Delaware Employment Law Blog

How important is office space to employees?  Very important, apparently, according to this article discussing a "summer office swap" conducted at a Boston-area advertising agency.  During the summer months at this forward-thinking firm, nearly every employee switches office space based on a lottery system.

There were a small number of managers with offices, and regardless of how high their pick was, they could not keep an office. However, who did get the office appeared to depend on an elaborate bartering system, which resulted in more lowly office types offering services such as babysitting, car washing, and coffee retrieval in exchange for a seat in a coveted manager office.

The article is a good reminder of how important office space is to employees. More than a few employment discrimination lawsuits have been based, in part, on the office (or cubicle) an employee is assigned to.

In 2003, there was a Delaware case involving a plaintiff who filed a federal lawsuit which entailed, among other things, his objection to an office space “auction” at University of Delaware – where the best offices would go to the highest bidder and the money raised would go into a fund for use of the Department.

More recently, I had a case where among a plaintiff’s evidence of “retaliation,” were claims that she was given a “dirty, dusty cubical walls filled with dust mites.” And of course, who can forget the movie Office Space, and Milton, whose most prized possession was his Swingline stapler, and whose cubicle was continually moved until he was eventually wound up in a dimly lit basement among the boxes.

The legal profession is one of the last standouts where a good portion of the employees – lawyers and paralegals – typically have real offices with doors: associates have window offices, partners have bigger window offices, and paralegals have interior window-less offices. I know this is unusual for most of corporate America. But as the Boston Globe article illustrated, even among cubicles there is a hierarchy: those closest to the window, most shielded from foot traffic, etc.

Employers should keep in mind the importance of office space to employees, and what a difference small changes can make. In this era of layoffs and belt-tightening, there may be simple and relatively inexpensive ways to reward your employees and keep them happy: think about small ways their work environment can be improved. Many (indeed most) employers are not cut out for the “summer office swap” conducted by the Boston firm – if this was ever attempted in a law firm, I’m quite certain it would result in a revolt that would make the Pakistani lawyers revolt look tame. Nevertheless, consider what might work for your workplace: access to natural light, modest levels of privacy, can go a long way to build employee loyalty.

Courtesy of Someecards, home of some of the most sarcastic, yet endearing, online greeting cards around:

Happy April Fool's Day!

The 2008 Holiday Gift Guide was so popular, I’ve been waiting all year to revisit the topic in improved form. This is the first part of the Guide and includes all of the technology that your favorite lawyer (or other thinking professional) could possibly hope to receive this year. Happy gifting!

Amazon Kindle DX $489

With its 9.7” display, the most recent iteration of this wireless reading device is nearly twice as large as its predecessor. Its generous memory enables you to store up to 3,500 books, which you can download wirelessly without any monthly fees, annual contracts, or other subscriptions. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your documents on the go.

If the price tag seems a bit high, you may want to consider the Kindle (sans DX), which, in its most recent version (i.e., the latest “generation”), costs a mere $249. For the significant savings, you’ll get a significantly smaller display (6”) and memory (1,500 books), but the rest of the package is nearly identical.

The DX was marketed to lawyers and others who have not yet been able to let go of their legal pads. The idea, as I understand it anyway, is that the larger-sized DX model would feel more like a notepad, thus serving as a closer substitute. Whether or not that idea will be successful, I haven’t got the foggiest. It comes down to personal preference as to: (1) size; (2) memory; and (3) price.

Kensington SlimBlade Trackball $129

This wireless mouse is downright gorgeous. I own an older model Kensington trackball and couldn’t imagine my office life without it. Its stationary design means you don’t ever have to move the mouse all around the desk again. Instead, a slight flick of the fingertips enables you to navigate effortlessly across multiple applications and within the most complex documents. Yummy.

Thomas Pink Commuter Tie $100

The classic haberdashery offers a gift perfect for the dapper gentleman who prides himself on maintaining an impeccable image. The tie, available in several colors, is designed with a “small yet subtle pocket” on the back. The pocket is just the right size to house your iPod Nano and an extra-fabric loop keeps all wires out of sight and close to the body, leaving your hands free to read the Journal on the train ride into work. 

