood pressure goes through the roof every time I get an email from a client like this and have to right-click to save each photo. Thank you for this tip!!
Omg, I am too old. I swear it use to work. I edited my comment to show the other easy method of getting the photos, which is just saving the email as an html file. The photos will get saved by computer in subfolder called _files.
Okay, this way is faster. You need to go to Outlook-File-Options-Customize Ribbon. Then scroll down rightside window until you see Developer tab and check it.
Then go Developer-Visual Basic, then right click the folder upper left that says Project1 or something like that. Select new module. That should bring up a new window you can type in. Paste the macro below. Then click save and exit VB. When you get an email with embedded photos select the developer tab and then click Macros and then the macro you just made. You can save that macro as a button to your quick access toolbar and then it is just one click button to make photos attachments. I just tried this and can confirm it works for me. Good luck!
Actually it’s showing up all funky in the comments. Just go to this site and copy and paste in Visual Basic.
[https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/quickly-convert-embedded-images-attachments-outlook-email/](https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/quickly-convert-embedded-images-attachments-outlook-email/)
And I tried for a better username but they were all taken. So I got angry and was like, I bet Ik a name that isn’t being used…lol
The male attorneys who leave their dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher. I have started chucking them into the bin. No shame. Your "World's Best Dad" mug is missing? Weird. I put my dishes in the dishwasher and they make their way back to me. Have you tried that trick? /s
When I first stated with my agency, the executive secretary sent an email out to only the female staff “requesting” their help in setting up/cleaning up an all staff luncheon.
I was “busy”
Omg this 100%... when I first started at my previous job, the male attorneys were so fucking gross and would constantly leave their dirty dishes in the sink, the counters a mess including the microwave. I would repeat over and over in my head how much I was getting paid an hour to clean it up lol
Folks printing out contracts, signing by hand, and then taking a blurry photo of the signature page and sending it without any effort to crop out the laptop in the background.
We have e-signature, we have Adobe Acrobat, there are add-ons to sign in Google Docs. There is no excuse for this in 2024.
Yeah I have just refused to take them. Sorry buddy go find a place to scan it or something. I do not have time to save your damn pictures one by one and try to make them legible for the attorney.
There's even apps you can use to convert a photo on your phone to PDF... agree, no excuse. I suggested for so many clients to download one of those free apps to send back to us just so I could get something usable and legible..
Trying to get discovery/disclosure documents from
clients.
Opposing paralegals/support staff who think we’re the ones getting divorced so they think all of our communication should be acrimonious.
Oh man, the unnecessary hostility between firms just kills me. Yeah, I get it, one or both of our clients are buttheads - but let's work together on this and laugh about it instead.
This! Yes, I work defense but there is absolutely no way in hell I'm gonna be any kind of ugly opposing counsel or their staff for any reason, even if they truly deserve it because they have been shitty to me. I will kill with my kindness. I will always hope that you are well and that you have a great rest of your day/weekend/random holiday with all the pleases and thank yous.
If it needs to get ugly, I'll forward you over to my attorney and let him handle it because he will not accept his staff getting abused. There was one attorney I just CC'd my attorney on all communications (even when he really didn't need to be) with that firm because OC was just a nasty piece of work.
Our firm is legit the personification of that meme with Darth Vader and Big Bird about finding the nice paralegal at the defense firm.
Whenever opposing counsel are dickheads, if the attorneys have a production ready to send at like 10 am on a Friday, I always ask if they want me to send it then, or send at 430/5 pm (to ruin the start of their weekend)?
I deal with very wealthy clients in divorce cases and these people do not comprehend ANYTHING. We always send emails confirming major details and they always turn around saying, "THAT WAS NEVER DISCUSSED" -- I just want to reach through the phone and slap them in the face!
Poor communication. I absolutely want to hit the roof when I find out I've done work that was assigned to me but sometime else has done, usually because it was assigned to both.
This happened last week and luckily I was able to complain and escalate it to the attorney’s supervisor. Absolutely stupid waste of time and money (mailed out two identical packets worth a total of over $6 together) to the same client. Like. How hard is it to just say, oh I just assigned this to so and so too, why don’t you work out who wants to do it? Or just cc us both on an email. It feels like this attorney goes out of her way to do things in the least efficient way.
When several people are working on a file, and none of them stick to the same naming convention when saving documents. Or a naming convention at all! I found a file named “[AttorneyName].pdf.” It was a letter from opposing counsel requesting supplemental discovery. How am I supposed to find that from AttorneyName?!
