Courtesy and Attorney...

Apparently these two words don't belong in the same sentence.I got an email yesterday from a bank client that I did a property transfer assessment for earlier this year. About a month or so ago, we provided the prospective buyer of the property a letter stating that they could rely on the results of the investigation that we conducted for our bank client. Well that's all pretty standard in the environmental business and we provide those letters as a courtesy for our clients when the need arises.

Okay back to the email I received yesterday. The buyer wanted even more documentation of the additional services that we conducted on the subject property. Namely they wanted me to sign a sworn affidavit attesting to the fact that we did such and such services. Yikes...talk about overkill! In my 15 years in environmental consulting, I've never had a buyer or more correctly a buyer's attorney request such a thing. I told our client that I would be happy to sign it and have it notarized providing that the language looked okay to me. Well guess what?

Yep. The attorney that wrote the affidavit is apparently an expert in his own mind regarding environmental issues, and so his environmental language and narrative were not quite correct. But I'm just a lowly environmental geologist...what do I know?! Anyway I emailed our client back and explained my problem with the affidavit which he understood and apologized. He said he would forward my requested revisions to the buyer's attorney. So I get the revised affidavit back and two words were added, but none of my requested revisions were completed. Once again, I emailed our client and explained that I still couldn't sign it because the language that I didn't agree with was still in it and only one word from my requested revisions was used. I explained that since this was something that seemed so terribly official, I felt it necessary that it be accurate. Silly me....I wanted something that I signed to be accurate....I am such a trouble maker!! Then I told our client that rather than going back and forth over this, I would go ahead and make the revisions that were acceptable to me, sign it and notarize it.

Naturally all this came up last minute and the deal isn't going to close unless this got done immediately. So I put my scheduled billable work aside to revise, sign, and notarize it late yesterday and dropped it in the mail to the client last night. I faxed a copy also.

Guess what happened? The attorney still wasn't satisfied today. They emailed me their revisions and explained that they just couldn't use my already signed and notarized version and that their final revisions just absolutely had to be made. Okay two of their revisions were inconsequential to the document...in fact they had to do with how I abbreviated our company name in the body of the document and the third revision was actually to fix one of their own mistakes from the original document! I decided at one point today that they could just use what I sent them...well that is until my client's attorney called and said that they had to have the buyer's attorney's last version signed and notarized or the sale won't close tomorrow.

Let me point out something here. All this hoop jumping was being done as a courtesy to our client which in the world of common sense and sanity should have taken no more than an hour or two of my time....not several hours!! I can't bill my time, but you can be sure the attorneys are billing their time!

So the client's attorney called me at 3:30pm today to tell me that the affadavit I sent was unacceptable to the buyer's attorney and that I would have to redo it. And since she represents my client I can't say no...well I can't say no and hope to work for this client again. She explained that she'd send a runner out to get the document, but then she had the nerve to ask me if I could run and have it notarized...this is after my banker client already offered to send a combo notary/runner. I politely said no that she'd have to send a notary. To top it off, she didn't say that she appreciated my last minute efforts nor did she apologize for any inconvenience to me. I had to bite my tongue to keep from thanking her for reminding me why I decided against going to Law School! My tongue hurts now.

So what did I learn today with my dealings with the attorneys for both the buyer and the client? For one, apparently lawyers have to have the last word whether it's of any consequence or not. Second, they like to make extra unnecessary work so they can bill more hours at $350 an hour and churn up their total fee. And like many doctors, they think that their time is more valuable than anyone else's time. Lastly, courtesy and manners are apparently not part of a lawyer's standard operating procedure.

Oh yes indeed...I'm glad I decided against Law School! Ahhhhhh...you know what? Venting really helps....I feel so much better now.