Electronic Windshield De-Icer $25

Even those people who are crazy about winter (ugh!) don’t like to stand in the cold in the mornings just to scrape the ice off of their car windows. This handy gadget makes the snowy weather that much more bearable for all of us. 

The de-icer plugs into the car’s outlet and has a 14’ cord, which is long enough to reach the front and rear windows of most vehicles. The retractable handle means you can store it easily in your trunk and there’s even a built-in light, which is particularly convenient for those pre-dawn trips to work.

Flip UltraHD Minicam $199

Please don’t say that you don’t have a Flip minicam and please, please, please don’t say that you don’t know what it is. Flip makes pocket-sized camcorders that are so easy to use, you’ll hardly believe that it’s a descendent of those mammoth-sized camcorders of yesterday that were lugged in carrying cases the size of suitcase to soccer games and Grandma’s house. T

hey cost next to nothing and easier to use than most point-and-shoot digital cameras. Granted, you can shoot just 60 or 120 minutes (depending on the model) of footage but, really, who needs more? 5 minutes of precious memories is probably more than enough. And after you yell “Cut!”, you simply plug the camera into your laptop’s USB port and, Voila!—you’re video is saved on your computer and ready to upload to YouTube. What could be simpler?

If you don’t have a Flip camera yet, now is the time. Just in time for your holiday spending, Flip has introduced a new and improved line of its “minicams” with HD—nothing but the best for your techie, right? It comes in a 60 minute ($149) or 120 minute ($199) format.

If you want to be really sporty, go for the MinoHD.  For $229, you can get 120 minutes of HD video in tiny package and even customize it with your own picture on the shell. (pictured above).

Other, holiday-related posts:

'Tis the Season to Avoid Disaster at the Office Holiday Party

Alcohol and the Office Holiday Party: Tips from the Dep't of Labor

The Risk of Identity Theft Is Higher Than Ever This Holiday Season

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Bad things can happen when you fail to proofread. For example, I previously wrote about surprisingly severe consequences that resulted from less-than-perfect legal filings. (See 3 Reasons to Proofread that Document One More Time). Little did I know how common these stories actually are. Apparently, the longing desire for better writing is a popular sentiment. Here are a few recent stories demonstrating the trend:

Double-Spacing Is for Suckers

Defense lawyers in the Blackwater case were put on notice that single-spaced documents just won’t cut it. Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the attorneys, who had filed a memo in single-spaced type, to comply with the court’s typeface rules, which require that submissions be double-spaced in Times Roman or Courier font. Judge Urbina may have been more generous than necessary when he described counsel’s submission as “an apparent attempt to include more information . . . than would otherwise be permitted.” At the risk of being dubbed a cynic, I think Judge Urbina’s conclusion may be unavoidable. What else could explain such a failure to comply with the most basic of formatting rules—line spacing—in court documents? (via the ABA Journal)

The Case of the Harmful Staple

A motion for default judgment was denied due to the “negligent stapling” of the motion papers. In his order denying the plaintiff’s motion, New York Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Markey wrote, “[T]he poor stapling of the papers was so negligent as to inflict, and did inflict repeatedly, physical injury to the court personnel handling them. . . . Such negligence on the part of counsel shows a lack of consideration.” (via Law.com)

An Obvious Absence of Simplicity

In Nazir v. United Airlines, the parties submitted a whopping total of 5,415 pages in support of their positions on a motion for summary judgment. That’s right—more than 5,000 pieces of paper were submitted on a single motion. The motion was filed by the defendant, who sought to have the race-discrimination case dismissed before trial. Although the trial court granted the motion, the decision was overturned by a California appellate court. The decision on appeal makes sense, after all, because the standard for summary judgment—that there be no material fact genuinely in dispute—seems unlikely at best. After all, if there were no material facts at issue, what were they writing about in their novel-length briefs? It was, the court said, "a record the likes of which we have never seen." (via Lowering The Bar)

Follow me on Twitter @MollyDiBi

Careerbuilder has a new survey about some of the “most memorable requests” made by employees via the office suggestion box.  As you may guess, the requests were a bit, well, odd.  Here are a few samplers:

• Allow people to change clothes in their cubicles
• Put beer in the vending machine
• Replace the employee’s desk with a futon so he could lay down and work
• Institute “bikini Fridays”
• Permit family medical leave for jail time

I’m certain that I’ve heard odder requests but I’ll save that story for another day.

