Fun times and faceplants in Court

[happydude]

On 12/15/2022 at 2:19 PM, TheScientist101 said:

In patent land - when a generic tries to come onto the market they have to file a Notice of Allegation and serve it on the brand. The brand then has 45 days to serve a Statement of Claim (in the old days before September 2017 - a Notice of Application). It is a hard deadline. If the brand misses that deadline, the generic automatically comes onto the market. 

A partner at a major firm missed that deadline. Cost the client hundreds of millions of dollars. That dude is still highly respected in the field. Goes to show, no matter how big the mistake - you're still going to be fine. 

 

Great story for a thread like this!

I do agree in spirit but also only in broad strokes.

What if it was a junior to intermediate associate making that mistake, at anything but the most supportive of firms? Wouldn't surprise me if they were fired on the spot. In fact, it also wouldn't surprise me if they were the only one thrown under the bus, even if the junior was a brand new call on a file that the partner was carrying and lawyer of record on, ought to have been overseeing and keeping track of, etc., such that they too are very much to blame. " I trusted everything to this already over worked junior with only a month of experience, and then proceeded to be completely hands-off with no checking in or oversight and keeping track of my own file's very significant and hard deadline..... surely you don't think *I* also contributed to this mishap in any way?!"

Maybe I have just been in too many toxic workplaces in law.

Edited February 4 by happydude

[TheScientist101]

1 hour ago, happydude said:

 

Great story for a thread like this!

I do agree in spirit but also only in broad strokes.

What if it was a junior to intermediate associate making that mistake, at anything but the most supportive of firms? Wouldn't surprise me if they were fired on the spot. In fact, it also wouldn't surprise me if they were the only one thrown under the bus, even if the junior was a brand new call on a file that the partner was carrying and lawyer of record on, ought to have been overseeing and keeping track of, etc., such that they too are very much to blame. " I trusted everything to this already over worked junior with only a month of experience, and then proceeded to be completely hands-off with no checking in or oversight and keeping track of my own file's very significant and hard deadline..... surely you don't think *I* also contributed to this mishap in any way?!"

Maybe I have just been in too many toxic workplaces in law.

Well usually, regardless of the associate mess up, the partner still has to take it on the chin in front of the client (I can never imagine a partner, who is the head of a group, trying to blame an associate for a massive misstep like that in front of a client). 

In my practice we have like 10 people count the deadline and then we serve 3 days earlier to make sure we don't miss it. The whole IP bar is still shaking their collective head and asking "how did he miss it?"

[BlockedQuebecois]

One of the perks of big firms is that you are generally insulated from client ire, specifically because if a mistake is made the only real choice is for the partner to take the punch. It’s much better for the firm if a partner made a major mistake than if a partner both delegated the task to the associate and failed to adequately supervise the associate. 

You’ll still face internal ire, of course, but the head of Purdue isn’t going to call you screaming his head off.