My Worst Experience At Work (So Far)

This happened several years ago. I was a newbie paralegal, having worked in my position for less than a year.

We had a big insurance bad faith case that was worth several million dollars. We had to oppose the summary judgment motion. The case was fact intensive. I created the separate statement of facts for our opposition. I enjoyed doing that. I knew the evidence in the case. I liked being part of the team and I felt like my contribution through the separate statement was a critical part of scripting our argument.

There were over 100 separate statements in this case.

While I knew the facts of this case, I had never worked on an MSJ before. I did not know anything about the procedure, the format -- any of it.

The night before the opposition was due, I was still pulling together evidence. The lead attorney looked at what I was doing, said it looked good. She referred me to another MSJ opposition for a template. She told me I also had to prepare the declaration. Then she said goodbye because she had guests coming to her house for dinner. It was about 7:00 p.m. when she left. She was not going to be in the office the following day because she had a deposition in another case to attend.

I looked to the MSJ she guided me to as a template. It had two exhibits, each of which contained deposition excerpts. I did not find it particularly helpful in relation to my document that had references to over 100 evidentiary citations.

I worked until 11:00 p.m. or so finalizing the separate statement and labeling the exhibits. I was nowhere near complete, having run out of steam to prepare the declaration. I went home. Fell asleep. By 7:00 a.m., I was back at the office, finalizing the exhibits and dictating the declaration so one of the secretaries could help me out by typing it.

Later in the morning, another attorney looked at my work. Apparently it was all wrong. I had not properly cited to the evidence in the separate statement. The way I compiled the deposition excerpts was not congruent with how our firm did in the past. (I later learned the way I had it drafted was not only acceptable, but was generally preferred by judges and law clerks going through the evidence.)

Everything had to be reviewed, tweaked, re-numbered. It was a disastrous nightmare that involved the entire firm. One of the attorney's had already prepared the declaration, even though I had dictated it because the lead attorney asked him to do so (without telling me). No one could reach the lead attorney. The secretary for the senior partner was unusually bitchy to me, muttering under her breath about what a fuck up I was.

I was devastated. I thought for sure I was going to lose my job. Fortunately, the firm understood that I was put in an unconscionable position. Despite my compunction and narcissistic belief that I could pull it off, the firm recognized that a new paralegal should not have been left on her own with such an important opposition to file. Needless to say, I now know how to put together an MSJ opposition.