Learned first thing this morning that the other female association put in her resignation. That will definitely mean more on my plate, and I am pretty darn busy already. And that leaves just me with all the guys.
Also learned that the situation with my secretary was even worse than I thought. A couple of weeks ago she forwarded to a client a citation that she had filed with the court. Yeah, that sounds strange right? The court issues the citation--you file the return of citation with the court. The return of citation includes the process server's statement of the time and place that the petition was served.
So I asked her for an explanation. She assured me that she had in fact filed the return with the court, but that it was on the back of the citation and that she simply hadn't bothered to copy the side with the return--only the front side with the citation.
I explained that I needed copies of the full document in the future so that I could verify that service was properly effected and that the return was in order in cases I needed to prove up a default judgment. I also explained that a savvy client would be wondering why we were filing the citation, just like I had.
The day before I left for my business trip, she brought me a file-stamped copy of the citation with the return attached to the back. The citation had two file stamps with two different dates--one of which had been crossed out by the clerk. This seemed odd, but I was wrapping things up before leaving town, so I simply set it aside.
This morning I took another look at the double-stamped citation and then at the return. The first file-stamp was Oct. 27. The second was Nov. 3. When I turned to the return, it was not sworn to until Oct. 29.
There is absolutely no way that secretary could have filed the return with the citation on the 27th--as she swore she had. The return wasn't sworn until 2 days later. She did exactly what I thought she did and then lied and tried to cover her tracks.
I am furious. Lying and hiding things are not ok. If it were solely up to me I would fire her tomorrow. I understand mistakes--and her original mistake would not have been a big deal if she were a new secretary and fessed up. But she constantly reminds me that she has 20 years' experience and that I should quit questioning her competence. And this went further than a mistake--it was outright lying.
I basically avoided secretary all day for fear of what I might say. Tact isn't one of my virtues, and I wanted to speak with the office administrator before I confronted her on this issue. Unfortunately the office administrator was out today, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I keep thinking that maybe I am being overly harsh--and then I get smacked int he face with something like this.
7 comments:
You have to fire her. She's a malpractice claim waiting to happen. Yeesh.
Whoa - that's bad. I know lawyers that have been disbarred for stuff like that. You and I as lawyers would be disbarred for stuff like that. That's definitely not ok.
Advice/opinions are like butts - everyone has one, so take mine with a grain of salt. I would tell the secretary that I felt like I had to talk to the Office Administrator about it and maybe take it higher because it wasn't ok and then I would go to the next level, because this isn't something like proofreading, that can be taken care of between you two.
Sorry -- that just sucks.
Wow, yes she definitely should be fired. WTF!
You are recording all of this, yes? Getting her signatures and witnesses to these performance meetings? I know you're a lawyer, but I don't know what type, and as a lawyer to be but former HR Manager I know that attitudey judy is going to slap you with an age discrimination claim as quick as you can blink. As soon as you fire her. Which you must. It is really, *really* frustrating when so many qualified people are out of work and can't get jobs to save their lives, to have an incompetent resting on her 20 years of service rather than actually doing the work she should do.
Yes, this is an HR nightmare, and the possibility of a discrimination suit has crossed my mind. But I don't think Attitudey Judy is old--I would have pegged her at 38-40, but I think she is 44.
However, the first week she was working for me she came in my office, saw the pictures of my kids and said, "Wow, how old are you? You know you look like you're about 12, right?"
I think its reverse discrimination--she doesn't like me because she doesn't think I'm old enough to be her boss.
And my former secretary was about 50, and I would take her back in a heartbeat--or the 60-something secretary from my former firm that frequently helped me out.
You are completely right Kill, kill! There are plenty of great litigation secretaries out there who can get the job done properly and not put your career at risk. Remember that ultimately YOU are responsible! Even more of a reason to can her.
Yikes. Document *everything*!
http://neverbeenlivedbefore.blogspot.com/
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