Mondays: The Legal Edition

I swear I never put so much effort into so few hearings and gotten so little accomplished.

1) First hearing and I discovered it was set for January 25, 2011. Yes 2011!
2) Hearing #2 and the other attorney wonders if we should just continue the hearing and see if things will work out.
3) Hearing #3 Pushy Clerk let's me know we're filing an appearance on a case and the hearing is in 15 minutes. 15 minutes, really I just need 5 to prep the whole file! Does anyone have any idea what the issues at this hearing are?
4) Hearing #4, I show up, but the pro-se contestant who wrote the letter requesting the hearing didn't show up.
5) Hearing #5: Oh NOW you show up! Dude you were supposed to appear last Thursday.

Eh that's only half the stories today. Jeez what a screwball day.

Down To The Football Final Four.

Oh I LOVE this time of year. Colts/Jets and Saints/Vikings. 3 awesome quarterbacks and a scrappy up and comer. I suspect the Colts/Jets game in the AFC Championship will be lower scoring grind it out type of game. Saints/Vikings for the NFC Championship is going to be a festival of offense.

If only I had friends coming over to watch the game and bring some beer. A good football party is a beautiful thing.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

If you like cold, wet, and miserable today was your lucky day. While the outside was miserable, inside at work was okay. It was nice to have a fairly productive day. Sadly I don't see too many of those. I wish they occurred more often.

Who Gives These Morons Advice Like This?

*Names changed to protect the guilty and the stupid.

Me: Okay ma'am, do you have any idea where "dumb-ass ex-husband" is? Would he be in jail somewhere again?

Woman: Oh no he escaped. He was on work release in Big City and just didn't come back one day. He's even on Big City's 10 Most Wanted List.

Me: WHAT!?!?!

Woman: Oh yeah, he escaped down to Texas and calls me from there sometimes. He thinks he can't be extradited from down there.

Me: "Dumb-Ass Ex-Husband" thinks he won't be extradited from Texas??? He might want to cross the Rio Grande before he even thinks that thought.

Woman: If I can ever get an address on him I'm reporting him to that tipline. I want that reward!

Me: Might be the only money you ever get out of him.


I'll be honest. I've reached the point where I think we should just firebomb really stupid people just to get them out of the gene pool. He's Candidate #1.

I Thought The Drive To My Job Was Bad.

EDIT: Since the original got yanked off of YouTube how about the properly licensed original from NBC?

But 10:00 p.m. should be my bedtime!

Pleasant Surprises.

Normally meeting someone for coffee is a 60 minute affair or so. When coffee and lunch lasts for 5 hours you know it was a good first meeting. Especially when she has a VIP discount card for the beer we're drinking. Wow. That has to be one of the best first dates ever.

Mexian is planned for Tuesday night already. She's a planner. I'm just going to roll with it and enjoy the ride.

His End Is Too Near.

The noble and wonderful Doghound is dying. We've known this since before autumn. The vet did an x-ray and the mass, likely cancer, in Doghound's body was obvious. The vet didn't want to do any surgery to confirm the diagnosis since at Doghound's age that would likely kill him. The vet prescribed quite a few meds for Doghound and things seemed okay at first.

The past few months Doghound became finicky about food and quite adapt at finding the pills we hid in them. Spitting out meds was almost a sport for him. Now he's barely eating and barely drinking his water. With all the snow on the ground he does like to eat it when he goes for a quick walk. Yet he sleeps so much when my parents walk into a room and see him laying on the floor they wonder if he's already passed. Then he'll pop up his head and wonder why his humans are looking at him so much.

Friday night I was at my parents' home with Doghound laying his head on my lap. I remembered when I would arrive he would wag his tail and just vibrate his body at my arrival. I remembered when we used to play tug of war with a thick rope. I remembered when I was sick and he simply sat down next to me as if to watch me and make sure I was okay. I remembered the first day we brought him home as a puppy. I turned a box lid upside down for him to be on. The box had a half inch lip and it was an impenetrable barrier Doghound could not cross. The next day Doghound stepped over the lip and nothing stopped him since. One time time I was reading the newspaper at my parents' family room table and Doghound did a flat-footed jump onto the table! Doghound decided I was finished reading the paper. With his head in my lap Friday night I leaned in and told him I'm sorry his time was soon and I was sorry I couldn't do anything to stop it.

