Is Your Boss a Jackass?

Legal Professionals:

I know, it is probably blatantly obvious to you that you are working for a jackass. But, just in case you aren’t sure, I’ve created this test to further confirm your suspicions that you are in fact, working for a donkey. What does your boss do in the following situations?

1. Opposing counsel finally produced a CD of documents (approximately 10,000 pages) in response to your motion to compel. What does your boss do?

a. Barks at you to send the CD out for blowback copies and then asks you to get sandwiches and coffee. That’s it. Because you are apparently really a waitress, not a legal professional.

b. Barks at you to send the CD out for blowback copies and then asks for status updates every two hours.

c. Develops a keyword search list and has you OCR search the .pdfs for responsive terms. Then, you print the docs and organize them chronologically into a working notebook. Meanwhile, chunks of documents are assigned to other staff members to review.

2. Depositions need to be scheduled. What is the normal process?

a. You are tasked with just randomly picking dates. Your boss can’t seem to understand why this never works and why opposing counsel is always calling to object to the random dates.

b. You coordinate with other A. Big Shot Attorney’s paralegal for dates and then send notices once dates are agreed upon. When your boss changes his mind about taking the depositions at 10:00 p.m. the night before they are scheduled, you scramble the next morning to cancel everything. Then, at 9:30 a.m., he decides to re-notice all of the depositions for next week.

c. You coordinate with other A. Big Shot Attorney’s paralegal for mutually agreeable dates, notice the depositions one time, everyone shows up and the depositions are taken as agreed.

3. Your boss just had a secret meeting with a key witness in one of the firm’s biggest cases. Guess what else? The witness gave him a large stack of Tear the Roof off the Sucker Documents. What does your boss do with the documents?

a. Leaves them in his car. For a whole year. When he gets noticed for trial, he asks you where the Tear the Roof off the Sucker Documents are. You have no idea what he’s talking about, of course, because you aren’t allowed to drive his Porsche. He yells at you about not being able to buy a new light jet with the settlement money.

b. Your boss leaves the documents in your chair with no instructions and refuses to answer any questions or emails about them for three months. He just doesn’t feel like dealing with it right now, okay?

c. Your boss tells you about the meeting. You are then able to update the master witness and exhibit lists. The Tear the Roof off the Sucker Documents have been scanned in and the originals are filed away in the vault. You are a badass paralegal, and your boss just might get that jet after all.

4. There is a big hearing coming up. What’s going on in the office?

a. Your boss waits to start prepping until the day before the hearing. He throws papers around everywhere and then tells you to clean it up.

b. Your boss starts prepping a week before the hearing and tells you what exhibits and notebooks need to be assembled. You arrange everything perfectly. You think. Until he comes in one morning and decides to re-arrange the order of the notebook tabs. After you spend five hours doing this, he takes one look at the notebooks and changes his mind. The original way was better. Back to the drawing board!

c. Your boss starts prepping a week before the hearing and tells you what exhibits and notebooks need to be assembled. As you get closer to the deadline, your boss adds his new exhibits to the BACK of all of the notebooks. Then, he takes you to the hearing with him.

5. You are finally going to use two of your vacation days. What does your boss do?

a. Calls you the first day within three hours of the office opening to ask you where he put some documents (this is not a typo).

b. Sends you a whole bunch of passive aggressive emails asking for status updates in cases he has refused to talk about for the last six months.

c. Leaves you alone and hopes like hell you come back.

If you scored:

Mostly A’s: I’m sorry. Your boss is a donkey. There just isn’t an easy way to break this news to you.

Mostly B’s: Your boss needs some work, but there may be hope yet. Try to get him to tap into that humanity that probably lurked somewhere inside that soul of his years ago. Tell him: “Do you remember my first day of work?” I said: “Good morning.” You said: “Grunt. err. sniffle. snort.” “Can we go back to the way we were then when things were fresh and new?”

Mostly C’s: Your boss is amazing! Are you hiring?