Lady falls down the stairs at commercial business. Can my building code architect expert and/or coefficient of friction/engineer expert opine that the code violations/structural issues/friction issues were the proximate cause of her fall or is that the wheelhouse of some other expert? If they can't then I guess a human factors expert is the best person for this? I've seen defense lawyers argue in fall cases that (1) there's no causation because we don't know really know that the alleged defect in the building caused the fall and (2) anyone opining that the alleged defect caused the fall is guessing.
Defense lawyer wanted to fly to Milwaukee to take my expert's deposition in person. He didn't want to pay the cost of the expert coming down here for the deposition. I would have to fly through the New Orleans' airport and Chicago. I told him I'd pay half of the cost ($2,000) of the expert coming down here to avoid getting COVID.
I suppose it depends on your client's testimony about how she fell. Clearly, for example, if your client claims she slipped on a step and the expert testing shows that the step violated code because the coefficient of friction was not up to code on that step, then it's a jury question. I would only agree with the defense you've posited if the plaintiff fell, has no memory of how she fell and there are no witnesses/videos otherwise, such that it would be pure guesswork to relate the incident to a code violation.
There’s a partner in my firm that is such an asshole he’s caused several secretaries to leave and I believe some associates. I work closely with him but so far I’ve managed to stay far enough away that I haven’t really been too annoyed with him, defending his intra-firm reputation at times. I’ve even had people around town ask me “what’s so and so’s deal” after they learned where I work. Dude is weird enough that he’s worn a tie on every zoom meeting we’ve had while working from home over the last 7 weeks. Dude sent me an email today asking whether the law on something had changed in a week, copying my main boss. I responded that it had. His response was why was it not on the firm website. I responded (after a few beers, admittedly) saying that I can’t update the blog for a body of law changing daily and still keep up with billable clients, and given the state of the economy I was focusing on billable work. I ended it with “I hope you understand.” Main boss (his de facto boss) chimed in defending me and saying he wants me focused on billable work and that I had done a great job over the last 5 weeks given the crush of work. Dude replied saying, “To be clear, I don’t understand where you are coming from. However, I no longer want to discuss this with you. I’ll handle it myself.” Perhaps I’m being soft and quick to react, but after showing the emails to several people I’m not so sure it’s me. I am seething and ready to respond with my true thoughts, knowing they’ll cost me my job. This prick couldn’t look me in the eye to tell me “sorry” when I got back to the office after my father’s unexpected passing in February, and if it weren’t for COVID-19 making finding another job questionable I would be responding to this beta/pussy and telling him my mind, copying the board of directors and quitting.
Fuck him, but don’t let him hurt your career. And I’m sorry to hear about your father. I’m approaching a year since mine passed away suddenly, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
He doesn’t deserve any of your emotion/energy, if that makes sense. You want to prove a point, but you can’t with a prick like that. Fuck him.
Agreed. I am. Not sure what I’m going to do, but I will respond to the recruiters and start reaching out to other firms. Fuck the guy. Thanks, wes tegg . Sorry to hear about your father, too. It’s not something I’d wish upon anyone.
I dealt with a boss who was at least even to that and came out on the other side in an infinitely better situation Let’s talk tomorrow
counter point: you might be able to get everyone else in the firm to fire him and make you the new partner if you dunk on him hard enough
Dude has caused multiple people to quit and has a universally bad reputation throughout the firm. Partners even ask me how it is to work with him. Gotta think the $ cost of his causing people to quit is on their mind. On the other hand, as far as I am aware, I am the opposite and partners seek me out since I’m a personable tax guy (relatively). No one talks to him in the hallway, for example. This thought has crossed my mind but is fraught with issues so I think I have to reach out to other firms in parallel. There’s lots of upside, but the downside is the same as speaking my mind.
He’s the kind of partner who bills an extremely high number of hours (2,200+) but doesn’t have a ton of high dollar clients, as far as I am aware.
