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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Aug 22, 2020 12:59 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 3:14 pm
That said, I feel like I have been performing much worse since joining biglaw (I'm a junior associate in litigation). I simply cannot focus on the boring minutiae as well as many of my peers. I feel huge imposter syndrome and have messed up multiple assignments that I feel like people judge me for. It's hard to know what to do.
I'm in the exact same boat. Junior litigation associate, find that these symptoms are much more difficult to manage and/or hide in biglaw than they were in law school. It can be really tough day to day.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Aug 22, 2020 9:03 pm

I actually quit being a lawyer 6 months in and now get to work more on stuff that I tend to "hyper-focus" on as I had significant trouble focusing on the shit that really matters for junior corporate associates (attention to detail, hunting out clauses during diligence, general organization of findings, etc.). I'd get dumped full data room deadlines and have timing issues because I'd wait too long.

But in to answer your question, I do pretty well in work now by setting interim artificial deadlines with people I work with (ie; I'll get you a model draft by Tuesday for discussion).

Still run into problems when shit hits the fan and I need to turnaround reformatted shit in like 4 hours for internal stuff but it helps significantly with the deliverables that actually matter for me and my reviews. I've also strategically avoided getting tasked with notes / ensured there was another person taking back-up notes for high value calls as that's one task I can't seem to nail down well.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by blair.waldorf » Sun Aug 30, 2020 10:48 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Thu Aug 20, 2020 10:00 am
Let me be even blunter, the 2 weeks of finals and the 2 weeks (1 week each semester) before finals are probably enough to get pretty solid grades with ADHD level of hyper-focus. If you want straight As, extend that by a couple weeks per semester tracking down more outlines to incorporate and assimilate. Reading case books, taking notes, making briefs, and all that good jazz was totally useless for me. I got more out of attending class by just focusing on what the professor has on the blackboard and puzzling out implications on the spot and attacking his/her hypotheticals.

Overall I found law school itself really easy and actually mostly masked ADHD's weaknesses.

It was the practice of law that was really bad for me. In practice, the memos/letters/discovery requests/contracts are borderline/straightup boiler plate and seniors sent all kinds of samples and we're expected to follow the language. It's stuff that T1/T2 kids that got in the firm through nepotism could do with some practice and training.
Lol wtf how did no one else catch this?

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by nixy » Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:57 pm

Oh, I saw it earlier, and decided not to engage given the overall tone of the thread, but yeah, it was a really stupid comment.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:08 pm

I started just a month ago for a big law firm. I graduated from a good school (T14) in the top quarter of my class and am really happy to have a job during the crisis.

However, I've struggled to do good work and have made a number of errors recently (things like typos in emails - some to partners, missing due diligence issues that a double-check by a senior finds, etc). Nothing that has ultimately been part of a transcaction or been seen by a client, but I feel like the partner and the other associates on one main transaction feel like I'm an idiot. Mostly this is because I've just strugled to really do lots of work and rush it at the last minute, and then make mistakes.

Is this redeemable/normal? I've had a hard time recently because I feel like since I've started off making a number of errors, I won't be trusted going forward, which makes it harder to be motivated. Anyone have stories of people making lots of dumb errors initially but then going on to do well?

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:40 pm

3L checking in -

After years of struggling with self-loathing over my utter inability to get shit done without an impending deadline, I finally worked up the courage to get tested for ADHD. Lockdown in particular has been Rough (I just stumbled across this conversation while procrastinating on the reading I need to do for tomorrow morning, lol). My screener test is later this week, and reading this thread now is helping me feel reassured that I'm not just pathologizing a lack of self-discipline. Thanks to all who've shared.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:55 pm

I'm a young associate at a firm. I've struggled with ADHD for a while but resisted medication. Since the pandemic my work effort has bottomed out. I just am trying medication for the first time today.

Any advice on how to use medication (standard ritalin) effectively? I will avoid it at nights of course and want to be as careful as possible with it.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:37 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:55 pm
I'm a young associate at a firm. I've struggled with ADHD for a while but resisted medication. Since the pandemic my work effort has bottomed out. I just am trying medication for the first time today.

