What to do, what to do...

If you couldn't tell by my lack of posting the last week or so, I have been working a lot lately. I'm actually getting jobs done BEFORE the due date, which is more or less unheard of, but it's happening. I am staying on top of stuff like never before, partly because it's so nice to have a steady stream of work, and partly because I don't want to have to take a bunch of work to Montana for Christmas.

Right now I'm taking a break from a transcript that is due tomorrow, one that I will have out today. I've worked in bankruptcy court for 16 years now, so I feel like a pretty good judge of most of my regular attorneys. I can think of only a handful that I really don't like. I mean, I even like the one who wrote a nasty 5-page letter to the judges saying he shouldn't have to pay the $700 bill to us because his client can't pay him and that we shouldn't be allowed to require COD from him on future orders and that he was going to do everything in his power to get us removed from the job the next time the contract came up for rebid. That was probably ten years ago, and for some strange reason, I still kind of like him. I don't want to, but I know what kind of attorney he is and I do respect him.

The attorney I'm working for now is one who I did a transcript for last year, a particularly tricky job involving a Hawaiian bankruptcy and a debtor who owned multiple properties there, which were all referenced over and over, which I took the time to log on to the Hawaiian bankruptcy site and look up how to spell all of the attorneys from Hawaii and the addresses. She actually emailed me and told me I had done a beautiful job and that she had never seen such a nice 341 hearing transcript. So needless to say, she is at the top of my list as far as wanting to do a GREAT job for her.

My problem is this. She says in one part of the transcript that some declarations were signed by the people involved saying "unexplicitively and unequivocably" that they didn't knowingly withhold any emails. Now, I think most people not even involved in proof-reading (maybe I'm wrong) would know or at least think that "unexplicitively" is not a word. Not even close. Although unexplicitly is closer to a real word, and technically I could probably get away with leaving it that way, it's clearly not what she was meaning. I totally do not want to make this attorney feel dumb or anything, but in this new age of CD's and parties being able to order CD's and, if they so choose, compare the audio CD to my transcript and, also, if they so choose, make a stink about it to someone if I leave something out, we have to really be careful. But how ridiculous is that to think that someone, either someone representing someone who is close to losing everything or someone who is losing everything, would honestly take the time to order a CD for $26 and sit and compare it to my transcript? And even if they did, nothing hinges on that word anyway. It doesn't change a thing in the case. But we are supposed to transcribe VERBATIM, so it's really hard to let it go.

But thank you for letting me talk it through. I am waiting for a call from my "Ms. Lillian's" expert, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to just leave that word out. I do beautiful transcripts, after all!

UPDATE: I just spell-checked unequivocably, and that's not a word either. I decided to leave out unexplicitively and change unequivocably to unequivocally. Case closed.