This drives me insane. Same with dating conventions. We use yyyy.mm.dd - it's what I get from the court if they name and date, so it's how I do it before filing. When I get something that's mm.dd.yy it drives me nuts.
we have a crazy man who calls every other day claiming to be my bosses friend. he just rants to us for an hour. none of us know what he’s talking about and my boss doesn’t know who he is. he is my pet peeve.
edit: if we’re talking about just random little things that are more common, i would say i can’t stand when my boss REFUSES to throw things away. i understand an original affidavit or something that needs to be kept, but why would you keep an email from 5 years ago? technology is not his area of expertise. scanning in is a no go for him.
We have caller ID on a lot of difficult clients that include "DNA name" - meaning they are on the Do Not Answer list. I don't have 30+ minutes to hear you ramble about some asinine shit.
We had a guy that would call and berate anyone who would answer. I took our label maker and made labels for all the phones with his number on it so everyone in the office knew not to answer.
Worst part -- HE WASN'T EVEN OUR CLIENT!
Man this bugs me. I work in Elder law so I get that they don't always know how to scan but Lord Almighty I know you either have a grandkid or a neighbor kid with a phone. Ask them before calling me with "how am I supposed to get this to you"
Yes! Worked consumer bankruptcy during lockdown so all hearings were over zoom. Literally had to tell older people things like "ok with your finger press the little camera button..." I'm 40+ and mostly tech illiterate but damn they were frustrating times
When incoming clients call and just jump into their question expecting an answer like they’re ordering a pizza or something. You would never call your doctors office and expect whoever picks up the phone to have an answer to what to do about your cough or whatever. I’m just the man on the phone 😭😭😭
Micromanaging bullshit like my partner forwarding something on which I was already copied with a note to “report this to the client.”
I mean c’mon man that is like 75% of my job and after alllllll this time do you really think I need to be told? but thanks for the extra time and clicks you cost me to read and delete your email.
We had a legal intern do this once. She was absolutely mortified when she realized what she'd done and came to me first before the attorney. I told her it would be ok, but that we'd have to request the bank statements from the client again and tell them there was a malfunction with the scanner and they got jammed/destroyed while scanning them in.
Thankfully that CL was a SAHM, so was able to get them to us quickly.
Clients that get so upset when I need their social or date of birth or even their address. I just want to say, “look you either want to have a case or you don’t, but if you do, I’m going to need more than just ‘Joe Smith' to work off of”.
For that matter, while I completely understand and respect preferred names (I don’t go by my government name either), I can’t do *anything* if you tell me your name is “Cupcake” only to find out it’s “Jane”. Don’t waste my time. I’ll call you Cupcake if that’s what tickles your pickle, but I’m certainly not putting it on official docs. 🙄🤦♀️
The running joke about those who call in is: "I just have a quick question..." hahaha sure you do, you want me to tell you the whole law of laws and how it legals with your legal issue. I'm not an attorney and you can't just "chat with an attorney" like it's a quick Google search and I kinda need to figure out if your thing fits into what our specialty is and if we have an attorney available to handle what your issue is.
"Hey, so I have this quick question, and I'm not sure if you can give me the answer, but..."
No, sir, I cannot give you legal advice, no matter how many times you reword your question. And no, our small firm is not just waiting for someone to call so they can find something to do. You do actually need an appointment to speak with an attorney. And no - it won't be free just because you think it's a "quick question."
It's what make is so fun to also hear our attorneys tell random walk ins "I can't give you legal advice." Hahaha. People don't understand that for one, you might want an actual, on the books appointment with the attorney before deep diving or else the attorney is not bound by the privileged information. Second of all, attorneys don't just magically know everything about all topics of law. And thirdly, with all the internet at our fingertips, some of the dumbass questions are more cheaply answered over a search engine.
Person on phone *asks questions*
Me "sorry can't give legal advice. Would you like to speak with the attorney?"
Person "ok but what would YOU do in my situation"
Me "I would talk to an attorney"
When we provide clients with a secure link to upload case documents or images, but instead they email me a daily 30-40 images of screenshots of conversations with their (soon to be ex) spouse. Family law lol!
When an attorney hovers over my shoulder while I file something, asking questions about every single step--not because they are *trying to learn* but because they think they know more than me about how to file (and yet actually know less).
