Vindication

As Evil Twin #1 has pointed out, I have been slacking when it comes to posting lately. The reason for this? Work has been crazy lately. Without getting into specifics, opposing counsel on one of the deals that I have been working on has been driving me insane. Why and how one might ask? Because opposing counsel (the "f*cking whore" or "FW" as I like to think of her) thinks that just because she is a partner she can treat me (a lowly associate whose admission to the NY Bar is still pending) like absolute crap. FW is one of those people that likes to shift the blame -- especially when it is her fault. She seemed nice enough in the beginning, apologizing for leaving early to pick up her 5 year old son when we were supposed to be finalizing the documents. I didn't hold it against her. . . at that time. Then I got her first round of comments. She was obviously not a zoning lawyer as her comments were really stupid. I mean, I am only a third year and even I don't make those sorts of comments.

An example: Change "as referred to herein" to "as referred to in this Agreement".

Herein MEANS in this Agreement. Come on lady. Give me some substantive comments!!

After making many dumb changes in the document just to shut her up, FW responded to the entire working group (including my client and her client, our respective co-counsel and the lender) that "At a quick glance, there are still items not included that were asked for 2 drafts ago. Please give me a call to discuss." WTF?? I gave her everything that she wanted, except for stuff that was obviously wrong. I even corrected many of HER drafting mistakes. The purchase price was supposed to be $17 Million Dollars. She said that I got it wrong and that it is supposed to be $1.7 Million Dollars. Umm... OK. If you say so. As anyone who knows me really well will affirm, you really don't want to get on my bad side. Partner or not, I wanted to shoot her. But I digress, the "items not included" were things that we had already discussed and that I explained why it was stupid to include in our last call. My favorite part is when she was getting all worked up and said that I failed to include something that I said I would and I said, "See Section 6." Then she got all quiet. Whenever I mention her name to our co-counsel his response is to sigh loudly, pause and then say, "What a dip." Our co-counsel is 78 years old, this explains why he uses the word dip as an insult.

Anyway, we finally signed the contract today -- we were supposed to sign everything up yesterday, but FW wasn't able to get her act together. Since she was such a fan of using the reply to all button, I drafted an e-mail to everyone that said:

[FW], please advise as to whether [completely unnecessary language that you are requesting, but my client has agreed to because he wants to end this painful experience] should be included in the Agreement. Also, since it is after 4:00, the wire will have to go out tomorrow morning. Thanks [to your incompetence the money will not go out until tomorrow and your client needs it more than my client does, hah!].

Today I decided to play a waiting game to see if she would ever get in touch with me. Veteran's Day is a bank holiday and we would have to fund by 4:00 pm or else the wire would have to wait until Monday. Both of our clients have been anxious to close and FW has been passively aggressively been blaming me for dragging the deal along.

3:30 PM: I send FW an e-mail (cc'ing the entire group) asking her to forward her client's signature on the contract so that I could release the wire. No response.

3:45 PM: I call FW to remind her that the banks will be closed on Friday. She freaks and hangs up on me, right after telling me that she will have the associate that has now been staffed on the deal with her to PDF it to me.

3:51 PM: Still nothing.

3:53 PM: I receive signatures, but they are to the WRONG agreement! Ha! I am loving this. I reply to all and say that these are for the wrong agreement, please send the pages to the correct agreement.

3:55 PM: FW replies to all and e-mails her associate "Get her the right pages NOW!!! Thanks."

3:57 PM: I call our client to get the wire ready, but tell them to wait until I actually receive a copy of the executed page.

3:59 PM: I receive the page, the wire goes out. FW looks like an ass. Hurrah!