How I spent my Wednesday or, more accurately, how Wednesday spent me
I was supposed to busy myself Wednesday afternoon finishing up on the three affidavits of the cashiers and the complaint-affidavit by the store’s operations manager so that the complaint would (finally, after two months of percolating inside my IN tray) be filed on Monday.
Instead…
The Bank (currently my “favorite” client, the one with the missing witnesses and missing documentary exhibits) calls me up. The secretary tells me that Bank policy forbids them to give external counsel the originals of the Bank’s documentary evidence. Apparently, the protocol was for lawyers to go to the Bank and look at the documents there. Then, someone from the Bank will just bring the documents to the court whenever they are needed.
Okay, I said. In that case, I would go that very afternoon since the pre-marking was set for Monday at 8:30 AM. Of course, I was already a bit annoyed since I had asked for the documents first thing on Tuesday and it is only on Wednesday that they tell me I couldn’t have them.
The pre-marking of exhibits on Monday is for several criminal cases, being heard simultaneously, filed by the Bank against a former staff. All of the Bank’s evidence are inside envelopes marked with the case number on the flaps. I had a list of all exhibits per case against which I checked the documents inside each envelope. It was tedious, unglamorous work, not exactly the kind of work I imagined myself doing during those days in law school when I would tell myself to persevere as doubts over the wisdom of finishing my course set in.
There were a lot documents missing from the envelopes. And, a lot of those actually inside the envelopes were photocopies. This means that, on Monday morning, I would have a lot of explaining to do (offer excuses, more like). And the Tag Team Plus One (a.k.a. defendants’ counsels ) will have another enjoyable morning at my expense.
