Practical Law Office Management

1. Compare and contrast Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 109 S.Ct. 2463, 105 L.Ed. 2d 229 (1989) and Role Models American, Inc. v. Brownlee, 353 F.3d 962 (C.A.D.C., 2004), which allowed recovery of paralegal fees, with Joerger v. Gordon Food Service, Inc., 224 Mich. App. 167, 568 N.W.2d 365 (Mich.App., June 13, 1997), which did not allow recovery.

2. You are a new paralegal in an eight-attorney law firm. Your supervising attorney has instructed you to give clerical work to a legal secretary named Pat. Pat has been with the firm for many years and considers herself to have as much legal experience as any paralegal. She has made it perfectly clear that she will not peaceably make copies for you or help you in any way with any clerical work. Pat does not bill clients for her time, but you must. You are required to bill 1750 hours annually. You know that you are not allowed to record billable hours for time you spend doing clerical work. You are responding to a Request for Production of Documents in a case in litigation, and you estimate that it will take five hours to copy the documents. How would you handle the matter?