Legalspeak in London Law Firms

We all know that lawyers have their own language, and stereotypically they're made up of very old-fashioned terms: 'herein', 'aforementioned', 'forthwith'. Even better is the Latin that we relished learning in law school: 'inter alia', 'prima facie', 'amicus curiae', 'caveat', 'erga omnes' and 'a priori'.  In reality, these are never to be used to clients and lawyers are moving away from that 'legalese'. Even so, I have still found language to be one of the strangest parts of my new job. I thought this post could be about those weird words and maddening mix-ups that I've experienced so far in my first two months.

What lawyers sounded like to me in my first few weeks

Weird words

Some words that are thrown around casually in law firms are those that you quickly get used to, but on reflection realise that they are not actually normal. One such term is 'capacity'. An associate might come up to you and ask 'do you have capacity?' To a non-lawyer this seems bizarre, but it actually just means 'do you have time to do this task?' My confusion stemmed from what 'capacity' means in contract law: someone who doesn't have capacity to sign a contract would be a minor, someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs, someone with a mental illness etc. They morally shouldn't be held to the contract that they signed. So when someone first asked me 'do you have capacity?' I thought to myself 'yes...I am of sound mind and body. I'm able to sign a contract. Do I have to sign a contract or something?'

Other terms that pop up all the time are 'flag it' and 'make a note' - if there's a potential problem up ahead, I'm going to 'flag it'. The first time I pointed something out to an associate and he asked me to 'make a note', I genuinely had to ask him 'do you literally mean make a note, as in I write up a note and save it on my computer, or I write it down on a piece of paper, or I just make a note in my head and remember it, or I email it to you? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN??' Turns out it just means write it down somewhere and remember it. Similarly if we have to get an associate to 'sign off' on something, that doesn't mean they actually sign their name on the document, it just means they have to approve it.

Other words are just plain weird. An email from counsel (i.e. a barrister) referred to 'bumph'. I had to look this up, it means 'useless or tedious printed material'. Another word which even spell-check didn't recognise was 'scupper', or as it appeared in the document, 'scuppered'. i.e. if we don't make this application to court, our claim will be 'scuppered'. I think it means 'thwarted'. Literally, it means 'a hole in a ship's side to carry water overboard from the deck'. My reaction?

Maddening mix-ups

In Australia, a 'file' is a document. E.g. 'this folder has 200 files in it'. In the UK, a 'file' means a folder or binder. This is an almost verbatim conversation I had with the printing centre in my second week:

• Me: 'Hi, I'd like to have these documents printed please. Have I filled in the form correctly?'
• Printing centre: 'Yes that all looks good, how many files will you need printing?'
• Me...stunned: 'Um...how many files? I'm not sure...I mean hundreds, there will be hundreds if not 1000 files. Do you want me to go back to my computer and count them all?'
• Printing centre: '1000 FILES??? We've never been asked to print 1000 files before. Are you sure you need 1000 files printed??'
• Me...even more confused: 'I mean maybe it's just hundreds....I don't know, but there are A LOT of files'.
• Both slowly realising that we're not talking about the same thing.
• Printing centre man holds up a folder: 'I mean, how many of these will you need printed?'
• Me....light bulb moment: 'Ooh, you mean a folder! Just seven'.

In my group a lot of the PAs (secretaries) that I work with are from Essex, and when I see them in the morning they always ask "ah YOU all riiight?" It's hard to describe it by writing it down. But my first reaction every time was 'Yes...why, don't I look all right? Do I look tired? Maybe I look tired. Maybe that's why they're asking if I'm all right'. Turns out it just means 'how are you?' so that you have these bizarre conversations where one PA will ask the other 'are you all right?' and the other says 'good thanks.' So strange.

An experience that my house mate went through, and this is rare, was when an associate asked her to research a topic. She tried to ask him to be more specific, and he replied: "I just want you to canvass the legal ecosystem on that question". WHAT??? Canvass the legal ecosystem?? My poor house mate's reaction:

Emails

Lastly, I just wanted to show how strange lawyers emails are to each other. I think this must stem from the idea that at some stage, if we ever go to court and if these emails aren't subject to privilege, they might have to be disclosed to the other side, so we should make these emails sound official. If it's not that, then I have no idea why we write emails the way we do.

We could be having a friendly discussion about the task, making jokes, being normal, and my associate will then end by saying that he'll send me the relevant document. Then I'll get this:

'Name,

As discussed, please find attached the current version of the witness statement.'