Any advice on how to use medication (standard ritalin) effectively? I will avoid it at nights of course and want to be as careful as possible with it.
Anon for obvious reasons as we are talking about medical issues.

I’d try to avoid using it on weekends if you aren’t working, if you can break the tabs so you aren’t taking full doses initially. Unfortunately I find these drugs kill most personality which isn’t ideal so be prepared for that.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 13, 2020 12:57 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 7:03 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 6:39 pm

4. Honestly - Learn to lie and, plan out lies, about how time was wasted under the scourge of ADHD. obviously I am not going to say "Sorry this is late, I begged myself to stop scrolling through a Wikipedia page about the Persecution of Huguenots under Louis XV, but I physically couldn't do so until I reached the appropriate level of stress, desperation and self-hatred" - No, no, no...much better to say "I had to deal with a fire drill"

good luck!
(OP) Lol’d at this (and also wanted to cry at the accuracy). It’s actually crazy how similar everyone’s experiences are, and it’s super comforting to hear people talking about them in the biglaw context. Obviously no disrespect for other jobs (I would basically rather be doing anything else) but it’s hard to relate my situation in biglaw to an ADHD teacher talking about how they get behind grading papers or whatever - totally different experiences.

Re: your point about alternating real work and admin work, I do this on the weekends (and sometimes during the week if I WFH) with low-level cleaning around my apartment - not only does it make it easier to start work knowing I’ll get to take a break in a few minutes and walk around, it also helps me resist the temptation to conclude that I’ll be able to do All The Things if I just have a clean apartment to work in (cue multi-hour time-wasting but ultimately half-assed deep clean). As I’ve alluded to throughout the thread, alternating tasks helps me a lot in general...but not enough that I’m not also staring down a wall of work at 7 PM on a Friday night.
Gosh, I could have written all of the posts on this thread. Joining a big law firm after I graduate next year (probably tax) and concerned about everything mentioned here. I also have complex-PTSD, which can cause/co-exist with ADHD. Would be interested if anyone else is dealing with the same/what you have done to manage.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 10:34 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:37 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:55 pm
I'm a young associate at a firm. I've struggled with ADHD for a while but resisted medication. Since the pandemic my work effort has bottomed out. I just am trying medication for the first time today.

Any advice on how to use medication (standard ritalin) effectively? I will avoid it at nights of course and want to be as careful as possible with it.
Anon for obvious reasons as we are talking about medical issues.

I’d try to avoid using it on weekends if you aren’t working, if you can break the tabs so you aren’t taking full doses initially. Unfortunately I find these drugs kill most personality which isn’t ideal so be prepared for that.
I take Adderall so I'm not sure how true all of this would necessarily be for Ritalin, but:

Agreed on starting with a lower dose and then building up if you need to, and avoiding on weekends. And the meds definitely left me a little zombified the first couple of months, but after I got used to them I found this stopped being an issue. As for the night thing, this might be particular to me (I have a lot of sleep issues), but I actually find that I sleep better on my meds.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 1:40 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 7:03 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Aug 14, 2020 6:39 pm

4. Honestly - Learn to lie and, plan out lies, about how time was wasted under the scourge of ADHD. obviously I am not going to say "Sorry this is late, I begged myself to stop scrolling through a Wikipedia page about the Persecution of Huguenots under Louis XV, but I physically couldn't do so until I reached the appropriate level of stress, desperation and self-hatred" - No, no, no...much better to say "I had to deal with a fire drill"

good luck!
(OP) Lol’d at this (and also wanted to cry at the accuracy). It’s actually crazy how similar everyone’s experiences are, and it’s super comforting to hear people talking about them in the biglaw context. Obviously no disrespect for other jobs (I would basically rather be doing anything else) but it’s hard to relate my situation in biglaw to an ADHD teacher talking about how they get behind grading papers or whatever - totally different experiences.