Follow me on Twitter @MollyDiBi

BYU researchers claim that improved morality can be linked to Windex. No kidding. Kate Liljenquist and her team tested individuals’ reactions when introduced to a room that smells like Windex, the popular blue window cleaner.

According to the results, participants in the room that smelled like Windex were significantly more interested in volunteering than those in the room without Windex.  

In another scenario, 22% of participants in the Windex room said they would like to donate money, compared to only 65 in the comparison room.

Based on this research, does it follow that employers seeking to guard against ethical improprieties should encourage staff to clean windows?  Likely not.

I host a bi-monthly “lunch and learn” for the staff in my department; attendance is voluntary.  In advance of the meeting, attendees suggest and vote on the session’s topic.  Topics range from software-specific, like Adobe Acrobat or PowerPoint, to soft skills, such as time management, and just about anything else they find relevant and productive. At the most recent session, we had a mixed bag of topics but ended with a quick review of some grammar and usage “troubleshooting tips.”

This particular topic was at my suggestion and was urged not by anything I’d been seeing in their writing but more by the stories circulating the legal blogs over the last few weeks. Let me say that these stories are almost hard to believe, not because I have a hard time imagining legal writing that is just plain bad—trust me, that’s the easy part.  But I do have a hard time imagining the court that actually responds in the ways described in these stories. 

Part of me loves the idea of a court that takes legal citations very seriously and part of me cringes.  I mean, everyone makes mistakes.  I am hopeful that I don’t make the “mistakes” that the lawyers in the stories below made.  But everybody has bad days, right?

In any event, here are a few stories that scare me enough to review Garner’s The Redbook: A Manual of Legal Style, by Bryan A. Garner one more time before I file that brief.

#1:  Bad Writing Can Cause Public Humiliation

Although public humiliation may seem like the least terrifying of the three reasons listed here, it also seems like the worst.  It’s the most likely to happen; after all, what are the chances that your writing is going to get you tossed into jail?  It’s a bit difficult to imagine (thankfully).

But having a judge be so irritated by grammatical and typographical errors that he red pens the document and publishes it on the official court docket for all the world to see is much closer to reality, making it all the more horrifying.  A federal judge in Florida, apparently, was just that irritated over errors in an attorney’s brief.  The errors ranged from “excess spacing” to typos to incorrect capitalization to word choice.  Here’s one example, cited by the ABA Journal: “[the plaintiff] had attended on filing” this action, instead of saying the plaintiff had “intended” to file an action

#2:  Bad Writing Can Lead to Monetary Fine

The ABA Journal brings us a great story about a Wisconsin lawyer who was fined $100 for submitting a brief that contained an incorrect citation, which led the court on a wild goose chase to hunt down the case that should have been cited.  I’ll confess, this strikes me as nothing more than justice at work.  Erroneous case citations are enough to drive even the most even-tempered to the edge.

#3:  Bad Writing Can Result in Jail Time

Carl Smith, an attorney is Missouri was charged with criminal contempt and sentenced to 120 days in jail for language used in court filings.  In his papers, Smith said that certain events indicated a “personal interest, bias, and purported criminal conduct” by and between the judge, the prosecutor, and other court officials. The ACLU is one of several organizations that came to Smith’s defense, claiming that the punishment of an attorney based on his legal filings would have a chilling effect on free speech in the justice system. 

If these stories motivate you to polish up your writing skills, you can get a great start by checking out our post on the 10 Funniest Writing Blogs, 20 Online Dictionaries, and Top 30 Blogs on Writing.

