Biggest screw-up/mistake at work? Forum

[omar1]

What's the biggest screw up or a mistake you ever made at work and how did you get out of it/how did it end up for you?

[Lacepiece23]

What's the biggest screw up or a mistake you ever made at work and how did you get out of it/how did it end up for you?

Cited a case that did not stand for the correct legal principle. Partner was very nice when I can forward. He was very forgiving and not you’re typical biglaw partner, however.

[Anonymous User]

Senior associate. Got a client comment to add “the earlier of” at the beginning of a two-pronged notice clause in the remedies section of a 200+ page contract. Added it in the one spot, but didn’t think to mirror the comment in the analogous clause a subsection below because it was like 3:00 AM when I was doing it during, as I recall, a 300 billable month. A year later the counterparty breached the contract (a very rare thing) in the exact way (even rarer) to trip only that second provision, and the client was pushing to actually pursue remedies (rarest of all). So a bunch of extremely important people zeroed in on this exact clause and realized their ability to pursue remedies required satisfying both prongs, resulting in a month-long delay in their ability to do so. They demanded to know why this clause didn’t mirror the analogous clause. Partner and client dug back through emails a year earlier on the deal to find my 3:00 AM email showing I had been running the changes and missed it. Talked about it basically every day for the month they had to wait to enforce, full blame on me in every discussion. Litigators got involved to evaluate if they could argue that it was a scrivener’s error in court. Everyone furious. Bad times.

Worked out okay and everyone forgot about it pretty quickly (I expect to make partner in my group). Could easily have gone the other way.

Never know what will come back to haunt you, or what you might have missed on an all nighter years ago.

[Anonymous User]

Senior associate. Got a client comment to add “the earlier of” at the beginning of a two-pronged notice clause in the remedies section of a 200+ page contract. Added it in the one spot, but didn’t think to mirror the comment in the analogous clause a subsection below because it was like 3:00 AM when I was doing it during, as I recall, a 300 billable month. A year later the counterparty breached the contract (a very rare thing) in the exact way (even rarer) to trip only that second provision, and the client was pushing to actually pursue remedies (rarest of all). So a bunch of extremely important people zeroed in on this exact clause and realized their ability to pursue remedies required satisfying both prongs, resulting in a month-long delay in their ability to do so. They demanded to know why this clause didn’t mirror the analogous clause. Partner and client dug back through emails a year earlier on the deal to find my 3:00 AM email showing I had been running the changes and missed it. Talked about it basically every day for the month they had to wait to enforce, full blame on me in every discussion. Litigators got involved to evaluate if they could argue that it was a scrivener’s error in court. Everyone furious. Bad times.

Worked out okay and everyone forgot about it pretty quickly (I expect to make partner in my group). Could easily have gone the other way.

Never know what will come back to haunt you, or what you might have missed on an all nighter years ago.

Wow, now I am worried.

[Lacepiece23]

Senior associate. Got a client comment to add “the earlier of” at the beginning of a two-pronged notice clause in the remedies section of a 200+ page contract. Added it in the one spot, but didn’t think to mirror the comment in the analogous clause a subsection below because it was like 3:00 AM when I was doing it during, as I recall, a 300 billable month. A year later the counterparty breached the contract (a very rare thing) in the exact way (even rarer) to trip only that second provision, and the client was pushing to actually pursue remedies (rarest of all). So a bunch of extremely important people zeroed in on this exact clause and realized their ability to pursue remedies required satisfying both prongs, resulting in a month-long delay in their ability to do so. They demanded to know why this clause didn’t mirror the analogous clause. Partner and client dug back through emails a year earlier on the deal to find my 3:00 AM email showing I had been running the changes and missed it. Talked about it basically every day for the month they had to wait to enforce, full blame on me in every discussion. Litigators got involved to evaluate if they could argue that it was a scrivener’s error in court. Everyone furious. Bad times.

Worked out okay and everyone forgot about it pretty quickly (I expect to make partner in my group). Could easily have gone the other way.

Never know what will come back to haunt you, or what you might have missed on an all nighter years ago.

Wow, now I am worried.

