I want the bastard clients to all go fuck themselves.

This guy just called and very snidely said that he had contacted me over a month ago and he didn't get the information he asked for and he was going to follow up one time and blah blah. I was apologetic about the delay on the phone, quite concerned I had somehow stashed my message about him and failed to contact him.

But his attitude pissed me off, so I also decided just to see who the idiot was in this case.

I went back through my outgoing mail, and I found the mail I sent to him on October 25 (the day after his phone call on October 24), giving him all the information he requested.

SO...

I forwarded that e-mail to him, with a new cover, dripping with honey and sugar, about how I would bend over backwards to be sure he got his documents by the end of the year, but he could also FEEL FREE to use another attorney's office, if that was an intolerable delay.

Fuck head.

I have been dealing with a string of nasty clients of late.

I'm sure you can't tell from this journal, but I am actually very sympathetic to people who come to Boss for help in this job. They are at bad places in their lives, and I always hope that we can help them and make their lives better. Ha! Lawyers as benevolent do gooders! Yay!

Anyway, have had a very difficult person to deal with the last few days.

First Boss didn't want to take her case, because it was not clear how he would be compensated. As you can imagine, we don't do any work until he's sure he's gonna get paid. Benevolent do gooders or not, nobody pays him but his clients, and a solo practitioner doesn't go around doing work without an idea of how he's gonna pay the rent and his staff...

So we had her stuff, but didn't do anything with it for a week. Then he took her case on Wednesday, before Thanksgiving on Thursday. She was quite upset about htis because she was trying to file bankruptcy quickly to prevent a wage garnishment. She was very abusive about the fact that we could not file in time to prevent that.

That was how she first pissed me off. She has been in the legal proceedings for six months that lead to this wage garnishment. You don't get a wage garnishment on two weeks' notice, trust me. So my first reply (in my head) was why did she wait so long to take action. Even if we had started on the day she brought her initial papers in (which probably would have been just enough time to do what she needed done in time), why did it become OUR fault that SHE had waited til the last minute? I was not inclined to take abuse from her over that.

Then, as we started working on her forms this Monday, I got nothing but abuse from her. Any time we asked her a question, her answer was, I gave you that? What was the point of me giving you all that paperwork if you weren't going to review it? Essentially saying that she had OF COURSE given us all the information we could possibly need and we were too lazy or incompetent to find it.

Which was patently untrue. She DID NOT give us everything we needed. She didn't even give us everything she HAD, I discovered Tuesday, though she basically called me a liar when I told her it wasn't in the documents she gave us. She even told us things that were completely untrue, then yelled at me when I asked follow up questions. She filled in the form saying her 24 year old daughter was a dependent who lived with her. When we asked why she was a dependent, trying to clarify, she said, very angrily, "She isn't a dependent, and she doesn't live with me!" Then yelled at me that she was a dependent on her 2004 taxes, which I would have realized if I had reviewed the tax forms that she had given me.

I have not been good at not taking this abuse personally. I have been low on sleep this week. With this thing growing inside me, no sleep makes CK a very unsympathetic girl. I have been saying hateful things abotu this woman to Cellmate and Boss and thinking even more hateful things about her in my head. I really don't take well to being called a liar. Or incompetent (when I don't deserve it).

OK. This evil bad client who has been so nasty to me got all her little hopes crushed today. And I had to dump the bricks on, because she was bringing documents here that Boss had asked for yesterday, and had not seen the e-mail in her box basically telling her that if we did the case for her, it would be bankruptcy fraud.

What I hate is that she had shopped lawyers. A guy had told her he could file for her in the same day. She couldn't afford his fee. But she thinks that because he said that, of course she was eligible to file. But probably, if he was a good lawyer, whe would have spent two hours with her documents and realized the same thing that Boss did. But now she's saying retarded things like "Now I don't know who to believe," like for some reason Boss made up the fact that her situation would be considered fraudulent under the law.

She also had the reaction lots of people have. "I'm not committing fraud!" Well, of course, most people aren't committing fraud, to the extent that they planned it out in some deliberate act. But if what you are doing is classified under the law as fraud, and your lawyer interprets the law, as you have paid him or her to do, and alerts you that in fact, your actions are fraudulent, then actually, if you proceeded, it would be fraud in every sense of the word. You are just finding out in time to prevent yourself from doing something stupid.

Anyway, now I feel bad for her. Even though she continued to insult both me and boss during our interview this morning. But I know her situation isn't pretty, and I know she's frustrated, and today I have had enough sleep and can step back and be my usual sweet, sympathetic self and not take it personally.

Somebody should tell her, though, that you catch more flies with honey...

Today, while cleaning the spam filter, I found a client e-mail that got sent there by mistake. It contained very legitimate criticisms of the way the drafting of their estate planning documents was handled, and ALL of the problems were clearly attributable to the way I dealt with them and handled my workflow.

I was horribly embarrassed, but the e-mail was directed to The Boss, so I forwarded it to him with the comment, this got caught by the spam filter.

Some clients may have legitimate complaints about me, but NOBODY can ever say that I lack honesty and integrity.

Boss sent them a lovely apology e-mail and copied me. He mentioned that they had used the wrong e-mail address.

They replied to him that they didn't want to use his usual e-mail address to criticize my work, for fear that I would see the criticism and possible delete it before he could see it.

So now, I am embarrassed and chagrined about their legitimate complaints, and indignant and angry that they implied that I was a liar and a cheat.

The irony being, of course, that because they used the wrong e-mail address and I am the only one who cleans the spam filter, the ONLY reason The Boss saw the mail is because *I* forwarded it to him.

This is a very unpleasant mix of emotions. I'm trying to think of it a just desserts, and move on, but I'm not sure it's working.

*scowls*

Phone rings

CK: Good afternoon, ODL's office.

Client: Hi. This is Mr. A.

CK: Hey! You'll be interested to know that Mr. B called, but ODL has been in a class all day and hasn't had a chance to call him back.

Client: You're amazing! I've worked with lots of offices, and I've never come across anyone like you!

CK [laughs]: I like to give the impression that [intones] I know all!

Client: You do! You must be worth your weight in gold. Which probably isn't that much. [Brief pause as he considers whether he just complimented or insulted me.] Um. You know what I mean.

CK [laughs her ass off]

I don't know what this guy's deal is, but this conversation had me grinning for an hour.