"The Beard Grows, But The Head Does Not Grow Wiser."
"Lawyers work hard and, like us, they're human, many of them."-Dick Cavett
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.” - H. L. Mencken
"I tell you, I'll consult my lawyer. And if he advises me to do it, I'll get a new lawyer."-Groucho Marx 
"We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can."
(Note: This photo, with the same resolution, was taken from Mr. Weiner's firm website-which proves that a slick media footprint is not a requirement for success-ed.)
I still remember a few depositions from early in my career, where the testimony was taken down by a court reporter using a pencil and steno pad.
The first Dictaphone I encountered (but was not allowed to use), was at the first firm I worked at. My boss's dictation was recorded on to a "belt" shown in the picture at the bottom of this post. I continue to have no idea how it worked.
In the mid-80s I worked at a high-powered plaintiff PI firm of 13 attorneys. We had a dedicated "Word Processing Department" comprised of 2 machines. All secretaries had Selectric typewriters. No computers.
When I started as a law clerk, I wrote out my pleadings for later typing by the secretary. Over the years I progressed to full size cassettes, micro cassettes, and digital Dictaphones. During the last 5 years of my litigating career, I created my pleadings using voice recognition software. I started using voice as I was taking more time in proofreading transcription than I spent dictating in the first place. The assistant I shared with another attorney apparently felt that she was merely creating a first draft, and so long as words got on paper, I could fix it. And she must have disabled spell check and grammar check as well. Maybe they cut down on her typing speed.
Once learned, voice recognition worked well for me. I could prepare finished documents in real time. In the olden days, my transcription had been delayed as long as three weeks. And, with the headset on, I looked like an air traffic controller.
The bad thing about voice recognition software is, that while it can't misspell a word-which is nice, it can use the wrong word, spelled correctly. Sort of its own version of auto correct.
Auto correct errors were hard to find, sometimes, especially if i was in a rush, and was quickly reading what I expected to see rather than what was actually on the screen before me. During my defense career, there were a lot of long reports to the adjusters, and, well....mistakes were made. I never liked reviewing one of my Case Evaluation summaries before the hearing and noticing a howler or two I missed before it was filed.
However, one auto correct error became something of a classic.
I was doing an interim report to my adjuster. A longish update, and the most recent event was the referral of the case to facilitation. The parties had chosen Stu Weiner-who is my favorite facilitator (present company excluded), among some pretty august company.
The software recognized Stu as "Stool", and I didn't catch it. The report went winging its way through the ether to my adjuster. It is an indication of how long ago this happened, as the adjuster was actually located in state. She hadn't sent me any work directly before this, and she had inherited this case. But, when she read the report (she knew Stu), she called me. While discussing the case, she said she thought that "Stool" Weiner in the report was funny. This was the first time I had realized my error. So, thinking on my feet, while sitting at my desk, I responded, "Well, it is a shitty case." This sent the adjuster into something just short of hysterics. It took our working relationship to a new level, and she started sending me new work directly. Which makes this a story worthy of posting on LinkedIn. And though the adjuster retired in 2018 and I retired from litigation in 2021, we still keep in touch. Which makes this a story worthy of Facebook. (If so, I may have to change "shitty" to "sh***y")
I miss having hearings at Stool/Stu's office in Bingham Farms, where I would pace the halls while he took care of 3 facilitations and an arbitration at the same time. I understand Stu continues to do most of his hearings via Zoom, which is too bad. His office was a real meeting place for the Metro Detroit legal community.
And, much as I like in person proceedings, I post this the day before a huge predicted snow event. I am scheduled to be a neutral Case Evaluator in Wayne County tomorrow. For once, I will be grateful for remote proceedings.
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