I have this one case. It’s the bastard of my caseload. It was like that when I started working here and it has continued that way for the past 9 months. The first thing I ever had to do on it was to vacate a dismissal for want of prosecution…my predecessor had forgotten the court date
Two months go by and a post card comes in the mail. “Your case has been DWP’ed” for a second time. Whoops. My computer calendar decided to eat my court dates…double whoops. The case gets reinstated for the second time and we continue to proceed to work on it. And by that I mean let it sit in my office gathering dust since we have service but no one from the other side seems to care enough to give us the time of day.
Now comes August. I remember as I am sitting out in a boonies courthouse that I had a case in Cook County at this very moment. Fuck. A frantic phone call to the judges chambers lets me know that I can expect a third postcard. The bastard has been abused again.
The case gets reinstated. The judge is none too pleased with my office and lets me know that she doesn’t want to do this again. Ever.
Fast forward to this morning.
I’m working, as per usual, on my trainride into work. I’m going through files, finishing up a few court filings, and trying not to leer at the hot women on the train. And then I see this file’s name just sitting there. And I see the last date that I have entered.
Doing the math in my head, I realize that the last court date for this file was about three weeks ago. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I check my calendar and don’t see anything on there. I basically run to the office praying that my fear is misplaced. I tear through my files looking for the bastard. I am not finding it. This is a good sign. One of my bosses obviously have the file and they…oh…shit…here it is. Buried. With an order saying the last status date was 3 weeks ago. I check the date…I was in the boonies. I wasn’t even in the office.
The bastard has been neglected again. Now it’s time to tell the boss:
‘Uh boss…I think I done fucked up.’I'm not crazy...I swear
‘No you didn’t …you arranged for the call to be covered’
‘So...I’m just losing my mind and panicking over nothing’
‘Welcome to the practice of law’
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