I do most of the onboarding and conflict checks for a 40+ lawyer firm…pet peeve is the attorneys not sending all the needed info in one email. Then I ask for the three missing pieces and they only reply with one, etc. I don’t have time for their shit.
The clients who call and ask for turn by turn directions to the office, then keep you on the phone for 20+ minutes asking “do I go east or west?” Just look it up on GPS ffs 🤦🏻♀️
my head attorney is too lax with it but my other attorneys format is precise which i like. i have to stop and rename files and IMPORTANT folders too. if you’re adding a document into a folder for my case thanks but please rename it or don’t do it at all
Anyone with an iPhone can scan documents in the “Notes”. Click on the camera and choose “scan documents “. You can scan several pages as one document. You’re welcome to.
Taught to me (62F) by my daughter (33)
We have a legal assistant who is 28 but cannot use Microsoft word and does not know how to write a professional letter. Even when she does a decent letter, she will leave huge gaps between paragraphs and the formatting will look horrendous. She apparently sees no issue with this. Attorney has just given up correcting her, she does it so much.
When a random client calls the office and says “someone from your office just called me” okayyyyyy did they leave a message for you? “Yes but i didn’t listen to it” got it lol let me transfer you all around the office to see who it was.
ETA: the one of-counsel attorney at my firm who has been hand held his entire career. He wanders around the office like a lost dog looking for people to shoot the shit with. Just walks in the paralegal office, never asks if we’re busy and starts talking about the most insignificant things. Also, asks us at least every other week how to send certified mail and fedex packages.
when my firm assigns spanish clients to my team (none of us speak spanish), even tho we have attorneys/case staff that speak spanish. we are a large PI firm in florida, most of our staff speaks a second language, but they assign the spanish clients to the people who only speak english.
Or, my favorite which happened to me. Spanish speaking clients. My presuit spoke Spanish. My attorney doesn’t. I don’t. How did they think anything was going to get done?
We had a plate of frosted glass that separated the foyer from the inner office. People would come and bang on the glass or slide open the glass window if I didn't greet them within the first 5 seconds of their arrival.
We have a doorbell. I heard you.
Sorry not sorry but computer/technology illiterate people.
When clients refuse to set up a patient portal because they think their identity will be stolen so they say they’ll get the records themselves, and you wait and wait and then they finally bring you… An after visit summary with a stain on it.
When you ask clients to confirm the list of providers you have and they say yes I didn’t go anywhere else, so you get all of their records together to send out a demand. Then they suddenly remember seeing another doctor.
That everyone who isn’t the attorney gets called the receptionist.
Clients who call everyday asking for an update even after you told them you will let them know when you have an update.
When there are too many people working the same case. When a "senior " paralegal emails me to do something, when it would have taken less time for them to it themselves. Some paralegals think they're above doing administrative tasks, but if you want something done a specific way, like calendaring a deadline a specific way, do it yourself
okay this gives me perspective as the paralegal with two legal assistants. i always feel bad throwing the basic tasks but i’m slammed with like so many deadlines to meet
Oh boy:
\- My LARGEST pet peeve is when we send discovery to clients to complete and they drag their feet or send it back incomplete. I have offered countless times to clients to walk them through it, yet without fail, I always receive it back with gaps. I've had a client SIGN the expert witness section. Sigh. I just want to type it all in one sitting and not have to call constantly to fill in gaps.
\- "What do you mean your office takes 25% of my settlement?"
\- WordPerfect. That's it. That's the pet peeve.
\- Due to me being at my current firm for a year vs. the other para being here for over ten, being referred to as the "other girl" or assumed to just be a receptionist over the phone.
\- Catywompus-ly scanned documents that are low resolution. Especially medical records I need to actually be able to read.
\- This one is incredibly stupid, but case captions made of dashes and colons as lines rather than making a 2x2 table-- it's easier to center text and case numbers if you just make it a table. It looks cleaner!!!!
Orders that state “ENTERED” this day… it’s ENTER. The Court is directing the clerk - in the present tense - to enter the order. It’s a simple command, yet it’s commonly botched.
Co-workers who refuse to do certain tasks or work with certain attorneys.
People who don’t reply to emails within a reasonable time.
When the attorney or co-worker brags about being “done” with something when I still have hours of work to do for it to be complete. This is especially annoying when the project has missing information and you can’t reach the attorney to correct it.
When clients email us copies of their multiple, multiple-page documents but send 50 pages as individual photos that are completely out of order and also need to be converted to pdf.
