Anonymous Lawyer

A rare Sunday in the office, surely just for a couple of hours -- I'm heading back home in time for a "tae kwon do exhibition" that one of my Anonymous Children is in this afternoon (although knowing your legal rights and responsibilities is a much better form of self-defense than martial arts, if you ask me -- which of course no one did) -- after an incident late Friday that I think it's better for me not to write about on here. Suffice it to say that a senior partner had a medical event, and people have been more worried about him than about getting their work done, which is understandable. Except to clients, because they never understand anything. The only thing they understand is the bill, and they understand that too well. "Services will be approximately ten percent," we warn them, and then they complain about whether photocopying is thirty-five cents a page or forty-five cents a page, and whether we're charging back Lexis and Westlaw at 100% of our cost, or 110% of our cost. Things like that. It gets old after a short time. They want the best, they need to pay for the best. It's that simple. We provide services at a level they can't get at too many other places. Yet they quibble when an associate bills 26 hours one day. Get over it.