The new intern at our law firm was haughty and full of herself. When I assigned her to photocopy case files, she went straight to the managing partner to complain. "I have my JD and passed the bar. Why am I doing scut work every day?" Fine. I washed my hands of her. I let her take the lead on a $200,000 promissory note dispute. She took the file to organize the exhibits. And promptly fed the original, signed $200,000 promissory note right into the paper shredder. The trial was just days away. I couldn't wait to see how she was going to explain this to the client. 1 A new junior associate had just joined our team. She looked delicate, quiet, and well-educated. Her name was Chloe Miller. I checked her resume. She was a local, having graduated from a mid-tier state university. Since we were the only two female attorneys on the litigation team, the managing partner, Richard Davis, specifically asked me to mentor her. I agreed without hesitation. At the end of the day, I knew how hard it was for women to grind their way up in the legal field. I genuinely wanted to teach her the ropes, starting from the absolute basics to help her get familiar with actual legal practice. 2 The legal profession is entirely different from what you see on TV. In law school, you learn theory. But when you step into the real world, you realize the textbooks are miles away from actual practice. When I started, I built my foundation by organizing case files. We had just taken on a construction contract dispute. I handed the files to Chloe and told her to make two copies of everything, stressing that she couldn't afford any mistakes. I specifically instructed: "Make sure every page is legible. When you bind them, keep them in exact chronological order. Do not mix them up." "Got it, Sarah. Don't worry," she promised. But an entire morning passed, and she hadn't delivered the copies. I figured she was just slow and didn't want to rush her. By the time 5:00 PM rolled around, the materials were still nowhere to be seen. I walked over to her cubicle. "Chloe, where are the construction files I asked you to copy this morning?" She was leaning over, chatting excitedly with another intern. Hearing my voice, she jolted. "Oh shoot, Sarah, I totally forgot!" I followed her to the copy room, only to find the files hadn't been copied at all. They were just dumped on a side table. "What's going on? Who moved my stuff?" Chloe yelled angrily. I shushed her. "Oh, Sarah, are those your team's files?" Attorney Roberts called out as he walked by. "The copier jammed this morning and no one came to fix it for hours. People needed the machine, so we just set your stack aside." I nodded to him. "Thanks, Mark. Sorry for the hassle." Once he left, I turned to Chloe. "If you had just checked on the machine once, cleared the paper jam, this wouldn't have been delayed all day, and you wouldn't have blocked other people from working." I tried to keep my tone even, wanting to save the young girl some face. To my surprise, Chloe got defensive. She stiffened her neck and argued, "I was discussing a complex breach-of-contract case with a colleague. I figured I should prioritize the important stuff. That case has a lot of tricky legal nuances, we debated it for hours." I almost laughed out loud. A rookie who just passed the bar with zero practical experience, who couldn't even manage a copy machine, was supposedly cracking a "complex" case? What profound insights could she possibly offer? It wasn't that I looked down on her. It was just that she was out of school now. If you can't even handle your basic job duties, what future do you have? 3 In that moment, most of my desire to mentor her evaporated. She looked quiet, but her ego was sky-high. She had no grounding. But considering it was her first week, I chalked it up to her still having a "student mentality" and didn't push it. I just waved my hand. "Reprint the materials, bind them neatly as requested, and have them on my desk first thing tomorrow morning." "But... it's almost time to clock out," Chloe pouted. I gave her a flat look. "For litigators, overtime is a daily routine. I assumed you were prepared for that." The next day. I handed her a different batch of case files. I quickly noticed how incredibly careless she was. Out of a few hundred pages, the order was constantly scrambled, and some pages were printed upside down. After I corrected her a few times, she visibly lost her patience. "Sarah, I have a JD. I passed the bar exam. Having me do this grunt work of copying and binding every single day is a massive waste of my time, don't you think?" Who in this firm hasn't passed the bar? I thought. And does she think her degree makes her special? Half the lawyers in our firm went to T14 law schools. She went to a state college. I kept my patience and explained: "Every lawyer starts with this work. The case file is the foundation of the lawsuit. Organizing it is how you familiarize yourself with the facts." She clearly didn't listen. Muttering under her breath, she grabbed the binders and walked away. That afternoon, walking past the copy room, I saw her sitting in a chair scrolling through TikTok. I decided to give the copying tasks to another intern. If she didn't want to organize files, fine. Let's do paperwork. I assigned Chloe to draft an Evidence Exhibit List. Honestly, copying is the easiest thing in a law firm. If you can't do that, you might as well be a janitor. But when she handed in the Exhibit List, I got a massive headache. It was a disaster. The "Purpose of Evidence" and "Contents of Evidence" sections were completely conflated. Not only were the Bates numbers wrong, but the document was riddled with typos. In one instance, the dates and amounts on a bank statement exhibit didn't even match her description. "Chloe, being a lawyer requires absolute precision. Sometimes, a single typo or a wrong dollar amount can ruin a judge's trust in our evidence," I said, suppressing my annoyance. Instead of taking notes, she glanced at it and pushed back. "Sarah, it's just an index. Close enough is fine. You're being way too nitpicky. These little things don't affect the case." I finally understood. This girl wasn't just arrogant and incompetent; she was unteachable. I didn't argue. I just slid the document back to her. "Redo it. Use the firm template. And I don't want to see a single mistake." I thought she would learn her lesson. Instead, the second I got to work the next morning, the managing partner, Richard Davis, called me into his office. 