Mobile Mondays

Waking up to the cool weather this morning, it finally feels like the fall is here. The weekends are filled again with kids’ activities, back to school is in full swing, and the court’s calendars seem to be over-filled once again. With holidays closing the schools and leaving some light court calendars, I somehow find myself in three different boroughs of New York.

It begins in Staten Island with a dissolution matter that seems destined to take up a good part of my fall calendar, then is followed by a new client meeting in Brooklyn with an innovative company seeking to change our restaurant experiences (stay tuned…) and then finally a long time client with some collections needs in Manhattan. Thankfully, the hot summer temperatures evaporated late last week, or today would have been unbearable for all the travels.

Finishing up the travel portion of the day, it was nice to catch up with another long time client who followed me from a former job and just wanted to see how things are doing these days. So generally, it was a busy but good beginning to a week of hearings and a very acrimonious conference coming up.

Mobile Mondays are exhausting but fulfilling.

Even More Useless Litigation Paper

It now seems like a weekly occurrence that I get drawn into some strange vortex where someone else thinks it is more convenient to send me reams of papers when a simple email or electronic transfer would do. As we get “back to school” after Labor Day and the fall litigation season seems to ramp up, I’ve been brought in on another corporate dissolution. So far, so good. Client seems reasonable. Opposing counsel seems reasonable. Maybe we’ll have this wrapped up by Christmas?

But just when I thought this would be an enjoyable matter to work on, three boxes of documents arrived by Federal Express this morning. While I bear no animosity towards Federal Express and their ability to make money, this was a total waste of time and money. First, for the delivery man who had to carry these three boxes on the stairs to my office (I told him who to sue if he gets an injury from all these boxes). Second, for the other attorney who probably had to pay a small fortune to have three boxes of documents shipped to my office over Labor Day weekend (or, on second thought, maybe there was some kind of discount or Labor Day sale?). Third, for me who has to now convert three boxes of documents into electronic format so that they can be used by my office and the client.

The most egregious thing of all? The majority of the documents are bank documents and statements that were generated in electronic format! That means that someone sat at a computer and hit the print button repeatedly, wasting reams of paper and all kinds of time for that person to collate and put the documents into boxes. And now all that paper is simply being scanned back into electronic format to be used in the case (as an electronic filing case, to file any document with the Court, the electronic version will be necessary).

In a few years (hopefully less), this will all be an outdated mode of discovery and exchange of documents in the legal industry. Although the technology is readily available for anyone to use at an inexpensive price, for some reason, people still cling to the old inefficient methods.

The (Un)official Last Day of Summer

Although the calendar tells us that summer ends in another two weeks, the Friday before Labor Day always feels like the real end of summer. On Tuesday, schools start and it feels like Labor Day is the signal for the beginning of fall.

Even though Labor Day is as late as it can be this year, there is still essentially one-third (4 months) of 2015 remaining. So what do you have left on your agenda for the year? With plenty of time to go, is there some sort of tax planning that your accountant recommends for 2015 that would be helpful to get done before the end of the year? Depending on your industry, fall is a great time to launch a new product or start a new business. Or maybe it's time to begin the ramp up to the end of the year holidays?

No matter what you have left to do for the remainder of 2015, enjoy your Labor Day weekend, no matter how you spend it.