Computers and I entered the legal world close to the same time. Actually, I was a little ahead of personal computers, Microsoft and word processing programs. We were still using typewriters and even copiers had not evolved to the point we could totally do away with carbon paper.
Ten years later, technology was advanced as was I. I moved into a nest of lawyers in a glass high-rise in a large city law firm. I was on the eighth floor with a large office that had an exterior wall of glass overlooking a green area. We had all the equipment necessary for a well-run office and all the support staff needed to provide services to feed the monster of the modern legal system.
There was a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law team among the support staff. Mildred [not her real name] was the self-appointed head of this well oiled legal machine and she ran everything and everyone, staff and lawyer alike, asserting herself at every opportunity. We all lived in fear of Mildred.
Mildred had a daughter-in-law, Cassie [again, a pseudonym], who also worked as a secretary in the office. Later such staff would be called “Legal Assistants” but for the time they were still called “Secretaries.” Cassie was a high school dropout who had been impregnated by Mildred’s son while still young. She had given up her education to marry and raise the baby. From all indications she was a good person whose heart was well placed. The lack of even the most basic education was clearly evident in her conversation and her work. The weakness in common sense was apparent and education, even higher education, likely would never have helped with that shortfall. But the one area in which she was a leader, a woman among girls, was in self-confidence.
She was one of the most confident people I had ever known. In her mind there was nothing she couldn’t do and nothing she didn’t know. She was poor at taking directions or even suggestions because she was convinced she knew more than anyone else. That was a hard thing for a lawyer, who as a group think too highly of themselves, to take.
With nothing but self-confidence to commend her, I wondered at times how she had landed a coveted position in a large law office. I knew many attorneys who hired support staff based only on her looks but even there Cassie was only minimally attractive. I concluded Mildred had hired her. Mildred’s son wasn’t much and this work arrangement assured a continuing income, something important for Cassie, her husband and their child, Mildred’s grandchild. Since she didn’t have hiring authority, I imagined she simply brought Cassie to work and no one had sufficient courage to run her off. Mildred was always there. They came together, worked together, ate lunch together and left together. Mildred had her working, didn’t have to support them, protected her son’s wife from lustful and lecherous lawyers and provided for her grandchild, whom she dearly loved.
I never knew why but for some reason Cassie was assigned to me. No one asked me, it just happened. I wasn’t the youngest or least experienced of the lawyers in the office. In fact, i was probably the second best lawyer in the entire office. But she was assigned to me as my assistant.
In those days the most effective way of working was to dictate and have your assistant transcribe the dictation. It was the early days of computers and word processing programs. We had them for the support staff but only one of the lawyers had his own personal computed in his office. I preferred dictation then and probably still would if I was still practicing law. I used a small cassette recorded, a pocket recorder, in which I dictated the contents of whatever document I wanted to generate, together with any instructions. I would place these and any notes I had in a pocket folder and put it all in a basket. From time to time Cassie would pick up the work from my basket and deliver what she had completed. It was a smooth and efficient method of operation.
I had learned to proof-read her work the hard way. I had dictated a letter to a client, an arrogant instructor at the University of Oklahoma, and had merely signed it when Cassie presented it to me. We mailed it off only to get it back a few days later corrected with red ink. It was embarrassing to look at my own work bleeding from every pore. I lost face as the client knew I would and the humiliation continued because he didn’t fire me. He came in and smirked as we discussed his case. From then on I read everything Cassie prepared. Had I been in control of the office I would have fired her but that decision was not mine.
I prepared a legal document for another client using my tried and tested dictation/transcription technique. It was a lengthy document I had worked on for several days. And it had taken Cassie a couple of days to type the rough draft. I was not reading her work and since it was a rough draft I planned on making some changes if needed.
In the body of the document I had used the word “collateral” several times. And to my surprise, in every place I had used the word “collateral” there appeared the word “clitoris.”
I circled each appearance of the word and wrote “sp” above it, whereupon it was returned to the “out” basket. Cassie returned it later and said in all innocence, “Hershel, that’s spelled right.”
“No,” I replied, “it’s not correct.” I knew it was not the spelling that was the problem, it was a total ignorance of both words, the intended one and the one she typed.
“Yes it is,” she argued emphatically. “I typed it and clicked ‘spell check’ and this was the first choice.”
I looked at her and saw a lot of emptiness in those eyes. I had raised teenagers who at their worst were smarter than this and I knew this was a debate I couldn’t win.
“Cassie,” I said, “‘clitoris’ is spelled correctly, ‘collateral’ is misspelled.”
She objected again and told me how “spell check” works. I interrupted her and said, “I might be wrong. Check with Mildred. She should know.”