4 "Sarah, our new associate complained to me. She said you're intentionally making things difficult for her, assigning her tedious chores, and hyper-fixating on minor errors to stress her out." I froze. "Richard, I'm not making things difficult. This is how everyone starts..." Richard took a sip of his coffee and smirked. "I know you're a perfectionist. But Chloe is just a young girl fresh out of school. You aren't feeling... threatened by having a younger woman around, are you?" Richard was generous with his compensation, and for a guy pushing forty, he was decent-looking. But he had the classic toxic traits of a middle-aged boss. He constantly diminished the role of women in the workplace and loved having his ego stroked by young, pretty associates. I furrowed my brow. We were discussing workflow, and he was spewing this garbage? Did he really think I was in some petty catfight over looks with an intern? Seeing his attitude, I knew I needed to keep my distance from Chloe. "Richard, my caseload is overflowing right now. I honestly don't have the bandwidth to mentor a junior associate." Richard nodded. "Fine. Get back to work." Soon after, Richard handed a seemingly straightforward personal loan case directly to Chloe. When we met the client, Richard brought Chloe and me along. The client, Mrs. Higgins, was a woman in her late forties with a sharp perm and even sharper eyes. You could tell immediately she wasn't an easy person to deal with. After a brief greeting, she cut to the chase. "Your retainer is too high. I asked around, and another firm quoted me 30% less. My case isn't complicated, can you lower the fee? Besides, I know a bit of law myself, I can handle some of the legwork. You won't have to hold my hand." Richard looked troubled. "Mrs. Higgins, our firm has strict standardized billing rates." Mrs. Higgins pressed, "Mr. Davis, you're the lead attorney on my case, right? I only trust experienced partners like you." Chloe's face instantly dropped. She was desperate to prove herself, only to be completely ignored by the client. "Ma'am, I am the lead attorney on this case. Mr. Davis has assigned it to me, and I am fully capable of handling all matters." Mrs. Higgins paused, looking Chloe up and down. Her disdain was completely unfiltered. She scoffed. "Little girl, how old are you? How many years have you been litigating? I'm paying top dollar here; my money isn't funding your practice runs." That was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Chloe opened her mouth to snap back, but Richard quickly intervened. Playing the peacemaker, Richard smiled. "Mrs. Higgins, don't worry. Attorney Miller is young, but her professional skills are sharp. She passed the bar on her first try and she's very dedicated. Plus, I will be co-counseling and supervising her the entire time. It's essentially getting two attorneys for the price of one. It's highly cost-effective. We can offer a slight courtesy discount on the retainer, but that's as low as we can go to guarantee quality service." Mrs. Higgins mulled it over. After making Richard promise multiple times that he would be heavily involved, she reluctantly agreed. But she didn't forget to issue a warning: "I'm telling you right now, if there is a single mistake in my case, there will be hell to pay." She didn't look at Chloe once for the rest of the meeting. Chloe sat there, her face shifting through every color of the rainbow. 5 After walking the client out, Chloe slammed the case file onto her desk. "She is so incredibly condescending! Just because she's older, she thinks I'm incompetent? When I was on my college debate team, I mapped out logic for cases ten times more complex than this. What's so hard about a simple loan dispute?" I offered a word of caution: "Clients like her need to be handled carefully. Just do the work properly and use the results to prove her wrong. By the way, make sure you organize the exhibits properly. Especially the original documents. Put the originals in a separate folder and lock them in the firm's fireproof filing cabinet." That afternoon, I was buried in my own cases and didn't check on her progress. Walking past her desk later, I saw Chloe typing furiously on her computer. The case files were scattered across her desk in absolute chaos. The original, handwritten $200,000 promissory note was mixed into a pile of random photocopies, not separated or secured at all. I was about to say, "Chloe, you—" She cut me off with an attitude: "Sarah, I'm really busy right now. Can you not interrupt me?" Fine, I thought. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Three days later, the trial was fast approaching. Chloe suddenly burst into my office, her face paper-white. Her voice was trembling. "S-Sarah... I have a hypothetical question. What happens if an original piece of evidence goes missing?" A bad feeling instantly washed over me. "What original evidence? How did it go missing?" Chloe flinched, her eyes darting everywhere but at me. She panicked and dodged the question. "I-I'm just asking hypothetically! I didn't say it was actually missing." Watching her guilty, frantic deflection, I already knew exactly what had happened. "Chloe, documentary evidence is the absolute foundation of a judge's ruling—" I started, but she cut me off again. "But isn't that why they hire lawyers?! We're supposed to use our eloquence to persuade the judge and destroy opposing counsel!" Chloe argued defensively. "I've seen Better Call Saul! Lawyers give amazing speeches in court, and when I did debate, I always—" I almost burst out laughing. Aside from the fact that Hollywood dramatizes the law for TV... did she seriously not understand the basic rules of civil procedure? "TV shows are for entertainment," I said coldly. "This isn't Hollywood. Real American civil litigation isn't won by a dramatic monologue to a jury. It's won on procedure and the Best Evidence Rule. In a bench trial over a promissory note, if you lose the original document, it's inadmissible hearsay. The judge will toss the exhibit, we will lose the case instantly, the client will sue us for damages, and you'll be hit with a malpractice claim." Chloe's brow furrowed tightly. She mumbled a vague "Got it," and quickly scurried out of my office. Not long after, Richard posted a docket update in our team's Slack channel. "@Chloe, the hearing date for Mrs. Higgins's loan case got rescheduled by the court. You have plenty of time to prep the exhibits now, no rush." "Understood, Mr. Davis!" With the trial delayed by two weeks, Chloe suddenly looked completely calm and collected again. I even started to wonder if I had misjudged the situation. Maybe I was overthinking it? Maybe she really had just locked the original note away? But my gut told me something was very wrong.
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