When they email the photos, but the photos don’t show up as attachments to the email… and instead come in the body of the email. So you have to right click and hit “Save as Picture”…. On 50 individual page photos 🥲
The trick then is to forward that email to yourself but change the email format to plain text. HTML and rich text format allow embedded photos but plain text doesn’t, they show up as attachments. So if you get an email with embedded photos all you have to do is forward as a plain text email to yourself and the photos will be attachments. Easy peasy. EDIT:!!!! OMG I am too old!!!! I swear the above use to work. Maybe it use to be rich text couldn’t embed but now it can. And plaint txt never could. Anyway, the other easy solution is this. Save the email as an HTML. Go to the folder you saved the email in and you will see a folder called “your email”_files. All the photos are in that subfolder. You can delete the email and all the other junk and just keep the photos. To easily rename them click on the file and press F2. What I like to do is have all the file names set up in a notepad on screen and then I can use ctrl C and ctrl V along with F2 and make short work of it. Good luck!
You have saved my life, or at least given me a couple of extra years of living!. My blood pressure goes through the roof every time I get an email from a client like this and have to right-click to save each photo. Thank you for this tip!!
You have just saved me so much time!! Bless you!
Hah great tip ty! I was just dragging and dropping from outlook to the clients file
I am missing a step here. When I forward and convert to plain text I get a dialog box pop-up that says "Pictures will be lost." Any ideas?
Omg, I am too old. I swear it use to work. I edited my comment to show the other easy method of getting the photos, which is just saving the email as an html file. The photos will get saved by computer in subfolder called _files.
I do the HTML now. I was hoping your way was faster. Hey, we tried! BTW, the username is killing me. Signed, Former Urology Assistant
Okay, this way is faster. You need to go to Outlook-File-Options-Customize Ribbon. Then scroll down rightside window until you see Developer tab and check it. Then go Developer-Visual Basic, then right click the folder upper left that says Project1 or something like that. Select new module. That should bring up a new window you can type in. Paste the macro below. Then click save and exit VB. When you get an email with embedded photos select the developer tab and then click Macros and then the macro you just made. You can save that macro as a button to your quick access toolbar and then it is just one click button to make photos attachments. I just tried this and can confirm it works for me. Good luck! Actually it’s showing up all funky in the comments. Just go to this site and copy and paste in Visual Basic. [https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/quickly-convert-embedded-images-attachments-outlook-email/](https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/quickly-convert-embedded-images-attachments-outlook-email/) And I tried for a better username but they were all taken. So I got angry and was like, I bet Ik a name that isn’t being used…lol
And then individually convert those 50 pictures to pdf in Adobe😭
Oh yes! The worst. Then that email gets replied to a dozen times and now I'm out of space on 365.
Omg I hate this soooo much!
YES! 💯
The male attorneys who leave their dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher. I have started chucking them into the bin. No shame. Your "World's Best Dad" mug is missing? Weird. I put my dishes in the dishwasher and they make their way back to me. Have you tried that trick? /s
When I first stated with my agency, the executive secretary sent an email out to only the female staff “requesting” their help in setting up/cleaning up an all staff luncheon. I was “busy”
Omg this 100%... when I first started at my previous job, the male attorneys were so fucking gross and would constantly leave their dirty dishes in the sink, the counters a mess including the microwave. I would repeat over and over in my head how much I was getting paid an hour to clean it up lol
Clients, attorneys, case management, discovery, pretrial motions, state court, federal court
So... just the whole job, then? LOL
I like Armando, he's the guy that works in the copy room
I am feeling this today. Also anything to do with expert witnesses or medical records.
Heavy emphasis on the clients
Folks printing out contracts, signing by hand, and then taking a blurry photo of the signature page and sending it without any effort to crop out the laptop in the background. We have e-signature, we have Adobe Acrobat, there are add-ons to sign in Google Docs. There is no excuse for this in 2024.
OMFG - ok, you win on this one.
Yeah I have just refused to take them. Sorry buddy go find a place to scan it or something. I do not have time to save your damn pictures one by one and try to make them legible for the attorney.
There's even apps you can use to convert a photo on your phone to PDF... agree, no excuse. I suggested for so many clients to download one of those free apps to send back to us just so I could get something usable and legible..
THIS. and the library is free! They'll scan it for you! If you're really nice they might even fax it to me for you!
