Thursday, February 23, 2006

 
By now I imagine most people have heard about the Bill Korman / Dianna Abdala situation making the rounds via e-mail. Abdala is a recent graduate of something called Suffolk University Law School, which I've never heard of and am assuming is one of those correspondence law schools they advertise on late-night infomercials along with a free tool kit.

She was offered a job by Korman, who, according to the article I was forwarded from the Boston Globe, had posted the job advertisement on a service called Craig's List, which is mostly used for people to find partners for casual sex. Not law firm partners. I mean partners in the other sense.

So it's a comedy of errors already, obviously.

Korman offered her a job, she accepted, and then she reneged by e-mail. Abdala claims she never really accepted, and Korman had lowered the salary offer between the first interview and the second. Korman said a start date had already been set, and he'd already ordered business cards for Abdala. I don't know why I'm telling you this. Who cares about these people? Clearly neither of them could get a job at a real firm, with real salaries that don't change between interviews (or at least don't change in *that* direction), real working hours that don't allow for time sending e-mails back and forth in the middle of the business day at 9:30 at night, and real budgets that don't worry about the expense of someone's business cards. I mean, it's criminal defense work. What could be less important than that?

I don't know what the obsession is with business cards either. Associates don't use their business cards. At least not at a real firm like mine where it takes years to be experienced enough to do real work. There's no one to give your business cards to except the friends who need your office phone number because you're never home anymore. So the fact that Korman bought her business cards speaks poorly for him, because it's not like she should need them.

Korman politely replied to her e-mail rejecting the offer, and a dialogue ensued about how needed a refresher course in contracts, and she shouldn't burn her bridges, and she wrote "bla bla bla" in response. She spelled "blah" wrong, which is enough to mean she shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

Korman's been bizarrely even-tempered in the press I've seen, saying he wishes her well and doesn't think it will affect her career. Abdala comes off like a lunatic and I'm sure he's glad to be rid of her. But, really, what kind of poor judgment could this guy have to have wanted her to work for him in the first place? He needs some stricter hiring guidelines, and Craig's List is probably not where he ought to be looking for employees. I could send him some rejects from here, if he's really desperate.

Criminal defense work. Suffolk University Law School. Bla bla bla. I hope she ends up teaching legal ethics back at Suffolk. Wherever that is.



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