Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

What Not To Do When You Feel Underappreciated

By Lynne DeVenny

So what's an underappreciated legal secretary or paralegal going to do?

I can think of many constructive options besides what two Pennsylvania legal secretaries are accused of doing, i.e. stealing $94,000 from their supervising attorney's business account.

The alleged reason? They didn't feel like their supervising attorney appreciated them enough.

Now they are not only still underappreciated, but charged with theft, conspiracy, and forgery. Even worse, the funds they allegedly helped themselves to were earmarked for the future care of their boss's special needs son.

To add insult to injury, after $94,000 went missing, they were busted over .44 cents in postage after one of them used the office postage meter to mail a personal bill.

Robert Mongue uses this news story to discuss honesty and ethical behavior in "The Price of Appreciation" at The Empowered Paralegal blog. There's absolutely nothing that justifies taking anything at work (or anywhere else) that doesn't belong to us, even postage.

I could probably do a whole separate post on the benefits of working out postage meter privileges with your staff, but in this instance, I don't think a few stamps would have saved this attorney $94,000.

Feeling underappreciated? Go treat yourself to a pedicure or a high-priced coffee product, and start working on finding another job in a better working environment. But no matter how awesome you are, don't start writing yourself bonus checks from the office account.


Source: WHTM-TV

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on July 29, 2010 (boomark / email).