Some people think a dog is just a dog. To me the truth is simple, most dogs are better than most humans and most dogs will treat you better than most human beings will. When you go to a breeder or shelter I have the feeling the reality is the dog chooses you, and not the other way around. Doghound choose us as his humans. For food, a scratch behind the ears, and an old blanket to sleep on he provided love, companionship, protection from squirrels, and unlimited tail wags. Whatever problems I was having required only a few pets of his fur to make me feel better.

My gut tells me we're down to just days now. My furry friend and companion will be gone soon. I hate it, but at least I know he was well loved and had a great life. If only more of us were as lucky as Doghound.

I Can't Fix The World.

I've had two incidents this week that have driven me batty. The incidents have varying levels of seriousness but I think they're both symptoms of the same problem.

Incident One:

Pushy Clerk: Wolfrham, can you tell why the Case Number isn't coming up in the Database?
Me: Eh? *Thinking this sounds like a computer issue and wondering why Pushy Clerk is asking me this question.*
Pushy Clerk: See, when you type in the Database Number there is no Case Number assigned to it.
Me: Okay, you're correct. Why are you asking me this? I don't control the Database.
Pushy Clerk: Well when you wrote the order, didn't you notice the case fields would have come up blank or did they even come up blank in the first place?

*As an aside one of the things the Database does is to interface with a Microsoft Word template for our documentation. Certain things like a person's name, the case number, the court the case is in would fit into the template when I bring up the document I need to work on.*

Me: I wrote the order a few days ago. I just don't remember if the fields were working or if I just manually wrote them in. This Database has so many problems when I run into a problem I usually just fix stuff on the spot because it takes less time.
Pushy Clerk: Yes, but why is there no Case Number assigned to the Database?
Me: *Oh crap we're back to that question again?" I'm sorry I just don't know why the Case Number isn't in there. We could test what happens with the document by generating a new one and seeing what happens. *I'm thinking I'm pretty smart now."
Second Clerk: *shouting to all in the office* The template is done! You're not going to be able to generate any documents!
Me: *Crap!* Or we can experiment when the template is back up and running. Whenever that is. Look that sounds like a technical issue that is far beyond my knowledge. I'm sorry but I just don't know how to answer you.

Pushy Clerk and I may speak English, but we can't communicate with each other anymore. To me the question sounded like a technical issue involving a computer database. I now suspect she was really trying to ask a different question but just didn't phrase it in a way I would understand. Sadly I'm just not certain what the "real" question was. Somehow I am to resolve any problem, make sure the process was performed perfectly, and she let's me know when something is wrong. Not only that but Pushy Clerk loves to let me know how I let something wrong occur. Sometimes I did forget something, but other times the answer, "that is how the judge ruled" is not an acceptable answer. I've started to put in the orders I write that I was overruled on an issue just to remind Pushy Clerk that higher powers exist over me.

Incident Two:

The Judge simply got tired of the case and shut it down. The Judge wasn't going to deal with this anymore and suggested a potential resolution. Here's the problem: that resolution is very simplistic and I'm not certain I could ethically do it. All of the judges are getting tired of our cases. I don't blame them. So many of my cases just run into problem after problem after problem and won't resolve themselves. I went across the hall to visit with a co-worker, Obi-Wan, in another division. His division was part of the proposed solution.

I explained the Judge's concerns and I explained the fact pattern. I agreed in some situations Obi-Wan's department was a great solution. In other situations there was no way his department should be part of the solution. But this case was a 'tweener case and I wasn't sure where on that spectrum it would fall. Sadly a lot of my cases would be a 'tweener case and I really needed Obi-Wan's insight. I did learn a few things, but many of Obi-Wan's thoughts mirrored my own.

On a professional level, I believe if I'm referring a case to the other division I need to believe a reasonable chance of resolution exists. I'm not talking about slam-dunks, but would the other division have a reasonable chance of winning? If not, aren't I wasting everyone's time and resources? On an ethical level if I'm referring a case to the other division I believe I need to have reasonable grounds to refer the case to them. At a reasonable glance does the case meet their criteria? I can imagine a screwball lodging an ethics complaint against me for referring their case to the other division and really messing up their life. I'm not certain how far such a complaint could go, but at the least it would create some aggravation in my life.

After the hearing that started all this the other side's attorney, The Cowboy, and I were discussing things in the hallway. The Cowboy had an observation, "Now we know what one of the Judge's standing orders is: Fix the world."

If only we could.