When it comes to resumes, I’m not the only one who believes that looks really do matter.  Admittedly, I am more particular than most when it comes to the appearance of documents.  But typeface is one aesthetic upon which I do not stand alone.  Previously, I expressed how strongly I feel about choosing the right font when creating a resume. One of the worst of all fonts for such a serious document is the inappropriately goofy Comic Sans.  The video below is proof that I am not the only one who thinks that Comic Sans should be reserved for the Sunday funnies.  Happy Friday!

Comic Sans from Sam and Anita on Vimeo.

If the word "whatever" is an expression in your vocabulary, you may want to reconsider. Or continue to use it and risk being the office pest. Nearly 50% of respondents in a recent poll reported that "Whatever," when used as an expression of exasperation, is the single most annoying word used in conversation.  The phrase, "you know," was reported by roughly 25% of respondents as being, like, totally annoying, you know?

Almost one year ago, we reported on the top 10 most irritating phrases that drove office mates crazy.  At the top of the list was "At the end of the day."  Apparently, the annoying factor has been lessened since then because, although the phrase made this poll, it was ranked as most annoying by just 7% of respondents.

The lesson to be learned?  At the end of the day, just try to be aware of the little things that you can do to avoid making your coworkers lose their cool or whatever, you know?

Related Posts:

ALL-CAPS EMAILS and Other Workplace Annoyances

What Irks Your Employees?  Do You Really Want to Know?

Most of us will admit that we’ve become unnecessarily agitated by a coworker’s quirks. For whatever reason, or maybe for no reason, your office mate’s habit of dragging his feet while he walks makes you recoil every time he strolls past your door. Or the receptionist who cracks her gum as what is surely an act of passive aggression.

Do you dare confront the annoying employee? Of course not! You’d sound irrational! You’d appear half daft! The annoying conduct is trivial to everyone else—even to you in any setting other than work. But, alas, in the workplace, this seemingly benign habit pushes you nearer and nearer to the line where sanity meets crazy cat lady.

As a rational adult, you keep your insanity in check. You recognize the disproportion of your reaction and you monitor your facial expressions and body language to guard your secret. Other, not-so-rational adults, on the other hand, may not have the same level of self control. They might take their dislikes and pet peeves a little too far. (See What Irks Your Employees? Do You Really Want to Know?)

But wacky and non-wacky employees alike can understand certain fundamental canons of workplace etiquette. And when those cannons are violated, the beast in us can come unleashed. What follows are a few examples of what I consider to be inexplicable acts of discourtesy in the workplace . . .

Continue reading "ALL-CAPS EMAILS and Other Workplace Annoyances" »

I can’t sing a lick. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. I love music. All kinds of music. Some of the concerts I saw in 2009 includes musicians as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, Jay-Z, and The Police. And don’t forget Broadway. I’m a sucker for a musical any day of the week. So, despite my total inability to carry a tune, I can turn pretty much anything into a song at the drop of a hat. My husband just loves it when I belt out Don’t Forget to Buy Stamps Today, which is set to the music of A Day In The Life by The Beatles.

And I’ve often thought how invigorating  it would be if, every workday, at around 3 p.m., we could blast music through our office intercom system. Some examples of appropriate songs might include Pump Up the Jam by Salt ‘n Peppa, Queen’s classic, We Are the Champions, or Eye of the Tiger by Survivor (made famous in the movie Rocky III). In fact, I’m such a believer in the power of song to lighten up the mood and rally the troops, I’ve even championed the idea of replacing all workplace speech with song. Just think of how much better the day would be if your department performed a rendition of We Go Together from the musical, Grease, at the conclusion of a weekly team meeting!

John Phillips, blogger extraordinaire at The Word on Employment Law, found a video demonstrating this idea in action. The employee in the video, admittedly, is a little annoying—but only because the rest of his office mates just don’t seem to appreciate the value of setting words to music. Maybe they should just lighten up!

