I’m Sexy and I Know It!

It’s been an interesting week.

Considering I’m writing this just before the Jubilee bank holiday weekend is about to start, the fact that it’s only been a three day week only means that I’ve packed the usual amount of “interesting” into a shorter than normal period of time.

This week the theme seems to have been people who are out of touch.

I had a meeting with a very experienced business man who talked endlessly about things like “discovery” and “F&BPs”.  We stopped calling it discovery and changed it to disclosure back in 1999.  At the same time, F&BPs (further and better particulars) changed to Part 18 requests, but it didn’t seem polite to point any of that out.  It did, however, mean that I had to translate for some of my colleagues after the meeting had ended, none of whom are old enough to remember the rules pre CPR and one of whom wasn’t even alive in 1999.  That didn’t make me feel old at all!

I’ve also had an interesting exchange with an opponent about the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.  Given that the opponent in question is an accountant who qualified around 40 years ago, you would think that he would understand the difference better than I did, but apparent not.  Simply because it’s something that “everyone does”, doesn’t mean that it becomes a legitimate tax avoidance scheme and stops being illegal tax evasion.  What’s more, just because “everyone does it” doesn’t mean you should tell me about it.

But my favourite episode this week arose during one of the many interviews we’ve undertaken, looking for new paralegals to join the team following the promotion of the lovely @Sean Scott to the role of trainee solicitor!  The candidate in question was sharing her recent experiences and confessed that during an interview with a sole practitioner (details of whom were not disclosed) he had told her that she looked sexy!  It reminded me of the first day I started my very first job in law, where the sole practitioner solicitor that I was working for told me that he’d just read an article about how solicitors were the most likely candidates to have affairs with their assistants.  I remember smiling sweetly, and then relaying this story to his heavily pregnant wife when she called up later in the day but reassuring her that she was completely safe because her husband was far too old and fat for me to be interested in him!

What I’ve learned over the years is that you’re never going to be able to prevent people from doing/saying stupid things, but on the other hand, if people didn’t sometimes do/say stupid things (like say things that led to claims of sexual harassment and marry people that have affairs with their assistants) I probably wouldn’t need to do more recruitment.

Kleyman & Co Solicitors.  The full service law firm.  Expanding in all the right places.