Lawyer's error costs firm big bucks; Paralegal gets blamed

 I ran across this article about a $1.5 billion screw-up at a prestigious law firm, and had to share. The initial lead line that I saw said something like "Paralegal commits billion dollar mistake," and I figured I ought to take a look so I could warn you not to do the same. 

Since--as you know--paralegals are supposed to be working under the supervision of a lawyer, I was pretty curious as to how this came about. And my suspicions were correct: yes, the paralegal committed the error, but multiple lawyers failed to take any steps to oversee her work, and then threw the paralegal under the bus. Kudos to the paralegal, who had absorbed enough of the law firm atmosphere to drag "some dude from the mailroom" with her. 

The moral of the story? Yes, we all expect you to do your best work. But no one person should be single-handedly responsible for a huge case. Everyone should be checking everyone else's work, not just nodding and signing off on it. I'm not sure how many billion-dollar deals are going on in the law offices of central Indiana, but if you're on a large case, don't be afraid to ask someone--anyone--okay, not the dude in the mailroom, but anyone else--to check your work. And if they just glance at it and sign off, you might be protected from liability, but the firm won't be. If you want to go above and beyond, insist that your work get a good going-over. They just might thank you later. Or at least, not throw you under the bus.

See the full story at http://abovethelaw.com/2015/01/mayer-brown-simpson-thacher-make-epic-screwup/