February 15, 2006
From The Publisher
The email that roared
The strange tale of a much-forwarded email chain describing "Lawyers behaving badly."
By David L. Yas
How small is our legal community?
One young lawyer just found out.
The hard way.
It happens that a young attorney by the name of Dianna Abdala was applying for a job with a criminal defense lawyer named William A. Korman.
Korman apparently thought Abdala had a bright future ahead of her so he offered her a job in their first meeting. They agreed upon a start date.
But Korman then called Abdala to his office to tell her that he had decided to hire two lawyers, not one. As such, he had crunched some numbers and decided he had to reduce the amount of salary they had discussed. Still, he said, he was excited about her working for him. Korman set up computer resources for his new hire and made the other usual arrangements. But Abdala did indicate to Korman that she may have to give the job some more thought.
Then Korman received an email from Abdala on the Friday evening before the Super Bowl. She had changed her mind. Abdala wrote: "Dear Attorney Korman: At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer. After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I (sic) sew. Thank you for the interviews."
Korman called Abdala and left a message for her, asking if they could talk and work things out. He suggested she call him on his cell phone. Instead, Abdala called Korman's office and left a voice mail, again declining the offer.
That's when Korman wrote the following in an email to Abdala: "Dianna - Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose an e-mail and a 9:30 p.m. voicemail message to convey this information to me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. Indeed, I did rely upon your acceptance by ordering (sic) stationary and business cards with your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors."
Enough said, right? A young lawyer declines a job offer and some awkwardness ensues. Not the biggest deal in the world.
Well, here's where things go haywire.
Abdala countered with the following email: "A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so. Again, thank you."
Oh man.
It's one thing to be a little snippy with someone who has offered you a job, but to imply that they are not a "real lawyer"? Korman, by the way, has been a member of the bar for 10 years and in 2004 was named one of Lawyers Weekly's "Up and Coming Lawyers," for his burgeoning defense practice.
Korman, of course, could not allow this to go unanswered. I picture Samuel L. Jackson's character in "Pulp Fiction," gun in hand, saying "Are you finished? Well, allow me to retort."
Wrote Korman: "Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community, especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?"
It gets better. Or worse. Or both, really.
Abdala responded with the following email: "bla bla bla."
That sound that you hear is the sound of bridges burning.
Bla bla bla.
That's the entire email. As an observer said to me, "she didn't even bother to spell 'blah' correctly."
Sadly, when Abdala typed those three syllables of gibberish, she made an electronic record of her own impetuousness, a record that may haunt her for quite some time.
How do I know? Because I was one of roughly seven zillion people who received a copy of the email this week. Thanks to an unstoppable phalanx of forwarders, the brief exchange has made its way to a countless number of attorneys after Korman shared it with a friend and allowed him to share it with a few others.
Fueled by attorneys' curiosity that a young attorney would fire away at a would-be employer with so much vigor, the email chain made its way from firm to firm with the speed and recklessness of Apolo Ohno after six caffe lattes. It went to Rindler Morgan and Gadsby Hannah, to Mintz Levin and Sally & Fitch, to Nixon Peabody and Wilmer Hale.
It's been across the state and out of state. And to Europe. Seriously.
Personally, I've received the email chain from more than a dozen people (none of whom seem to know each other) and even got a couple cell phone calls alerting me to its existence. My email notification chime keeps going off like that big wheel on "The Price is Right" after someone hit the jackpot.
"This has taken on a life of its own," Korman told me. "The legal community is tiny, and the criminal-defense bar even smaller. They are surprised by this attorney's responses to my simple queries. It's so early in her career to be attacking someone like this. I just wish it had played out better."
Naturally, many people have contacted Korman after reading the e-saga.
"I'm hearing from people I haven't heard from in years," he laughs.
Korman even got one email from a recent law-school graduate in Kansas City who wrote: "Though you don't know me, I wanted to extend to you my sincere apologies for your recent encounter with an extremely unprofessional young attorney. ... It is my hope that your opinion of young lawyers has not been too tarnished by your experience. ... I felt compelled to apologize to you on behalf of the community of young lawyers all across the country that are not sympathetic to Ms. Abdala's egoism."
Says Korman: "A lot of lawyers remember what it was like to get their first job."
And although her name has been run ragged across the information superhighway, Abdala does not seem worried.
"I'm not upset at all," she says. "I'm enjoying the notoriety."
She told me that she was genuinely put off by Korman changing his original job offer; that's what caused her tough tone.
"[He offered] a significant salary reduction, and a number of changes," she says.
As to the virus-like way the word has spread, Abdala says "you've got to have a healthy mentality about these things. At this point I don't see the harm in the attention."
She says she plans on developing her own practice, which was her plan all along.
"I always had aspirations to work for myself," she says.
Korman says "I really do wish her the best of luck ... in all sincerity."
In fact, he's just looking forward to the day when the whole thing blows over.
"I think it's time we get back to work," he says.
Indeed.
But until then, let us all remember that e-mail ... is e-vil. In a few cruel keystrokes, your offhanded comment may become entertainment to thousands of lawyers with Internet access. Many lawyers will recall that a few years ago, a law-firm summer associate exposed his buttocks to his colleagues while on a Boston Duck Tours outing. His watered-down apology, delivered by email, flashed across the state in no time.
So be forewarned. Look before you leap. Think before you type.
And, you know ... bla bla bla.
Lawyers Weekly Publisher David Yas can be contacted at david.yas@lawyersweekly.com.
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