Dumb client news

[muck_a_luck]

Well, a couple of really choice clients over the last week.

First is the man who will not give me his property settlement agreement.

In order to incorporate a PSA into a Final Decree of Divorce, you must give the Court an original document. If one exists. If an original doesn't exist, you can give the Court a copy.

But of course, everybody wants to keep their original signatures. To facilitate that, if I am involved in the document preparation process, I have the parties sign five couterparts. One for each party, one for each lawyer, and one especially for the Court. Everybody gets precious original signatures and seals and whatnot.

However, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, facsimile signatures are perfectly acceptable and enforceable in a contract situation. Original signatures are preferable in many cases, as in the case of presenting the PSA to the Court, but are by no means necessary, as evidenced by the fact that the Court will, indeed, accept a copy when the original is not available.

Well, my brilliant client and his brilliant wife apparently signed one freakin' document. Apparently not even two copies. *shakes head in disbelief* And he is gripping onto his one original like his life depended on it.

I explained to him about the facsimile signature thing (after confirming it with Boss).

I explained to him that he is giving the document to the Court to make it enforceable (after confirming this with Boss).

I wanted to really push my points, but remember, ethically, a paralegal cannot give legal advice, and I was afraid to venture beyond the parameters of what Boss had told me to say in an attempt to browbeat this guy into giving me the document.

Soooooo....

Finally, all the parties agree to re-execute the agreement (originally signed in Feb 2003!!!!!) in multiple parts. Boss takes matters in his own hands and sends the guy the document. The guy prints 5 as I instructed him to do and gets them notarized and sends them to me.

I'm happy as a little clam, getting everything assembled to send to opposing counsel, when I realize...

Lord Jesus help me.

He re-executed the wrong. Fucking. Agreement.

It says quite a bit for my self control that I DID NOT fill the building with a bloodcurdling scream.

Now.

Boss was a little out of the loop when he took matters into his own hands. Because in a VERY unusual turn of events, this couple actually has TWO separate PSAs. One to cover the marital home, and one to cover everything else. Well, the document in question is the one covering the marital home. Boss, not realizing the exact problem I was having, and of course, never thinking to ask, as he is not handling the administrative portion of the file (that's what he pays me for), just sent the PSA on his hard drive for the client.

Soooo...

Yesterday I began looking for the other document. And I discovered it was one of the handful of useful and important documents that was lost when a virus fried Boss' harddrive in mid 2003. Oh, well. It's a short document and I type 70 wpm, so I thought, hey! Relaxing typing test!

I type the first page - with a little tweak that makes me very pleased, and I flip to page two...

And I jump from Paragraph A to Paragraph F.

Um. Hello?

I peer a little more and note that at the bottom of the page, 3 is crossed out and 2 is written in.

The two idiots just pulled page 2.

Just pulled it.

In the middle of signing.

Pulled page two, renumbered the pages, and signed.

*headdesk*

I'm thinking - opposing counsel is NEVER going for this in 1 million years!! It is a HUGE mistake to push resignature of a document this fucked up. (I'm pretty sure the wife did not have a lawyer when they did the house agreement. They amicably agreed on the issue of the house.) Cut bait and submit it to the Court, already, before trouble gets brewing.

Boss, however, seems copacetic about the whole thing. So I am trying not to get my panties in a twist. He is reviewing the document now, and I'm sure he'll make a judgment about how to move forward.

In other dumb client news, we had a new guy approach Boss about doing a Chapter 7.

Now, as you may not be aware, but as logically makes sense, once you decide to file bankruptcy, you must stop using your credit cards.

A Chapter 7 releases you from paying back credit card debt. It is wiped out. Thousands and thousands of dollars of unsecured debt you don't have to pay. Obviously, if you go out and take a huge cash advance, then file bankruptcy a week later, the credit card companies get pissed and cry fraud. And it is fraud.

And every good lawyer warns his clients against making large credit card purchases once they start to contemplate Chapter 7. And Boss told this guy the same thing. And the guy went out and ran up an ASTRONOMICAL credit card bill over the weekend. No details, but I was completely flabbergasted. Boss sent him a stern e-mail, advising him that his actions might result in a fraud claim.

And he wrote back to Boss, basically accusing Boss of assisting Chapter 7 applicants in committing fraud and telling Boss not to lecture him (because he wasn't sure he was filing Chapter 7 yet, so therefore the credit card use wasn't fraud), but should rather lecture someone "who deserves it, like yourself!"

Now THAT is something you don't hear every day!

Boss replied to this e-mail saying he was sorry, but he would not be able to represent the man any further.

But the upshot? The guy called back in the afternoon and asked to talk to Boss about another issue!!!!!

Boss declined to take his call. He sounded sad when I told him that Boss would not take his call.

Well, accuse a lawyer of defrauding the Court in writing, and I hate to say it, but I bet you get the cold shoulder the next time you call...

See, cocoajava? If I could make people spontaneously combust over the ethernet, these people would be gone from the gene pool and the whole species could move forward...