File from hell revisited (again)

Every time I think I get ahead or some kind of handle on this frickin’ file, I find something else that has to be done.  Or I just get buried by the sheer volume of it.  Seriously, it’s the largest case in terms of medical records, issues, experts, etc. that our office has handled.  The chronological medical summary set a new record for me and the firm.  Attorney B complained about how long it would take him to read the summary.  My response?  Imagine how long it took me to type it!  Suck on that. $20 says I still know a whole lot more about those records than he does.  Hell, probably the entire case.

My newest battle in this ongoing war with File from Hell (FFH) is the research.  I ran across an article that was on point authored by one of the physician witnesses.   I thought, hmm, let me make sure I don’t already have a copy of this.  And you  know what I found?  Not a damn thing.  How could I have had this case for so long and labored as much as I have over this case and NOT have any medical research?  What. The. Hell.  FFH landed a sucker punch on me. 

Surely this couldn’t be.  I looked over my notes and I had a few general internet research articles on some things.  But no “official” research from medical journals on the most important issues.   Holy crap balls.   So, here I am, a billion other things piling up and I’ve been researching on this case for about 2 days.  I haven’t even read most of the articles I’ve downloaded as I’m too busy digging up more research.  Seriously, this case has more issues going on than I’ve got gray hair.  Trust me, there’s plenty. 

And even though the Attorney hasn’t even thought to ask me about research in this case, he’ll probably have some smart remark about how I should have had research done sooner.  You’ll know when that happens because you’ll probably be able to see the mushroom cloud when I explode on his ass.

One of these days, as God (and you guys) as my witness, I will rule this damn file.  In the meantime, you’ll find me at my desk.  Behind the many, many, many piles of paper that is the ever-growing FFH. 

PS – On a related note, doing research means I’m not summarizing depos.  At least there’s a narrow silver lining here.

File from hell, day 2

So I haven’t quite made the file from hell my bitch yet, but I’m working on it. I think the file is running scared. It should be.

Yesterday just got better and better. (Insert sarcasm here.) I got another email from Boss A that he was missing a section of the nurses notes from the hospital record. Oops. Seems the copy service skipped a small section of pages when they copied the 2000+ page production for me, and I missed it. It’s bound to happen sometime. My bad.

I do feel like I should defend Atty A a bit after my tirade yesterday. Yeah, he should have checked the scanned file to see if it had everything he wanted before he left, or just asked me where to find what he was looking for. But it’s not his case, he was not all that familiar with how everything was set up, and that was what he was used to.

I mentioned it to Atty B since it’s really his file, and he just said, “Oh, he’s just grumpy, don’t let it bother you.”  Nope, doesn’t bother me.  If I took crap like that personally, I would have flown this chicken coop a LONG time ago.  I just need to know what he wants done going forward.  You know, a little communication?  Novel idea.