Legal News

"I'll Call In." Minding the Mute Button on Conference Calls

By Brian Harris

By Barely Legal
Special to the Legal

Editor's Note: This is the first post from our newest blog contributor, who goes by the moniker of Barely Legal. BL will offer humorous monthly musings on what it's really like to work for a law firm. Hint: It's nothing like it is on TV.

Lawyers love conference calls. I?m on one at least once a week. At the beginning of every conference call, a woman?s voice gets on and tells the newest members how to mute and un-mute their phones. Innocuous enough. But it always makes me smile.

A few years ago, my boyfriend had a late-night conference call -- damn foreign clients.  At first, I left him alone; I read while he sat in another room listening to someone drone on and on. But I guess he got bored, because he came into the room with his mobile phone and he used the mute function so we could fool around (nothing more then PG-13, you perverts). He would simply un-mute the call when he had to say something.

Of course, once during the call he responded before un-muting, which led to the other callers saying, ?Hello??  ?Are you still with us?? Which, of course, left me burying my face in the pillow to muffle the sound of my laughter. Fortunately, though, he never forgot to mute his phone before he turned his attention back to me.

I?ll bet you are never going to get on another conference call again without wondering what the other attendees are doing when they mute their line. 

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on February 03, 2011 (boomark / email).