When managers were asked about the strangest employee complaints they’d ever received, they had a lot to say.  Careerbuilder.com asked this question and got some very strange results. Some of the answers made me laugh outside.  And not just because the complaints were so weird, which they are, but also because some of the weirdest ones I’d actually encountered in my practice. Here are a few of employee complaints that I found the most entertaining with my commentary following:

• Employee has big hair . . . umm, did this person spend the ‘80s locked in an office-supply cabinet?
• Employee eats all the good cookies . . . Unforgiveable!
• Employee is so polite, it’s infuriating. . . there’s nothing worse, is there?
• Employee suspected co-worker is a pimp. . . . and? what’s the complaint part?
• Employee is trying to poison me . . . a legitimate complaint, certainly (or just delusional)
• Employee’s body is magnetic and keeps de-activating my magnetic access card.
• Employee is personally responsible for a federally-mandated tax increase. . . .I bet she’s really, really unpopular
• Employee only wears slippers or socks at work. . . ok, I can’t deny it, this would bother me
• Employee breathes too loudly. . . .wow! talk about unworkable conditions!
• Employee has bells on her shoes and it’s not the holidays. . . .scary, scary, scary
• Employee spends too much time caring for stray cats around the building. . . seen it, never want to see it again

See these related posts for a little more office humor:

10 Best Excuses for Being Late to Work

Obnoxious Employee or Co-Worker? Just Tape His Mouth Shut

10 Worst Employees

A lawyer who cares a lot about shoes. That description applies to me, as I just love, love, love shoes of the high-heeled variety, in particular. There’s another lawyer feels passionately about shoes, but in a very different way. The Palm Beach Post broke the story of a Florida lawyer who filed a motion to compel his opposing counsel to wear better-looking shoes.  Nope, I am not kidding. 

In short, the lawyer felt that, by wearing old, ugly shoes to court, his opponent was unfairly garnering the sympathy of the jury.  It’s a high-drama story, far more so than even this description implies, if you’re interested.  But I just love the fact that the attorney actually noticed his opposing counsel’s shoes in the first place!  Nevertheless that the guy had the guts to file a motion about the darned things!   This story reaffirms my admiration of the justice system and sense of awe of lawyers who take the details very, very seriously. 

[via Legal Antics]

Marco. . .

. . . Polo

Fridays are great. Who doesn't love knowing that it's the last day of the workweek?  It's just that much easier making it through the workday knowing that there only 8 little hours stand between you and a weekend of freedom.  TGIF.

Similarly, we can unanimously agree on our disdain for Mondays, right?  Maybe not, says a British researcher.  It's not Mondays that make us cringe but, instead, Tuesday mornings when we're at our worst.  Not just any time on Tuesday morning, either.  It's 11:45 a.m. Tuesday morning, that has us wishing we'd never gotten out of bed. Just before noon on Tuesdays is when we hit the panic button and go into high-stress mode.  

How can this be? Well, according to Graham Waters, whose firm conducted the study, Mondays are so bad that we just coast through the day--not yet prepared to face the workload that awaits us. But this subconscious denial strategy is self defeating. By coasting through Monday, we return to the office on Tuesday only to realize that more work than we'd realized has built up since we mentally checked out on Friday.  When that realization strikes, we go into a panic, working through lunch to compensate for the time missed. 

Oh, it's a cruel, cruel cycle.  [via Unclutterer]

A judge ordered the mouth of a criminal defendant taped shut at a probation-violation hearing.  Nicklas Frasure, 23, made repeated outbursts and ignored the judge's continued orders to remain silent.  So the judge ordered bailiffs to silence Frasure--and the bailiffs complied.  They taped Frasure's mouth shut with duct tape.  Oh my.

At the end of the hearing, the judge ordered Frasure placed into the custody of the Department of Correction in a mental-health facility in Boise. 

Are there any co-workers or members of your staff who could learn a little from this extreme strategy? 

Employers who've laid off workers are looking for a (sort-of) constructive activity to keep your  former employees out of trouble. Tompkins Square Park in New York City will host the Unemployment Olympics tomorrow, Tuesday March 30.

The Olympiad of the down-and-out at Tompkins Square Park will feature events including the Fax Machine Toss, Pin the Blame on the Bosses and a Pinata bashing. Nick Goddard, 26, came up with the idea when he lost his position last month, and he got a permit to stage the Olympiad at the ballfields at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. "Maybe it will lift everyone's spirits a little," Goddard said about his positive spin on unemployment. "Originally, my thought was just to make people laugh."

