The partner I work with is breathing fire today. I guess he came in and made a phone call to one of our clients and asked for the old CFO, not the new CFO, because the contact database wasn't updated when the old CFO was fired. He was embarrassed (and he should have been, because we had to buy the old CFO out of his contract, and it was an involved and protracted negotiation that both he and I were part of, and I can't understand how he forgot in the first place). Anyway, he's asked me to go through all of our clients and make sure the firm database is accurate with the personnel of the company and their correct address, etc.

It's a huge pain in the ass. I've pushed some of it down on a third-year, but a lot of it is just me looking at the files and dictating to my paralegal, "ok, let's see, BigCo just opened a Colorado office, make sure we have that information, you can get it in the annual report, and I think they laid off a bunch of their management, so pull me all the contact cards and let me look at them." I mean, I keep so much of this in my head that I can't just delegate it. Plus it's sort of a rainmaking function -- I call whoever my best contact in the company is and say "hello, hey, Alex, can I just make sure we have everything right, and is the chairman of the board still Pete, yeah, I thought so, and is there anyone new or anyone gone," well, half the time Alex has a question he was meaning to call us about.

But it's a huge hassle (well, except I can IM my friends while I'm doing it, which is kind of fun, since it only takes about half a brain). It means a million voicemail messages and not much uninterrupted time to get real work done. And I know I'm going to lose hours. I mean, it's billable, I guess, especially in the cases where there turn out to be real changes or where they have legal questions or something to tell me. But a lot of it's not, and even the stuff that is -- I have to open a million different matters and bill each one with .1 or .2 and it's just a real pain.
- posted by Blogger @ 11:56 AM