Law Students

My Big Litigation Career

By Andrea

Today I rolled into work late, knowing it was a short day because of the impending holiday weekend, and dressed in a cable-knit sweater and jeans, because it's not like I was going to see any clients, right? Checked my messages and the first one was from my client with a minor question about signing in at court today. UHHH. OH CRAP. I've been working all week on this other case that requires a mound of paper, and because this client was just getting voluntary departure, there was no real prep work, I'd thrown together her pleadings yesterday and gone back to my paper mound. So when I woke up this morning it wasn't at the front of my mind so I LEFT MY BRAIN ON THE FLOOR and forgot to put a suit on.

It was 10 AM. Court was at 1. My supervisor still hadn't come in and forced me to explain the jeans. But the trip on the T takes almost an hour each way.

Without telling anyone, I DASHED outside, jumped in one of the cabs outside North Station, got driven home, ran upstairs with the meter running, dropped all my clothes in a pile on the floor, threw on a suit, threw on a button-down that was too see-through, dropped it on the floor, threw on a shell, jammed on my good boots, ran downstairs, jumped back in the cab, and headed home. Thirty minutes and $40 later, I was back in the office with a splitting headache, and my supervisor casually said hello, not noticing that I looked crazed. Three other people stuffing annual appeal envelopes casually said hello and asked if I was going to court today.

That's right, NO ONE NOTICED. No one commented whatsoever on the fact that I had just disappeared for half an hour and appeared again panting and wearing totally different clothes.

So we went to court. Where the clerk proceeded to TOTALLY NOT CALL CASES IN ORDER. Why have a sign-in sheet if you aren't going to call people in that order? You tell me. So we waited for an hour and a half, I did sixty whole seconds of lawyering, we got what we wanted, and that was that. Definitely worth putting on the suit for.

This was totally my karma for thinking that I wish I had kooky court hijinks to blog about instead of downer posts about the state of immigration. No more hijinks for a while, please.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on November 26, 2008 (boomark / email).