Re: your point about alternating real work and admin work, I do this on the weekends (and sometimes during the week if I WFH) with low-level cleaning around my apartment - not only does it make it easier to start work knowing I’ll get to take a break in a few minutes and walk around, it also helps me resist the temptation to conclude that I’ll be able to do All The Things if I just have a clean apartment to work in (cue multi-hour time-wasting but ultimately half-assed deep clean). As I’ve alluded to throughout the thread, alternating tasks helps me a lot in general...but not enough that I’m not also staring down a wall of work at 7 PM on a Friday night.
I'm happy to hear I'm not the only one who thinks that I'll be able to work more productively if only I had a clean house. Do you guys tend to run a bit OCD on these types of things?

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:53 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:08 pm
I started just a month ago for a big law firm. I graduated from a good school (T14) in the top quarter of my class and am really happy to have a job during the crisis.

However, I've struggled to do good work and have made a number of errors recently (things like typos in emails - some to partners, missing due diligence issues that a double-check by a senior finds, etc). Nothing that has ultimately been part of a transcaction or been seen by a client, but I feel like the partner and the other associates on one main transaction feel like I'm an idiot. Mostly this is because I've just strugled to really do lots of work and rush it at the last minute, and then make mistakes.

Is this redeemable/normal? I've had a hard time recently because I feel like since I've started off making a number of errors, I won't be trusted going forward, which makes it harder to be motivated. Anyone have stories of people making lots of dumb errors initially but then going on to do well?
OP here. I do think that a lot of this is normal for a new associate - it's hard to get used to the level of detail that is expected, and in corporate work you're also doing a lot of work that you likely have zero prior exposure to. However, I also think I make more sloppy errors than the average peer associate, and it's possible that you are the same.* I don't have a magic fix, but the most effective thing for me is just forcing myself to check my work way more than I am naturally inclined to. For example, I have always been one of those people that can't stand to re-read my own draft before turning in a paper or whatever, but when I write memos now, I force myself to print them out (sorry trees) and mark them up by hand. I catch so many stupid mistakes that way. I also re-read emails to anyone even remotely important multiple times (too many times) before sending (don't fill in the "to" and "cc" lines until you're 100% done with the email and have attached everything!) Eventually you build up enough credibility with people that you don't have to be as careful on dumb stuff like internal emails, but putting in the time and unpleasant effort at the beginning really helps with getting to that point. Lean into the "what if everyone thinks I'm an idiot and I get laid off" fear to motivate you if you can't come up with any other way to do it.

I think it's probably also helpful to get into a good habit of calendaring every deadline and taking notes on things that people tell you in a way that you will be able to use them to remind yourself of important things later (as opposed to just a massive "notes" document/notebook full of unintelligible half-sentences), but I suck at this so I have no good advice.

*I'm in litigation so I am to some extent talking out of my ass, but my impression from friends is that everyone misses some DD issues at first - the problem is when you miss them over and over. I don't know whether this will really translate to corporate work, but something I've sometimes done is keep a running list of things that I've screwed up, corrections that I've gotten, etc., so that I can specifically check for those things when working on future projects. For example, I worked with a partner who had a lot of very specific language preferences (e.g., don't use "if" when you can use "whether," always say "telephone," never "phone" - this one is fair), so when I started getting repeated corrections on that stuff, I made a checklist to go through every time I wrote something for the partner.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 3:02 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Mon Oct 12, 2020 12:55 pm
I'm a young associate at a firm. I've struggled with ADHD for a while but resisted medication. Since the pandemic my work effort has bottomed out. I just am trying medication for the first time today.

Any advice on how to use medication (standard ritalin) effectively? I will avoid it at nights of course and want to be as careful as possible with it.
(Obvious disclaimer that I am not a doctor and so all of the below is just my own personal experience and may be (unbeknownst to me) medically inadvisable.)

OP again - my view on this seems to be different than a lot of others in this thread, but I am a strong advocate for taking it every day. This is partially because I usually have to work every day (thank you, lack of self-discipline), but also because I have found that feeling like a total failure on the weekends is not conducive to productivity during the week, even if I'm only failing at chores, etc. I also don't like the ups-and-downs of being on it one day and off another, but YMMV. I'm now on a once a day med, but when I took doses multiple times a day I did find that taking them at consistent times was beneficial.