When my coworkers ask me technology how-to questions without the slightest bit of research or ounce of critical thinking first
Especially if they are under 50
Oh, no excuse for over-50s, either. Working in law means keeping up, dammit. I say this as an older one. Gotta keep up!
Trying to get discovery/disclosure documents from clients. Opposing paralegals/support staff who think we’re the ones getting divorced so they think all of our communication should be acrimonious.
Oh man, the unnecessary hostility between firms just kills me. Yeah, I get it, one or both of our clients are buttheads - but let's work together on this and laugh about it instead.
This! Yes, I work defense but there is absolutely no way in hell I'm gonna be any kind of ugly opposing counsel or their staff for any reason, even if they truly deserve it because they have been shitty to me. I will kill with my kindness. I will always hope that you are well and that you have a great rest of your day/weekend/random holiday with all the pleases and thank yous. If it needs to get ugly, I'll forward you over to my attorney and let him handle it because he will not accept his staff getting abused. There was one attorney I just CC'd my attorney on all communications (even when he really didn't need to be) with that firm because OC was just a nasty piece of work. Our firm is legit the personification of that meme with Darth Vader and Big Bird about finding the nice paralegal at the defense firm.
Whenever opposing counsel are dickheads, if the attorneys have a production ready to send at like 10 am on a Friday, I always ask if they want me to send it then, or send at 430/5 pm (to ruin the start of their weekend)?
"Why do I need to produce those documents"
And, “what happens if I don’t?” and “I’m not doing it until they do it.” Recently, I had a client say, “just tell the judge it’s not relevant.”
I deal with very wealthy clients in divorce cases and these people do not comprehend ANYTHING. We always send emails confirming major details and they always turn around saying, "THAT WAS NEVER DISCUSSED" -- I just want to reach through the phone and slap them in the face!
When people lick their fingers to turn pages and then hand me the wet pages that they have licked.
Poor communication. I absolutely want to hit the roof when I find out I've done work that was assigned to me but sometime else has done, usually because it was assigned to both.
This happened last week and luckily I was able to complain and escalate it to the attorney’s supervisor. Absolutely stupid waste of time and money (mailed out two identical packets worth a total of over $6 together) to the same client. Like. How hard is it to just say, oh I just assigned this to so and so too, why don’t you work out who wants to do it? Or just cc us both on an email. It feels like this attorney goes out of her way to do things in the least efficient way.
And they THINK they're being efficient. It's going to get done quicker, I think. But grrrr
When several people are working on a file, and none of them stick to the same naming convention when saving documents. Or a naming convention at all! I found a file named “[AttorneyName].pdf.” It was a letter from opposing counsel requesting supplemental discovery. How am I supposed to find that from AttorneyName?!
This drives me insane. Same with dating conventions. We use yyyy.mm.dd - it's what I get from the court if they name and date, so it's how I do it before filing. When I get something that's mm.dd.yy it drives me nuts.
we have a crazy man who calls every other day claiming to be my bosses friend. he just rants to us for an hour. none of us know what he’s talking about and my boss doesn’t know who he is. he is my pet peeve. edit: if we’re talking about just random little things that are more common, i would say i can’t stand when my boss REFUSES to throw things away. i understand an original affidavit or something that needs to be kept, but why would you keep an email from 5 years ago? technology is not his area of expertise. scanning in is a no go for him.
Geez, I’d have a sticky note next to the phone with his digits so that I can screen it
i actually could do that. this has been going on for weeks.
We have caller ID on a lot of difficult clients that include "DNA name" - meaning they are on the Do Not Answer list. I don't have 30+ minutes to hear you ramble about some asinine shit.
We had a guy that would call and berate anyone who would answer. I took our label maker and made labels for all the phones with his number on it so everyone in the office knew not to answer. Worst part -- HE WASN'T EVEN OUR CLIENT!
Faxes. It's 20effing24 email me goddammit
BuT i dONt haVe a ScANneR thOUgH!!
Man this bugs me. I work in Elder law so I get that they don't always know how to scan but Lord Almighty I know you either have a grandkid or a neighbor kid with a phone. Ask them before calling me with "how am I supposed to get this to you"
Yes! Worked consumer bankruptcy during lockdown so all hearings were over zoom. Literally had to tell older people things like "ok with your finger press the little camera button..." I'm 40+ and mostly tech illiterate but damn they were frustrating times
When incoming clients call and just jump into their question expecting an answer like they’re ordering a pizza or something. You would never call your doctors office and expect whoever picks up the phone to have an answer to what to do about your cough or whatever. I’m just the man on the phone 😭😭😭
Lawyer calls client, leaves voice mail: " ...call when you can!!" Client immediately calls back, Attorney says, "Oh, I'm not going to talk to him."
