American Samizdat

Wednesday, February 15, 2006. *
How not to turn down a job
One of my students sent me the following exchange of emails between a recent law school graduate and a prospective employer. Normally, I would presume that something like this was apocryphal. But some fact-checking reveals that the parties involved are real: William A. Korman is a criminal defense attorney in Boston; David Breen is a professor at Boston University School of Law; and D----- A-----1 passed the February 2005 Massachusetts bar examination (I was unable to verify which law school she attended). Consequently, I believe that the correspondence is genuine.


-----Original Message-----
From: D----- A----- [mailto: ------@msn.com ]
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:23 PM
To: ---@---------.com
Subject: Thank you

Dear Attorney Korman,

At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer.

After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sew.

Thank you for the interviews.

D----- L. A-----, Esq.
---------------------------------------------------------------





----- Original Message -----
From: William A. Korman
To: 'D----- A----- '
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you

D----- -

Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose an e-mail and a 9:30 PM voicemail message to convey this information to me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. Indeed, I did rely upon your acceptance by ordering stationery and business cards with your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

- Will Korman





-----Original Message-----
From: D----- A----- [mailto: ------@msn.com ]
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:01 PM
To: William A. Korman
Subject: Re: Thank you

A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so.

Again, thank you.




----- Original Message -----

From: William A. Korman
To: 'D----- A-----'
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:18 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you

Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community, especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?



-----Original Message-----
From: D----- A----- [mailto: ------@msn.com ]
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:29 PM
To: William A. Korman
Subject: Re: Thank you

bla bla bla


-----Original Message-----
From: William A. Korman [mailto: ---@---------.com]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 7:59 AM
To: 'David Breen'
Subject: FW: Thank you

Did I already forward this to you?


-----Original Message-----
From: David Breen [mailto: ------@--.edu]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:47 AM
To: 'William A. Korman'
Subject: RE: Thank you

OH MY GOD!

Where to begin?

First of all, how unprofessional, and secondly, it is "reap what you 'sow,'" now "sew". If she is going to use a cliche, couldn't she at least spell it right? And WTF is with her "blab la bla"? Does she not read your e-mail about it being a small community?! So, finally, can I forward this along to some folks? I am sure they would love to see how the up-and-coming lawyers are comporting themselves! (Clearly she did not go to BU!!!)

J


-----Original Message-----
From: William A. Korman [mailto: ---@---------.com]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 9:55 AM
To: 'David Breen'
Subject: RE: Thank you

You can e-mail this to whomever you want.




1Because I have no desire to embarass this young woman personally (and because I fear, from the tenor of her messages, that she may be a litigious type), I have redacted her name. I have left Mr. Korman's and Professor Breen's names, both for the sake of verisimilitude and because they appear to consent to the circulation of this correspondence. However, I have redacted their email addresses to avoid spam. I have reversed the order of the messages, so that the thread reads from top to bottom. The text is otherwise unedited.
posted by The Continental Op at 2:31 PM
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