That's just bad luck, honestly. Will almost never get caught for doing that.

[Anonymous User]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

[Anonymous User]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

Awesome if true.

In reality, my biggest screw up was probably accidentally sending AEO material to a client. But the one that actually affected my trajectory at my first firm was, after a paralegal decided, without asking me, to change my exhibit numbers in a 30-page brief with something like 35 exhibits and over 100 citations from letters to numbers on the day before filing, failing to catch one that she missed so that the citation still said Ex. C instead of Ex. 3.

We caught it a week later and filed an amended brief, but the partners on the case were unbelievably pissed that we had to tell the client about a screw up. And were just generally miserable human beings.

All that to say, everyone screws up at least once, and it's not always or even usually the magnitude of the screw up that matters. It's much more about how you handle it and whom you're working with.

[Anonymous User]

Sent ~30 pages of a draft IPO prospectus to the trustee of an unrelated debt deal. The trustee sent an email inquiry copying our entire working group including the partners but fortunately nobody (except myself) paid any attention.

[Anonymous User]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

Awesome if true.

In reality, my biggest screw up was probably accidentally sending AEO material to a client. But the one that actually affected my trajectory at my first firm was, after a paralegal decided, without asking me, to change my exhibit numbers in a 30-page brief with something like 35 exhibits and over 100 citations from letters to numbers on the day before filing, failing to catch one that she missed so that the citation still said Ex. C instead of Ex. 3.

We caught it a week later and filed an amended brief, but the partners on the case were unbelievably pissed that we had to tell the client about a screw up. And were just generally miserable human beings.

All that to say, everyone screws up at least once, and it's not always or even usually the magnitude of the screw up that matters. It's much more about how you handle it and whom you're working with.

Wow, shitty partners. I had a similar SNAFU on a summary judgment brief for the firm's highest value case at the time. I told the partner as soon as I noticed, and he just said file a corrected version. We did. End of story.

[LBJ's Hair]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

Awesome if true.

In reality, my biggest screw up was probably accidentally sending AEO material to a client. But the one that actually affected my trajectory at my first firm was, after a paralegal decided, without asking me, to change my exhibit numbers in a 30-page brief with something like 35 exhibits and over 100 citations from letters to numbers on the day before filing, failing to catch one that she missed so that the citation still said Ex. C instead of Ex. 3.

We caught it a week later and filed an amended brief, but the partners on the case were unbelievably pissed that we had to tell the client about a screw up. And were just generally miserable human beings.

All that to say, everyone screws up at least once, and it's not always or even usually the magnitude of the screw up that matters. It's much more about how you handle it and whom you're working with.

those partners are pieces of shit. routine, utterly inconsequential mistake

[Anonymous User]

Not me but I work(ed) with all of these people.

Huge case at the firm that a ton of hours had been sunken into for zero pay-off (a rare biglaw contingency case). First year associate messed up in a privilege review and marked stuff for production that was embarrassing to the client. It got produced, the error was discovered, and the client was furious. The big shot partners on the case flew out to meet him to calm him down. It kinda felt like a movie knowing that a head was going to roll but not knowing who. Tensions were really uncomfortable in the office. Ultimately, the senior associate in charge of overseeing that privilege review was pushed out. The firm kept the case, prevailed, and the partners got their contingency cut.

[Anonymous User]

A client keeps inviting me to their internal meetings. The first couple of times I emailed asking if they intended to send and they apologized and removed me. But kept getting invites. So I just ignore them. Probably a screw up in their distribution list. I wonder if someone at the company with a similar name keeps missing meetings.

Not my screw up just a slightly comical mixup that felt relevant.

[Anonymous User]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

Awesome if true.

In reality, my biggest screw up was probably accidentally sending AEO material to a client. But the one that actually affected my trajectory at my first firm was, after a paralegal decided, without asking me, to change my exhibit numbers in a 30-page brief with something like 35 exhibits and over 100 citations from letters to numbers on the day before filing, failing to catch one that she missed so that the citation still said Ex. C instead of Ex. 3.