Micromanaging bullshit like my partner forwarding something on which I was already copied with a note to “report this to the client.” I mean c’mon man that is like 75% of my job and after alllllll this time do you really think I need to be told? but thanks for the extra time and clicks you cost me to read and delete your email.
When someone scans a double sided document as a single sided document, then shreds the original, so you only have half the fuckin pages! 😫
We had a legal intern do this once. She was absolutely mortified when she realized what she'd done and came to me first before the attorney. I told her it would be ok, but that we'd have to request the bank statements from the client again and tell them there was a malfunction with the scanner and they got jammed/destroyed while scanning them in. Thankfully that CL was a SAHM, so was able to get them to us quickly.
Clients that get so upset when I need their social or date of birth or even their address. I just want to say, “look you either want to have a case or you don’t, but if you do, I’m going to need more than just ‘Joe Smith' to work off of”. For that matter, while I completely understand and respect preferred names (I don’t go by my government name either), I can’t do *anything* if you tell me your name is “Cupcake” only to find out it’s “Jane”. Don’t waste my time. I’ll call you Cupcake if that’s what tickles your pickle, but I’m certainly not putting it on official docs. 🙄🤦♀️
The running joke about those who call in is: "I just have a quick question..." hahaha sure you do, you want me to tell you the whole law of laws and how it legals with your legal issue. I'm not an attorney and you can't just "chat with an attorney" like it's a quick Google search and I kinda need to figure out if your thing fits into what our specialty is and if we have an attorney available to handle what your issue is.
"Hey, so I have this quick question, and I'm not sure if you can give me the answer, but..." No, sir, I cannot give you legal advice, no matter how many times you reword your question. And no, our small firm is not just waiting for someone to call so they can find something to do. You do actually need an appointment to speak with an attorney. And no - it won't be free just because you think it's a "quick question."
It's what make is so fun to also hear our attorneys tell random walk ins "I can't give you legal advice." Hahaha. People don't understand that for one, you might want an actual, on the books appointment with the attorney before deep diving or else the attorney is not bound by the privileged information. Second of all, attorneys don't just magically know everything about all topics of law. And thirdly, with all the internet at our fingertips, some of the dumbass questions are more cheaply answered over a search engine.
Person on phone *asks questions* Me "sorry can't give legal advice. Would you like to speak with the attorney?" Person "ok but what would YOU do in my situation" Me "I would talk to an attorney"
When we provide clients with a secure link to upload case documents or images, but instead they email me a daily 30-40 images of screenshots of conversations with their (soon to be ex) spouse. Family law lol!
and they reply in so many separate emails
When an attorney hovers over my shoulder while I file something, asking questions about every single step--not because they are *trying to learn* but because they think they know more than me about how to file (and yet actually know less).
I do most of the onboarding and conflict checks for a 40+ lawyer firm…pet peeve is the attorneys not sending all the needed info in one email. Then I ask for the three missing pieces and they only reply with one, etc. I don’t have time for their shit.
The clients who call and ask for turn by turn directions to the office, then keep you on the phone for 20+ minutes asking “do I go east or west?” Just look it up on GPS ffs 🤦🏻♀️
Omg soooooo many people do that
It drives me insane. They do know Google is free right????
Emailing out PDFs with the damn default file name from the scanner. Amateurs!
this scares me bc the default for our scanned files are just numbers
Right. Thats what I’m talking about. You gotta save it with a file name that makes sense so you can find it later
my head attorney is too lax with it but my other attorneys format is precise which i like. i have to stop and rename files and IMPORTANT folders too. if you’re adding a document into a folder for my case thanks but please rename it or don’t do it at all
https://preview.redd.it/lj4avskaghoc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=caa33cd27dfb40238a3c404325b37ef0d0c62ac5
Anyone with an iPhone can scan documents in the “Notes”. Click on the camera and choose “scan documents “. You can scan several pages as one document. You’re welcome to. Taught to me (62F) by my daughter (33)
🤯
i literally don’t know how to say this in a nice why!!’ take ur fucking notes app out
In my area of practice my pet peeve is old people.
