"That's been established. We're just haggling over the price."

[captainsblog]

Nothing like getting things rolling bright and early on a Monday.

One of my co-workers in Buffalo came in to my office this morning. She'd had a tough day Friday- multiple trips out of the office on purpose, then two long detours for things she forgot in one place or another late in the day.

(I can totally relate to this.)

Anyway: she just wanted to make sure she wasn't misunderstanding something: the "thing" being that sign we have out front that says "Law Offices."  For on her voicemail first thing today was a call from a client who'd just purchased a home.  The message wasn't about mortgage payments, or escrow items, or unresolved repairs. (Those calls, which we are marginally licensed and trained to deal with, usually don't come in for years after the closing.)  No, this was because there was a windstorm Friday night, which blew the cover off the client's backyard pool and then resulted in rain filling in to it above the acceptable water line.

What do I do?

Well, OF COURSE you call your lawyer about that.  Because we all loaded up our trucks and moved to Beverly. (Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools. Movie stars.)

It did get me thinking, though. Maybe we are being a little too snobby about limiting our ranges of service.  We are, after all, allowed under ethical rules to enter into partnerships with non-lawyers rendering non-legal services as long as we don't cut in any of the un-Barred on our precious legal fees.

So I got right on it.  By luck of the draw, our senior real estate paralegal is now in charge of opening and closing the pools.

Just as obvious was my gig: I'm the house dick. Let me rephrase that. I am in charge of finding all the people and things that cannot be, and possibly do not want to be, found.  This included, just this week, an absolutely impossible-to-find title search and survey for one of my real-estating ventures, which I found last week and laid hands on today just by deciphering a sekrit code on a deed recording from ten years ago; and, also this very day, getting a missing employee to call in when he was AWOL by tracking his Facebook and figuring out who could get in touch with him when his phone was off.

He will now be in charge of making sure everybody's phone is on and charged at all times.

Now I was on a roll. Our second-chair real-estate paralegal just happened to be working her nails with an emery board while I was handing out assignments. BOOM! You're doing the mani-pedi's.  We may be on the only block in our entire town that doesn't have a nail salon, so it'll fit right in.

The attorney at the far end? Hmmmmm.... oh yeah. She drives a really cool Mini Cooper.  So she'll get to do the Uber runs, assuming our benevolent legislators ever allow us rubes to have such a service.

Still working on the last person, but we've got some ideas kicking around the water cooler.

And the name for it? What else but the long-forgotten trade name used by Larry, his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl when they were introduced in the second episode of Newhart:

"Anything for a Buck."

Now all we need is a catchy phone number with just one repeating digit.

Comments

[glenmarshall.livejournal.com]

Well, you've stumbled onto something.

When my wife was the head of public relations for a local community college, it was the Office of Last Resort. That is, if a call or question came to someone who didn't know, they forwarded it to PR. And the matter usually got resolved.

So call it "Last Resort".

[warriorsavant.livejournal.com]

Almost anything can have a legal ramification. Maybe you need to change your signs and letterheads to reflect that. "Attorneys At Law and Miscellaneous Sundry Tasks"