Or another one is 'Further to the email below...' or 'By way of update...' And you can forget about saying "Hi"!!. For the first few weeks, the difference in tone between face-to-face discussions and follow-up emails, really confused me. Now I just fall into line and write emails like everyone else! Occasionally I'll try to quietly subvert the system and add a smiley face or exclamation mark in there :-) !!! :-) !!! :-) !!!

Thanks to everyone who reads these posts, I've really found it to be a fun hobby and I look forward to writing these every weekend. Until next time!


Post-script: today I was reading a document and didn't understand the phrase: please refer to paragraph 1 of our letter of 1 April 2015 "resent under" our letter of 27 April 2015. I thought to myself 'oh great, ANOTHER weird British phrase' and asked my supervisor what the term 'resent under' meant. I pronounced it 'reh-sent', like 'crescent'. He said 'I think you mean re-sent, as in, they sent the document again'. FML.

Time recording - AWK.AWK.01 - Awkward Encounters

Last week my friend and I were doing the usual swap of embarrassing trainee stories. She was telling me about the time a partner left a voice mail on her phone, saying that he'd like to meet up to discuss what they were talking about yesterday. She of course had no idea what he was talking about (or who he was) and it took 15 minutes for her and her PA to work out who he meant instead. The funniest part of the story, was when, at the end, she said in a genuine, frustrated voice, "but what I wanted to know is, how do I bill that time??" It made me laugh so hard! For the non-lawyers reading this, we have to divide up our time into categories: some of it we can charge to the client (called 'billable time'), some is non-chargeable and some falls in categories in between.


AWK.AWK.01

This post is dedicated to a new category of time: AWK.AWK.01. This groups together all of those awkward moments that we, as trainees, encounter weekly if not daily. While realistically, it's not chargeable, it is accountable: a form of 'learning and development' if you will.

Examples of time that can be recorded under AWK.AWK.01

For the first few weeks as a trainee, it was difficult to know which activities should be categorised under which heading, and what kind of narrative (description) you should write. 

A slightly unnecessary Will Gardner gif because I love The Good Wife

Here then are some real life examples, from my and my friends' experiences, of the kind of activities that can be recorded under AWK.AWK.01:

• This time includes the one hour spent researching a list of experts, compiling their areas of expertise, published papers and credentials, only to find out that all of them were dead.

• You were told you could go to the vacation student drinks as long as you kept checking your work phone for when you needed to go back to your desk. You suddenly remembered to check your phone, and saw that you received an email ONE HOUR ago from your associate. So you ran breathlessly to the associate's office and started vomiting apologies and excuses as to why you were an hour late. The 2 minutes spent running, the 3 minutes spent apologising, plus the 1 minute where the associate tells you that if you had read said email, you would know that it said "please don't worry about coming in", are all able to be recorded under AWK.AWK.01

• You are working late in the office. Technology is failing all around you, and it seems that everything you touch turns to crap. So you make a Simpsons reference to your associate, saying that next thing you know you'll be pouring a bowl of cereal and the cereal will catch fire:  

 

Not only does she not get said reference, but it turns out that you forgot to hang up on a phone call to another associate, leaving a 3 minute voice mail message on his machine during which you made this joke. The time spent telling the failed joke, and the time the associate spent listening to the voice mail message, are all accountable. The feeling of pure gratification when the associate tells you that he listened to your 3 minute voice mail message, and got the Simpsons reference, is not awkward at all, and therefore cannot be recorded under this time. Possibly a similar category of “Narrow Wins” should also be implemented.

•  You are pushing a trolley laden with boxes full of paperwork, and you head towards the escalator. You accidentally ram the trolley into the first step, tipping the boxes back onto you, spilling the paper everywhere. The time spent watching hundreds of sheets of paper make their way slowly up the escalator, like a white waterfall of shame; the time spent realising that a small crowd had gathered at the top of the escalator to watch the scene; as well as the time spent collecting all said sheets of paper, may all be recorded under AWK.AWK.01

• An incident affectionately named as the “Matisse Fiasco”: the awkward silence that follows a joke you make to a partner, where you compare a rough drawing you made as part of a bonding activity to Matisse, and the partner very seriously responds “Matisse would never draw that”. This awkward silence, as well as your awkward laughing to cover your uncertainty as to whether this response was serious or possibly a joke at your expense, both fall under AWK.AWK.01:

The important thing to remember, is that this time is accountable: it is not wasted, it is valuable, it is shaping you into the associate that you will become. And if that future associate happens to be more forgiving of trainees and able to have a laugh as a result, then all the better!