My general advice, however, is to experiment - not with exceeding your dose or anything like that, but in terms of the time that you take your medication, what you eat or don't eat with it, whether you have caffeine, how much water you drink, when you exercise (if you do), etc. There doesn't seem to be much of a "right" approach across the board.

Finally, the first few days of a new medication or new dose are sometimes strange - if you feel like like you're high or anything like that, that's not necessarily going to be how you feel when you adjust to the dose.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 3:39 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:53 pm
I think it's probably also helpful to get into a good habit of calendaring every deadline and taking notes on things that people tell you in a way that you will be able to use them to remind yourself of important things later (as opposed to just a massive "notes" document/notebook full of unintelligible half-sentences), but I suck at this so I have no good advice.
Damn have you looked at all the notebooks sitting on my desk??

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 5:23 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Wed Oct 14, 2020 3:39 pm
Anonymous User wrote:
Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:53 pm
I think it's probably also helpful to get into a good habit of calendaring every deadline and taking notes on things that people tell you in a way that you will be able to use them to remind yourself of important things later (as opposed to just a massive "notes" document/notebook full of unintelligible half-sentences), but I suck at this so I have no good advice.
Damn have you looked at all the notebooks sitting on my desk??
(I’m the poster you quoted) I genuinely have no idea how one is supposed to do this? To the point that I have sometimes tried to delicately ask people how they keep track of random facts about their matters. Maybe normal people don’t really forget the kinds of things I do? I feel like there are so many small things that it would be useful to be able to call to mind later (so I can say “I believe we decided that we did not need to collect those documents bc of XYZ reasons” instead of having a heart attack and going through months of old emails to see if I screwed up or not), but I have no idea how to store this kind of information in a way that will actually be useable but also doesn’t add huge amounts of time to my day-to-day work to record/organize. It’s also hard to know what I will and won’t remember later. I wish that books about workplace organization were more helpful for stuff like this, but law is so different from most other types of corporate work that I usually find them to be a waste of time.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 5:52 pm

I use word docs to keep track of EVERYTHING. I have a word doc with every matter listed, and under each matter, a list of hard deadlines. Then based on the hard deadlines, I try to make internal deadlines and reminders. For instance, if a motion is due 12/1, I'll make an entry for 11/15 to begin drafting, with notes underneath (i.e., gather decs, make points x, y, z). I also include other soft deadlines (i.e., follow up with person a, b, c regarding 1, 2, 3). I try to leave absolutely NOTHING to my memory, and record 100% of the things I need to do. That not only helps me mentally declutter, but it also saves time on the back end when I don't have to struggle to remember minute details.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:00 pm

Anon who quoted you here - this is EXACTLY the problem that I have. One thing I’ve tried doing is, after getting off a call or a meeting, writing myself an email summarizing what was discussed. It works really well for shorter more discrete discussions, especially because searching my email is pretty efficient (rather than paper notes or online documents. Something like Evernote might work too but I can’t install that on my work computer). But if I can’t sit down and do it right away right after, I tend to forget stuff, and the more involved the conversation, the longer it takes to do which means I tend not to do it (especially if it’s one of those meetings addressing a bunch of different issues). Like you, I don’t know if other people just remember this stuff more easily? Or if they put the time into taking notes that are effective? The thing is that no one *seems* to spend as much time taking notes as I would need to, but maybe it’s invisible because no one thinks they need to say it?

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Mar 12, 2021 5:33 am

It's 4:30AM on a Friday. I am staring at an email sent to me on Monday basically saying: "Here is a deck from a similar transaction. Can you do one for this transaction by Friday?" I already replied with yes, after scanning the email chain and thinking it shouldn't take long.

