Sunday, June 7, 2009

Here A Nerd, There A Nerd

First I want to give you an update on the Office Funny Guy. In case you don't remember, he was giving me grief everyday by asking me to buy him mochas and take him out to lunch. One morning I waltzed into his office and handed him a mocha. He looked shocked and was caught totally off guard. Then I think he started feeling guilty that I actually bought him one. I think for once, HE was in the awkward position and it was his turn to be on the defensive. Anyway, he has not asked me to buy him anything for an entire week. I think I am safe for now.

Other than that, work is going pretty well. I'm working on a couple of interesting cases and the associates are letting me do more than just write memos.

One of the cases I am working on involves the Uniform Commercial Code. This just so happens to be like my FAVORITE thing EVER! I LOVE the UCC. I know, I'm nerdy like that but I just took a Sales & Secured Transactions class and I became totally enthralled in it. When the associate gave me an assignment in the case. I stopped taking notes, looked up at him and exclaimed, "I LOVE THE UCC! I'M SO EXCITED." He looked at me as if I just suggested he should run face first into a giant pile of elephant shit.

Then he started telling me how the Plaintiff's attorney in this case filed the complaint even though the UCC statute of limitations expired over a year ago. What's wrong with that attorney? How could you miss something like that? But then I told Associate that certain warranty language can extend the statute of limitations if it extends future performace under the contract. I told him the UCC allows this under Article 2-725. I then explained how the warranty language in this case probably wouldn't extend performance but maybe the other attorney thought it would. Ooops, I just schooled an associate... I'm thinking I should have kept my mouth shut on that one.

The associate in this UCC case gave me a lot of responsibility. He let me call two witnesses and take down their account of what happened. He also asked me to write our first set of interrogatories for the plaintiff. I came up with 52 interrogatories and a slew of production requests. It's amazing. I actually felt like I was useful in this case.

For another case, a construction defect case, I got to draft letters to our client's subcontractors letting them know we were tendering defense of the case to them.

Now I'm working on an issue of coverage under an insurance policy. Our client is an insurance company and they want to know what their liability is in a claim against their insured.

All in all, I feel like I'm working on important stuff. The law firm is pretty much treating me like an associate. I love the responsibility they give me . I also love the experience I am gaining in different stages of a lawsuit. Since my tasks aren't tedious, my days actually go by really fast! It's amazing how I'm thriving and learning in real practice while at the same time the grades that are trickling in from last semester are pretty crummy. If all I had to go on were my grades, I would be very worried about prospective future employment. Thank goodness I have some work experience to back up my resume.

3 comments:

Shelley said...

Elegant solution to the funny guy!

Re the UCC: I get the same way about admiralty and the Jones Act. NOT kidding. Alas, there isn't much admiralty practice left in my city.

gudnuff said...

Maybe it's the way you tell it or maybe it's your writing style or affable personality, and maybe it's just me, but my mouth waters when I read about the work you're doing. I get excited, too, and I think it is FANTASTIC that you get to do this stuff. Congratulations. And I'm sure you're rocking it and doing a damn fine job.

Love the Office Funny Guy situation. Very, very interesting. Thanks for the update! I wonder if anyone's ever called his bluff before? I never would have done it. Congrats on that, too.

MJV said...

Haha! So glad funny guy stopped being such a douche. At least for now... Hopefully a permanent change.