PS I feel that AWK.AWK.01 Awkward Encounters will become an ongoing series.

First Impressions of East London

I have been living in East London for almost three months now, so I think I'm qualified to write about my first impressions, though not much more than that! East London, as a label, describes the northeastern part of London, also known as the "East End" (think East Enders!). In my life, it means the districts of Shoreditch, Hackney, Dalston, Old Street, Bethnal Green, Hoxton. East London brings with it cries of "oooh very trendy" and "omg you live walking distance to work, so jealous!" and "is it safe?". In other words, it's a formerly grungy area, then very hip with lots of artists and students moving in, and finally in the process of being gentrified, with business people and lawyers like me moving in and scaring away all the cool people.

What I love about it is the mix of people: East Londoners who have lived in the area for decades, slightly grumpy with the new crowd and keeping to themselves, hipsters with long beards (men), Doc Martins (women) and shaved heads (either), families with young children in prams, tourists on weekends, and lastly, yuppies like me. Maybe we're the reason these neighbourhoods are no longer cool. Shoreditch, for example, was the hipster district to the point of becoming a verb - "Dalston has been Shoreditched". Even though now I encounter mostly tourists in Shoreditch, there are still some great finds, such as independent coffee houses and great street art:


Also young people still queue for fun new things, like the Cereal Killer Cafe, which is a cafe that trades in nostalgia and serves 120 different types of cereals. "Don't you (forget about me)" by Simple Minds was playing when I walked in, followed by Natalie Imbruglia's Torn - creating an 80s and 90s ambiance, which I adored.

My friend and I ordered cereal 'cocktails'

Besides the good coffee and multitude of vintage stores, my other favourite thing about East London, as a region, is the markets! I live within walking distance of two fantastic markets, which single-handedly make me glad that I made this move to London. The first is Columbia Flower Market, which takes place along a bustling road lined with flower sellers, calling out in various London accents phrases like "roses for £5!" or "fresh tuplips!". Flowers are sold from rustic wooden boxes, tourists take photos with large SLR cameras, and at the end of the street two smiling buskers play guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt (think the soundtrack of Chocolat). The surrounding area is then filled with people returning to their cars, taking the bus or heading out for breakfast, holding large bunches of flowers. It really brightens my Sundays :)

The other market that I have been enjoying is Broadway Market. This market is a mix of delicious baked goods, savoury items, fruits, vegetables, cheeses and artisan chocolates. It takes place along the street named, no points for guessing, Broadway Market, which runs from London Fields to the Regent Canal and is adorably lined with boutique eateries, bookshops and record stores. (A few real estate agencies intrude on this ambiance). Last week a man was handing out vouchers for 'yoga classes for locals', which I thought was particularly apt. I usually go to Broadway Market on my weekend jog, which means I don't get to sample any of the yummy things! I need to change my strategy.

Delicious, delicious cheese

One of the great stores along Broadway Market 

Overall, I'm so glad I chose to live in East London, even if as an Australian lawyer I feel a bit like an intruder on this vibrant scene. But in slowly cultivating a list of my favourite local places, I may eventually feel that I belong. I leave you with one of my favourite pieces of street art I've seen so far: very small and near the ground, so that I almost missed her. Til next week!

Settling In

I'm sitting in a very Melbourne-esque (read: mainstream London hipster, or as they say here 'antipodean') café called Look Mum No Hands! I feel right at home amongst the bicycles, students hunched over laptops, music ranging from motown to blues to indie...and of course great coffee. Then again London is always changing and I can't be sure this place is cool any more. What I can be sure about is that I'm comfortable hiding away here and starting my first blog.

As I've said in the About Me section, this is a way to keep my family and friends back home in Australia up to date about my goings-on. I've been working as a commercial lawyer in the City for a month now, and have been so tired and busy that the kindly emails asking how I am have started piling up. This may be a more detailed and efficient way of keeping everyone up to date. When I was younger, writing a diary was how I got through my worry-ful, self-absorbed adolescence, and I feel that a blog might, as an added bonus, similarly help me to cope with all the newness that I've encountered.

I moved here at the end of February, leaving my fiancé behind: today is our 8th anniversary and the first one we've spent apart. To celebrate we did our usual weekend activity, which has been watching as many House of Cards episodes together as the differing time zones allow.

