Polly Ferraro is a paralegal with the large firm of Major, Ingles & Hernandez. Her boss, Franklin Rush, informed her that his case was going to trial next Thursday and a few depositions had to be summarized before the trial. She said she would be happy to summarize them but was shocked to see a stack of 95 depositions brought into her office.
Perplexed and worried that she could not complete the assignment, Polly immediately started to summarize the depositions. While doing so, she overheard a conversation between Mike Gekeler and Marilyn Ling, two other paralegals. Mike told Marilyn that he had completed his work and had nothing to do.
Polly hurried into Mike’s office, where he was reading a magazine with his feet up on his very clean desk. She told him of the predicament she was in and asked him to help her with the depositions.
“Summarize depositions? No way! I hate to summarize depositions. I’m a corporate paralegal, Polly, not a litigation paralegal,” stated Mike smugly. “I told myself I was through summarizing depositions, and I meant it. No, I won’t help you with them.”
a. What might be the consequences of Mike’s lack of cooperation?
b. How might Mike’s response ultimately affect the firm and the client?
c. If you were Polly, what would you do?
d. If you were the office manager, what would you do? What area or areas of the team concept are missing?