We caught it a week later and filed an amended brief, but the partners on the case were unbelievably pissed that we had to tell the client about a screw up. And were just generally miserable human beings.

All that to say, everyone screws up at least once, and it's not always or even usually the magnitude of the screw up that matters. It's much more about how you handle it and whom you're working with.

those partners are pieces of shit. routine, utterly inconsequential mistake

Biglaw partner. I probably do something like this 1-2 times a year, even now. It is not a mistake you need to tell the client about and is certainly not worth losing sleep over.

[TUwave]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

Awesome if true.

In reality, my biggest screw up was probably accidentally sending AEO material to a client. But the one that actually affected my trajectory at my first firm was, after a paralegal decided, without asking me, to change my exhibit numbers in a 30-page brief with something like 35 exhibits and over 100 citations from letters to numbers on the day before filing, failing to catch one that she missed so that the citation still said Ex. C instead of Ex. 3.

We caught it a week later and filed an amended brief, but the partners on the case were unbelievably pissed that we had to tell the client about a screw up. And were just generally miserable human beings.

All that to say, everyone screws up at least once, and it's not always or even usually the magnitude of the screw up that matters. It's much more about how you handle it and whom you're working with.

Oh it's true... go search intelligize, this happens in SEC filings like 2 to 3 times a week lol.

[Anonymous User]

Wrote "pubic access" instead of "public access" in a filing.

Awesome if true.

In reality, my biggest screw up was probably accidentally sending AEO material to a client. But the one that actually affected my trajectory at my first firm was, after a paralegal decided, without asking me, to change my exhibit numbers in a 30-page brief with something like 35 exhibits and over 100 citations from letters to numbers on the day before filing, failing to catch one that she missed so that the citation still said Ex. C instead of Ex. 3.

We caught it a week later and filed an amended brief, but the partners on the case were unbelievably pissed that we had to tell the client about a screw up. And were just generally miserable human beings.

All that to say, everyone screws up at least once, and it's not always or even usually the magnitude of the screw up that matters. It's much more about how you handle it and whom you're working with.

You 100% should not file an amended brief for this. Biglaw firms file briefs with much larger typos all the time, and courts are so used to deciphering stuff practically written in crayon that they won’t care on the small chance they notice. In my SDNY chambers filing a redlined amendment with something like this would’ve generated tons of snark and just leaving the typo would’ve generated none.

[Anonymous User]

Co-counsel gave us some weird vibes throughout case. One day he repeatedly insisted he had sent us a document and got flustered when we said we didn’t receive it. I had IT check and the email was infected with so many viruses from pornographic sites that it got caught up in our firm’s security system. Was fun explaining to him why we didn’t get the email.

[Anonymous User]

first year lit, smallish (<80ppl) firm.

I send a brief research memo to a senior associate for review. It looks solid and I’ve got some on-point cases. I send it to someone else at the firm with the wrong name (i.e, James Robert instead of James Roberts). Tbh considering the size of my firm, I was truly shocked at the coincidence.

The partner I inadvertently emailed responds quite upset that I emailed the wrong person. They let me know that I displayed a lack of attentiveness and poor judgment indicative of character flaws. Like a 3-4 paragraph email.

I respond, cc:ing the senior, letting the partner know of my mistake and that it wouldn’t happen again. The partner replied to both of us telling the senior to “carefully review all of my work product” and letting me know that I shouldn’t waste his time again.

About 6 months later, post-covid, the partner meets me at a firm event. I introduce myself by name and immediately he asks, “Are you still fucking emails up?” He walks away as I gather myself. Hopefully I quit before I have to interact with this guy again.

[Dr Tobias Funke]

Not me but I work(ed) with all of these people.

Huge case at the firm that a ton of hours had been sunken into for zero pay-off (a rare biglaw contingency case). First year associate messed up in a privilege review and marked stuff for production that was embarrassing to the client. It got produced, the error was discovered, and the client was furious. The big shot partners on the case flew out to meet him to calm him down. It kinda felt like a movie knowing that a head was going to roll but not knowing who. Tensions were really uncomfortable in the office. Ultimately, the senior associate in charge of overseeing that privilege review was pushed out. The firm kept the case, prevailed, and the partners got their contingency cut.