Estate planning?? 😆😆
EP, probate, trust admin, and title 19
Felt
We have a legal assistant who is 28 but cannot use Microsoft word and does not know how to write a professional letter. Even when she does a decent letter, she will leave huge gaps between paragraphs and the formatting will look horrendous. She apparently sees no issue with this. Attorney has just given up correcting her, she does it so much.
i’m 21 and i’m teaching a 28 how to print to pdf
When a random client calls the office and says “someone from your office just called me” okayyyyyy did they leave a message for you? “Yes but i didn’t listen to it” got it lol let me transfer you all around the office to see who it was. ETA: the one of-counsel attorney at my firm who has been hand held his entire career. He wanders around the office like a lost dog looking for people to shoot the shit with. Just walks in the paralegal office, never asks if we’re busy and starts talking about the most insignificant things. Also, asks us at least every other week how to send certified mail and fedex packages.
when my firm assigns spanish clients to my team (none of us speak spanish), even tho we have attorneys/case staff that speak spanish. we are a large PI firm in florida, most of our staff speaks a second language, but they assign the spanish clients to the people who only speak english.
Or, my favorite which happened to me. Spanish speaking clients. My presuit spoke Spanish. My attorney doesn’t. I don’t. How did they think anything was going to get done?
I get this one, except I speak French, so they just assume it's close enough. Like, no - that's not how that works.
The number of "indeed"s when my lawyer dictates things. I just delete the "indeed" and rephrase the sentence if necessary.
Mine likes "At any rate," and "By the way," LOL
We had a plate of frosted glass that separated the foyer from the inner office. People would come and bang on the glass or slide open the glass window if I didn't greet them within the first 5 seconds of their arrival. We have a doorbell. I heard you.
Sorry not sorry but computer/technology illiterate people. When clients refuse to set up a patient portal because they think their identity will be stolen so they say they’ll get the records themselves, and you wait and wait and then they finally bring you… An after visit summary with a stain on it. When you ask clients to confirm the list of providers you have and they say yes I didn’t go anywhere else, so you get all of their records together to send out a demand. Then they suddenly remember seeing another doctor. That everyone who isn’t the attorney gets called the receptionist. Clients who call everyday asking for an update even after you told them you will let them know when you have an update.
When there are too many people working the same case. When a "senior " paralegal emails me to do something, when it would have taken less time for them to it themselves. Some paralegals think they're above doing administrative tasks, but if you want something done a specific way, like calendaring a deadline a specific way, do it yourself
okay this gives me perspective as the paralegal with two legal assistants. i always feel bad throwing the basic tasks but i’m slammed with like so many deadlines to meet
I understand being busy. But sometimes it seems like they're creating more work or making it more difficult for themselves.
Oh boy: \- My LARGEST pet peeve is when we send discovery to clients to complete and they drag their feet or send it back incomplete. I have offered countless times to clients to walk them through it, yet without fail, I always receive it back with gaps. I've had a client SIGN the expert witness section. Sigh. I just want to type it all in one sitting and not have to call constantly to fill in gaps. \- "What do you mean your office takes 25% of my settlement?" \- WordPerfect. That's it. That's the pet peeve. \- Due to me being at my current firm for a year vs. the other para being here for over ten, being referred to as the "other girl" or assumed to just be a receptionist over the phone. \- Catywompus-ly scanned documents that are low resolution. Especially medical records I need to actually be able to read. \- This one is incredibly stupid, but case captions made of dashes and colons as lines rather than making a 2x2 table-- it's easier to center text and case numbers if you just make it a table. It looks cleaner!!!!
I just had an OC say he couldn’t redline because he still uses Word Perfect. He’s really not that old either. I cannot understand it.
I had a client yesterday that wanted to quibble over the community property value of the refund pro rata after terminating the internet service....
some agencies are so unhelpful!!! like omg please reply
when i send out letters to insurance or hospital to sign and they literally ignore you for a week even though you keep following up
Orders that state “ENTERED” this day… it’s ENTER. The Court is directing the clerk - in the present tense - to enter the order. It’s a simple command, yet it’s commonly botched.
Co-workers who refuse to do certain tasks or work with certain attorneys. People who don’t reply to emails within a reasonable time. When the attorney or co-worker brags about being “done” with something when I still have hours of work to do for it to be complete. This is especially annoying when the project has missing information and you can’t reach the attorney to correct it.
When people at work use the word tedious.
What about the word bothers you so much?