- Quickdraw McLaw
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Here’s a post for those of you pretending to work today. Why do we do that to ourselves? What’s going on out there?
Boxing Day 2017
- Law
- Posted on 7 years ago
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Here’s a post for those of you pretending to work today. Why do we do that to ourselves? What’s going on out there?
Downside to starting a job right before the holidays…no time off!
Very proud of the members of this Board for going 4 days without any posts over the Holidays (except NMA's holiday wish). Excellent job cutting the cord.
I couldn't motivate myself to make it to the office today. But I'm trying to "work from home."
How's that working out for me?
I was concerned that the Rapture had occurred because there was no one on the roadways on the way into the office today.
Today could have been the first time I've driven through the spaghetti bowl area during any kind of respectable daylight hour without any delay.
These are all such clever comemnts! I have no clever comment. I'm merely 256,367,417,547 days behind in my work. However I'm enjoying the week long "vacation" that everyone else in the office is taking by not shaving today. Whee.
People coming crying because they disputed Christmas visitation exchanges. That's my day all day today.
And that's just from your Jewish and Buddhist clients…
Worked until 7pm yesterday, more of the same today. No rest for the wicked and all that.
And yet I was incredibly productive when the telephone does not ring and there are not 59 Blog Posts to respond to.
NSC released 3 opinions today, including Hyatt (on remand from SCOTUS).
And NSC is saying there are 11 forthcoming opinions.
For all those who clamored on this blog, in recent weeks, for more NSC opinions, and who complain at the apparent relatively small number of opinions issued, why is there this apparent fixation of quantity over quality?
Everyone seems focused only on the number of opinions issued, and the rapidity of which they are issued.
Apparently, we would be better served by four really rushed, highly erroneous and poorly reasoned decisions, than we would be by receiving two or three really well-reasoned sound decisions which can be cited as authority.
Yes, the emphasis on quantity over quality can lead to bad results. Would you rather have two brand new BMWs, or four broken down, inoperable, salvage value Ford Taurus autos. from the 90's?
If you work for me, and you complain that the reason why everything is taking forever to get off your desk is because you have too many balls in the air, you had damn well improve when I take 700 of those balls away. If you don't improve, maybe the problem wasn't the number of balls in the air after all. Maybe the problem was the lazy asshole sitting at the desk.
To:4:44. It's 4:24 here again. I assume you are referring to the bill-of-goods we were sold concerning the COA creation.
I completely agree. We were told it would make justice a lot more expeditious and less expensive.But with the push down method, you never know when preparing your appeal whether it will be heard by the NSC or COA, and that means all the same arduous and expensive requirements to process an appeal must be satisfied, just as they needed to be satisfied before the COA creation.And removing a number of appeals from the NSC plate, and tossing them to the COA, has certainly had no effect on speeding up the issuing of decisions from the NSC.
We were also told the only real financial impact would be judicial staff salaries for COA, as they could use existing chambers and simply double up.Well, we knew it wouldn't be long before we were informed that the NSC and/or COA needs more space, and that significantly more funds need to be approved for such purpose.
That all said,the emphasis by many bloggers is simply focused on that we are not receiving the issuance of more decisions by the NSC since the creation of the COA(and often, it actually seems like we are receiving less than we did prior to the COA creation.)
Now, since quantity has clearly not improved, I would find that acceptable if we at least there was improved quality. Now some decisions, whether the results are right or not, at least appear to be well-researched and well-reasoned. But, sadly, others are not. If a decision is not only very late, but then also ironically appears rushed,sloppy, incomplete and largely erroneous on its face, we have a problem.
4:44 hit the nail on the head: compromising quality or quantity is not acceptable, especially when you hold peoples' lives, freedom and livelihoods in your hands. They had a enough time this past year to hold elaborate ceremonies christening a new palace. They had enough time this past year to go take a free vacation for a week to Austin, Texas. They had enough time this past year to pretty much take the entire month of August off. To people who had their sentences miscalculated, to people who had title to their property tied up for years, to people who had their licenses in limbo for over a year– crying that they have too much to do (when they control the resources to do it and have plenty of time for cocktail parties) falls on deaf ears.
If you work for me, and you know that the workload is 2600 cases (between 2400 and 2800) getting filed, then you know that each of the 6 justices on the Panels will be responsible on average of roughly 433 cases in a year. If they worked 50 weeks a year at 5 days per week, each justice would be responsible for taking the lead on 1.7 decisions/opinions per day. This total includes dismissals generically handled by the Clerks which do not require in depth legal analysis and are largely cut and pastes if you read them.
If you work for me and know that your workload is only around 90 Opinions issued in a standard year between 6 justices (taking the Chief out again), then you know that you and each of your associates are each going to write on average 15 Opinions in a year, or around 1.25 Opinions per month. Yet if you are bitching, moaning and complaining that you might have to write 1.25 Opinions every month and handle around 1.7 cases per day with multiple law clerks, your quality and quantity of output should never be in question when you have peoples' lives at stake. No really, that is the job. You voluntarily took the job. You voluntarily told me that you could do the job. If you cannot do the job, resign or be fired. But do not tell me that you believe that you should keep the job while not doing it up to what is required.