What I learned yesterday

I should start with a quick update on what I've been up to. About a week after I got laid off, I got a message from a friend looking for a divorce attorney...then a distant family relative called to ask for help with her divorce...then a legal contact referred a client that needed help with a custody issue, and a friend from law school referred a case to me for a nonprofit incorporation and nonprofit status application. I guess what the universe is trying to tell me...is to man up. So, I guess I'm now working for myself...kind of. It's kind of exciting...and a little nerve racking.

Anyhow, yesterday was my first day at the family courthouse; my client had an interview and I needed to file some documents before her hearing today. While she was in her interview, I went up to the 7th floor at Lamoreaux Justice Center, where I found out the filing of documents occurred (after going to the wrong place only once, go me!). I had to check in, and let the clerk-God know what I was filing, so he could print out a ticket number for me. I got my ticket and walked in, looking around and seeing all the chairs in the room filed by people...with similar tickets in their hand. Well, my next step when chairs are unavailable is to look for a wall or table or something to lean against...but those were also in high demand. So...it was a busy day on the 7th floor.

My ticket was C365 (or something like that)...the current numbers up were A025 and C342 (or something like that). Well, 23 people ahead of me...not tooooo bad, right? Well....when C-tickets aren't getting called up at ALL for about 45 minutes to an hour....it apparently can take over 2 hours for you to reach the filing window. What's this business with A and C tickets, you ask? Well, at that point all I knew was that there was a rotation of some sort between numbers that started with letters from A through F. Little did I know....

After about an hour and a half, I finally sat next to an older lady who seemed to be getting anxious after waiting for over two hours. Her ticket started with F, and she expressed her concern that she hadn't seen an F ticket called in a long time. I took her ticket to the clerk-God and asked him if he could give me any information as to why the F numbers hadn't been called in so long.

"Well, there's a priority system and the numbers get called in order of priority. So A numbers go first, they're for ex parte's, then B's are for attorneys then..."

Wait, B's are for attorneys? I'm an attorney. I've seen B's come and go while I've been here. Are you saying that I could have been out of here already if I just told you I was an attorney?!

"D's are for process servers..."

"Wait, are you saying that I could have gotten priority if I told you I was an attorney?"

"You're an attorney?! Of course you can! Here." And he handed me the golden B ticket. "Next time just make sure you tell me [the clerk-God] that you're an attorney to make sure you get priority."

At this point, I felt a little guilty going back to my neighbor, knowing that her F ticket meant she'd just have to keep waiting...while I got a B ticket...and I'd be out of there way before I was originally scheduled to.

But I guess now I can say these law school loans aren't completely worthless: shoot son, they allow me to cut in line!

In unrelated news...I went to check my PO Box today, even though I wasn't expecting to have any mail there. There wasn't, but I still put in the code and opened it...just because it's cool to do it :)

But yeah, in case you forgot to send me something:

Alexandra M. Armstrong

PO Box 2096

Laguna Hills, CA 92654