My Work Situation

I work at the Law Offices of Ben Waterman, P.C.* Why is it that solo practitioners have law offices, and not just a law office? My boss shares a suite, in a fancy East Midtown building (which every lawyer in the office puts on their cards and letterhead, since that's probably their biggest client getter), with a bunch of other lawyers. He has a small office, and a space for me in another room, which is more like a hallway than a room, that doesn't belong to him.

He has clients' files everywhere--covering his desk, his red leather chairs, his window, which I'm told has a good view of the Hudson, and even in his filing cabinets. Clients' passports, social security cards, drivers licenses of the deceased, and bank statements cover the floor. I frequently step on them as I swim across the room to grab a file.

Next door to the spacious offices of Mr. Waterman works a Spanish Immigration lawyer with four names, Juan-Maria Limpiador-Compolsivo. He has a bigger office, which is immaculate, Juan being a neat freak. When Waterman leaves the building to go to one of his many law luncheons or hair cuts (he gets one at least once a week), Juan sneaks into his office and starts organizing. As he never does his own work, when his associate is out to lunch or is otherwise absent and he has no one to talk to, he talks to me, relating his cleaning adventures in Waterman's office. He likes to reminisce about how he once found a month old rotting banana, under which was a very important document that Waterman had been looking for for months while insisting to his unfortunate client that he never received said document.

When Waterman's clients pay him a visit, he never takes them to his office. They either go to the communal conference room, or, if that's busy, to the empty office of whichever lawyer is using it.

I have to go to work now, so more later.

*Everything I write is true, but all names, other than those of public officials and famous people, will be fictional so no one will be embarrassed and so I won't be sued. Lawyers and law students are litigious people.