Participants must prove they lost a job to compete. Bars and restaurants have donated prizes.
Not sure bars and unemployment are necessarily a positive combination, but kudos to Mr. Goddard for his creativity.

At this very moment, there is a closet-size room filled with paper-stuffed banker's boxes piled to the ceiling.  In the middle of the room, is a junior associate dreaming about somewhere else he'd rather be.  With a heavy sigh, the associate puts another pile of papers into the cardboard file box on his right and takes a new pile from the box on his left.  You know what I'm talking about, so don't bother trying to deny it.  It's document review.  The dreaded and horrid rite of passage that all junior associates must endure--at least in the world of BigLaw.  This video, done "South-Park style" is, well, hilarious to those of us who either have participated in or spent years dodging the infamous exorcism known as document review.  Enjoy!

Is there a "no-cussing" policy in your workplace?  How many times a day can you expect to hear the F-bomb?  How about less extreme curse words?  Apparently, the frequency with which we toss around swear words is on the rise.  An article at MSNBC claims that the increase in swearing is tied to a tanking economy.  Please.  I don't buy that for a minute. 

The reality is that the boundaries of socially accepted behavior is changing, has changed, and will continue to change.  Anyone who watched the Bravo show, Mad Men understands this concept.  But why is it that we do steer towards cussing?  Why don't we buck another trend?

Psychologists say that a little swearing can be good for you.  Two-thirds of cursing is tied to anger and frustration, according to Timothy Jay, professor and author of the recently released survey, Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words.  During difficult times, that percent can increase, as different people react differently to the stress of everyday life.  According to Jay's paper:

A set of 10 words that has remained stable over the past 20 years accounts for 80% of public swearing. Swearing is positively correlated with extraversion and Type A hostility but negatively correlated with agreeableness, conscientiousness, religiosity, and sexual anxiety.

And you thought your swearing didn't have anything to do with your personality, right?  And employers, now more than ever, may want to give that "no-cussing" policy a second look!

Oh, and if you want some proof of the increasing presence of the F-word at work, see our prior post on the Anchorwoman busted on camera using a whole lot of 'em!

Attorneys in private practice want to be rainmakers.  Well, we at least want to bring in our share of business.  And we know that, as lawyers, marketing ourselves and our firms is critical to continued vitality.  There is more advice on the top of best practices in law-firm marketing than I could consume in a lifetime. 

There are some principles, though, that are so fundamentally true that you knew about them and believed in them long before any webinar or white paper addressed it.  One such principle could be stated as, "To thine own self be true."

It never works out well when someone tries to "be" someone else.  "Just be yourself--people will like you better that way" may be more like motherly advice than marketing advice but it seems to cross the divide. 

One great example of this principle is Kevin A. Gliwa, partner with Otten Johnson Robinson Neff + Ragonetti, located in Colorado.  Gliwa's bio, posted on the Otten Johnson website, is, truly, the best I've ever seen.  Ever.  Kevin A. Gliwa, sir, you are my hero. 

Here's some of the world's greatest lawyer bio:

Kevin, a Shareholder practicing in Otten Johnson's real estate group, was raised by penguins following a childhood boating accident. He graduated magna cum laude from Colby College, where he learned that not all issues can be reduced to black or white. He received his law degree from Boston University, which he attended on a full football scholarship through an administrative error. Thereafter, he worked for four years as an associate at a large law firm in New York, where he once rode an elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. He lectures frequently to his children on a variety of subjects. He enjoys swimming and fishing, despite the painful memories.

In the years since the above bio was published on Otten Johnson's predecessor website, Kevin has received many bemused queries, often pertaining to the state of his health. To limit future inquiry, here are answers to some of the more frequently asked questions:

(a) Emperor, not King.

(b) Yes, it was cold.  Thankfully, I had a sweater.

(c) Sushi.

Personal Interest

• Avid indoorsman
• Writes free-verse, non-rhyming limericks

Positively inspirational, isn't it?