I'm living in East London with three housemates: two other lawyers and a psychologist. Quite an intellectual household, but also a busy one, and I'm finding that we're very rarely all in the house at once. While I've lived out of home for many years now, this was my first move without my usual support system in place. I tried to embrace it, buying Ikea furniture, cracking open a beer and hammering away building myself wardrobes and bookshelves. I felt like a badass. I think it was the beer. Our house is styled "modern", which my housemate encapsulated beautifully: it feels like an office away from the office. Because of that, and because of my need to settle and 'nest', I went about making my room as cosy as possible as soon as I could. This required some ingenuity, as my room is 2.5m x 2.5m with the bed taking up most of the space. 

Managed to find a bookcase that was only 17cm deep!

Work began with a two-week induction and I was relieved to find that my group of trainees are absolutely lovely. It took me a while to remember everyone's names (thank you Facebook!) but I found everyone to be relaxed, funny and self-deprecating, not the competitive intense lawyer-type that I was worried I might find. Maybe when I'm Alicia Florrick I'll hold my own amongst these lawyer-types, but at the very beginning of my first job as a lawyer, I needed to have friends I could be honest with, have a laugh with, and go through this together. I'm so glad I found them.

Symbol of The City of London: The Gherkin

The past month has been tumultuous. I'm working 13 hour days on average, which I count as a blessing given the fact that some of my friends have been working until 1am every night. The ups are those few-and-far-between moments where I feel like I know what I'm doing. That has meant successfully co-organising a wine tasting night between solicitors and barristers, and extremely basic tasks like saving pdf files and naming them correctly. Which I didn't even do properly the first time, using the wrong date format. In other words, the things I've been doing 'right' have been nowhere near using the legal skills that I learned at university. This should have been obvious, with 50% of solicitors at my law firm not having a law degree - impossible in Australia, but highly common in the UK. 

The downs comprise the almost constant struggle not to be overwhelmed and panic - I was so happy to find a "contemplation room" in the building, because it was a secret place that I could curl up into a ball and disappear from the world. Finding that this brought me joy was an uncomfortable discovery. 

One of my best experiences so far took place last week. I felt that I was making so many embarrassing stupid mistakes - for example, I went past a Senior Associate's office, saw she wasn't in, said "DAMN" really loudly and spoke to her PA (secretary) about how I was going to track her down. Turns out she was in there, with the door open, within earshot. Thank god I only said 'damn'. I also made a joke to my supervisor which in retrospect was a bit too familiar - he had jokingly complained that the make-up artist for staff photos had criticised his messy hair and dark circles under his eyes. Later that day he mentioned he was booking a hair cut appointment, and I said "I hope you're also making an appointment for those bags under your eyes!" His surprise made me feel mortified - especially because it was only my second day! Getting the tone right with my supervisors and other lawyers adds another level of complexity to navigating these unchartered waters.

Anyway, feeling a bit blue, I had lunch with some of my trainee friends. I told them some of these incidences and how dumb I felt. What happened next was that each of the trainees ended up telling their own embarrassing stories, which made me laugh so hard I was in stitches!! One friend was asked to urgently print two documents, so he accidentally emailed them first, instead of printing them, then once he did print them, the documents fell all over the floor with unfortunately no page numbers. Being a good environmentalist, he sat there putting them back in order, and only delivered it half an hour later. Another friend was asked to speak to an associate about a matter. He pulls up the associate's staff photo on his computer to check who this person was. After their meeting, both he and the associate come back to his desk where the photo is lying there, unassumingly, on his computer screen. The associate says "Hey! That's me!" Another fantastic photo story involved another friend. We had just received confirmation that our staff photos were online. She clicks on her photo and it enlarges to the size of the screen. Her supervisor chooses that moment to walk past, sees her looking at her own photo and says "Why are you looking at a photo of yourself? That's rather vain isn't it?" Hahaha! Terrible, terrible. 

What I found later is that these kinds of embarrassing encounters don't actually stop once you finish your training contract. An associate told me that he saw a new trainee stepping into a lift with a female partner (the kind of tough feminist lawyer who has had to break the glass ceiling on her way to the top). He tried to be casual and say "hey buddy" or "hey dude" but ended up accidentally combining the two words, and as the doors closed, he called out "HEY BOOB!" Haahahahaha!! Apparently the doors closed on the female partner's face - a look of shock and fury - so there was no time for him to save the situation. 

The moral of my first 4 weeks has been that everyone is on the same journey as me, though everyone deals with it in their own way. I'm sure that after another 4 weeks a lot of these little things will feel even easier.

I hope to have a new blog post once a week, but I may do another one this Easter weekend to catch you all up! I miss you all so much and hopefully this way my life here will seem much less like a mystery :)