Per my Apple Watch, my HBM topped out at 120 as I came to the dreadful realization the email does not have that deck and some key documents attached. The assignment most likely won't take long. The real problem here is I now have to admit I didn't even look at the assignment until now. At least this time (I checked my sent box) I didn't tell anyone I already worked on it.

Hating life now.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Fri Mar 12, 2021 5:51 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Mar 12, 2021 5:34 am

<accidental duplicate>

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:51 am

Damn I have been there. Courage. It’ll turn out okay.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:54 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 5:33 am
It's 4:30AM on a Friday. I am staring at an email sent to me on Monday basically saying: "Here is a deck from a similar transaction. Can you do one for this transaction by Friday?" I already replied with yes, after scanning the email chain and thinking it shouldn't take long.

Per my Apple Watch, my HBM topped out at 120 as I came to the dreadful realization the email does not have that deck and some key documents attached. The assignment most likely won't take long. The real problem here is I now have to admit I didn't even look at the assignment until now. At least this time (I checked my sent box) I didn't tell anyone I already worked on it.

Hating life now.
Had a deal that took all Friday afternoon. Finished the assignment Friday night. Got a 2am reply that the transaction was simple and the deck shouldn't have taken this long.

... I think I got off the hook easy.

PS: he was right... with all the info in hand, it took 1.5 hours for me to do 1 draft and another 30 minutes to proofread and he didn't even have any feedback on the desk itself so I must have done a decent job.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by svkclvk » Sun May 09, 2021 11:58 am

Hey folks. Incoming law student here, diagnosed last year, and everything said here sounds just like me.

All the discussion in this thread has been about law firms; does anyone have thoughts on what areas of law are a good fit for ADHD brains? I’m interested in eg criminal prosecution because it sounds fast paced and lots of imminent deadlines, but I saw a few people in this thread saying transactional is better. Is there a noticeable difference between the pace in federal vs state/local prosecution? Thanks y’all!

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by gola20 » Sun May 09, 2021 4:57 pm

Any advice how to manage the long hours? I hate working long hours. I am good for 4 to 5 hours a day. Everything else feels like hell. Getting desperate being a lawyer. Maybe take a government job?

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Sun May 09, 2021 8:49 pm

svkclvk wrote:
Sun May 09, 2021 11:58 am
Hey folks. Incoming law student here, diagnosed last year, and everything said here sounds just like me.

All the discussion in this thread has been about law firms; does anyone have thoughts on what areas of law are a good fit for ADHD brains? I’m interested in eg criminal prosecution because it sounds fast paced and lots of imminent deadlines, but I saw a few people in this thread saying transactional is better. Is there a noticeable difference between the pace in federal vs state/local prosecution? Thanks y’all!
Transactional seems good and bad: good in that stuff will go seriously wrong if you drop the ball, which I assume makes it easier to force yourself to do stuff, bad in that it seems like a lot of details, which I’m terrible with.

Re: prosecution, I think state prosecution is much faster paced, both in terms of the speed at which individual cases happen and the number of active cases you have at a given point in time. If money was no object I would definitely go for state prosecution.

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Re: ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips

Post by Anonymous User » Sun May 09, 2021 8:53 pm

gola20 wrote:
Sun May 09, 2021 4:57 pm
Any advice how to manage the long hours? I hate working long hours. I am good for 4 to 5 hours a day. Everything else feels like hell. Getting desperate being a lawyer. Maybe take a government job?
I have no good advice because SAME. If I’m super busy then I can get to 8 hours without actively noticing every single minute drag by, but if it’s a slow week then I end up working a lot on the weekends to reach an even minimally defensive hours total for the week (literally what I’m doing now). I hate it, and I also feel a lot of (ridiculous) resentment towards my friends in regular white collar jobs who think we work the same hours but they are actually only doing the same 4-5 hours of actual work and then padding the rest with office small talk/busy work because they’re not required to bill their time. This is totally my fault for being in this (higher paid) career, obviously - in my better moments, I’m happy for them that they get to coast, haha. It’s just really frustrating/unmotivating to be in a field where efficiency means nothing and all anyone cares about is how many minutes you worked.

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