I think it boils down to me having a problem with him personally, yet professionally an associate can’t tell a partner off without harming their career.
tax guy personalities receive strict scrutiny I keed I keed, there are several guys at my office who I get on really well with
Fair. That became evident to me on the first day of LLM when the only small talk was, “so who is deducting their tuition?”
We've all had to deal with some shitty partners. I dealt with stuff far worse than what you are describing. If I had popped off at them every time who knows where I'd be now. If you can find a better job then by all means. But dealing with asshole partners that are complete dicks is part of the deal. It also depends on where you are in your career. I'm glad I dealt with my asshole boss for so long because I got great experience even though I was having to deal with his bullshit.
How many hours do you guys work a week ? I really fluctuates for me. If I don't have any trials coming up and nothing major happened on any of my cases, I might work 45-50 hours. If I have a bunch of briefs due on a deadline I might work 70 hours. If I had to guess, over the course of the year, I probably average 50-55 hours a week.
I'm at a crossroads of y own now with this, because I just can't stand working with my partner anymore. Despite the fact that we've managed to keep busy during this slowdown and been damn close to business as usual, this whole pandemic has exposed some cracks in our relationship that I have mostly been able to ignore or bury when I was out of the office more frequently. The only question for me now is how the transition into my next chapter occurs.
You’re going to need some help on this and the thread can absolutely help you. Can you afford a private lawyer thread?
Agreed on all points, and I’ve dealt with much worse at prior jobs as well. I’m just at a point in my career and with this firm in particular where I’m going to explore other options rather than keep my mouth shut and take it.
The shutdown has made me realize a few things about what really matters the most to me and has me accelerating the timeline of my next move too. Life’s too short to put up with shit you don’t like.
Another thing i curious about is a story she told me. That they sent a covid positive patient home to self isolate and gave her a list if do's and dont's. One of which is to not use public transportation. And this old lady leaves the hospital and immedietly gets on a bus to go home. Besides being a shithead person did she break any sort of laws?
I am running out of reasons for returning back to the office. We work in a gigantic building downtown. If we had our own building/house office, I may feel differently.
Have a case in litigation where my client earned about $70k a year as a truck driver before the injury but did her own taxes and listed about $65k in expenses every year for fuel costs etc as write offs. So her income was about $5k a year on paper and in some years it showed a negative income. I think she screwed herself on her wage loss claim. Sucks because she has some restrictions and limitations that would support a solid wage loss. Spoke to my go to economist and vocational rehab experts and they both agreed she was pretty much screwed. Even if you made a loss of wage earning capacity argument the defense could bash her over the head with her previous tax returns and the optics would be awful with the jury. It's similar to making a wage loss claim for someone that never paid taxes and has no tax returns to show the jury.
Maybe talk to a CPA? I don’t know shit about juries, but compare/contrast the deduction (for unreimbursed business expenses?) as one of the few tax breaks for the common folk, so don’t hate the player for taking advantage of the game Feel like a tax pro will give you a much more justifiable answer than an economist
My biggest thing is having two screens. I guess I could get that set-up in my place, but don't want to drop $$ on a docking station + a new monitor. When I have a big brief, or need to do a lot of writing while pulling from documents, I go into the office. About once/week. Kind of fun riding the longboard through downtown Seattle with no traffic.
my wife is a former accountant, so we've got screens everywhere. the office is no different for me whatsoever. My office is having everyone come back in on the 18th which is going to end poorly.
I have like 6 screens I have at home and don’t use between my wife and I who both work at home the majority of the time even before this
My setup at home is almost the same as in the office - the only difference is the lack of a color printer at home. Given that I have way better coffee and don't have to wear a suit and tie, I'm not looking forward to returning to the office tbh. I also share a wall with that dbag partner from Sunday, so I'm sure that will go swimmingly. My main boss (and his boss) effectively apologized on his behalf, which was nice.