Tagged stuff for production that was just embarrassing or embarrassing and also privileged or non-responsive? Because if it's the former it's not a mistake...

[Anonymous User]

first year lit, smallish (<80ppl) firm.

I send a brief research memo to a senior associate for review. It looks solid and I’ve got some on-point cases. I send it to someone else at the firm with the wrong name (i.e, James Robert instead of James Roberts). Tbh considering the size of my firm, I was truly shocked at the coincidence.

The partner I inadvertently emailed responds quite upset that I emailed the wrong person. They let me know that I displayed a lack of attentiveness and poor judgment indicative of character flaws. Like a 3-4 paragraph email.

I respond, cc:ing the senior, letting the partner know of my mistake and that it wouldn’t happen again. The partner replied to both of us telling the senior to “carefully review all of my work product” and letting me know that I shouldn’t waste his time again.

About 6 months later, post-covid, the partner meets me at a firm event. I introduce myself by name and immediately he asks, “Are you still fucking emails up?” He walks away as I gather myself. Hopefully I quit before I have to interact with this guy again.

Partner is an asshole, this kind of thing happens all the time and should be expected and laughed off by the two people with similar names. I've seen partners email the wrong associates (with completely different names, just forgot who is on which deal) or even mixing up people outside the firm.

[Anonymous User]

first year lit, smallish (<80ppl) firm.

I send a brief research memo to a senior associate for review. It looks solid and I’ve got some on-point cases. I send it to someone else at the firm with the wrong name (i.e, James Robert instead of James Roberts). Tbh considering the size of my firm, I was truly shocked at the coincidence.

The partner I inadvertently emailed responds quite upset that I emailed the wrong person. They let me know that I displayed a lack of attentiveness and poor judgment indicative of character flaws. Like a 3-4 paragraph email.

I respond, cc:ing the senior, letting the partner know of my mistake and that it wouldn’t happen again. The partner replied to both of us telling the senior to “carefully review all of my work product” and letting me know that I shouldn’t waste his time again.

About 6 months later, post-covid, the partner meets me at a firm event. I introduce myself by name and immediately he asks, “Are you still fucking emails up?” He walks away as I gather myself. Hopefully I quit before I have to interact with this guy again.

toxic partner

[Lacepiece23]

Seems like this thread is full of toxic partners and not so full of mistakes.

[glitched]

first year lit, smallish (<80ppl) firm.

I send a brief research memo to a senior associate for review. It looks solid and I’ve got some on-point cases. I send it to someone else at the firm with the wrong name (i.e, James Robert instead of James Roberts). Tbh considering the size of my firm, I was truly shocked at the coincidence.

The partner I inadvertently emailed responds quite upset that I emailed the wrong person. They let me know that I displayed a lack of attentiveness and poor judgment indicative of character flaws. Like a 3-4 paragraph email.

I respond, cc:ing the senior, letting the partner know of my mistake and that it wouldn’t happen again. The partner replied to both of us telling the senior to “carefully review all of my work product” and letting me know that I shouldn’t waste his time again.

About 6 months later, post-covid, the partner meets me at a firm event. I introduce myself by name and immediately he asks, “Are you still fucking emails up?” He walks away as I gather myself. Hopefully I quit before I have to interact with this guy again.

This person has some serious issues he needs to resolve.

[Crazystallion]

I went to get car washed. Attendant took out case files in back seat. He did not put all case files back into car when done cleaning. Car wash place found case file, looked in it, and called client. Said "this is Genie Car Wash, you case file is here, please come pick it up".

[elmar]

Seems like this thread is full of toxic partners and not so full of mistakes.

This thread sort of made clear to me that any substantive "screw-ups" I've made received mild to no rebuke. But the most cutting criticism I ever received was because a memo wasn't completely finalized by the time a partner went on a ski trip, so his vacation was interrupted to review it. To your point, all toxin.

[Crazystallion]

It was a crim law case, I wrote "There is a stigma associated with being a drug dealer..."

When it was transcribed it said "Drug dealers have astigmatism"