-----Original Message-----
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:23 PM
To: William A. Korman
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 sow.
Thank you for the interviews.
Dianna L. Abdala, Esq.
-----Original Message-----
From: William A. Korman
To: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you
Dianna --
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 stationary 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: Dianna Abdala
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: Dianna Abdala
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: Dianna Abdala
To: William A. Korman
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: Thank you
In the criminal justice system..will korman is especially petty..
he also forwarded that to everyone (which is how we know it) and probably should get sued by Abdala for disclosure of private correspondance, and crap like that...
Don't know how abracadabra mis-spelled the mis-spelling..but in the first letter Abdala wrote "I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sew".
She wrote "sew" instead of "sow", Korman commented on that later on. I think what he did was terrible..She obviously was not correct in writing her initial letter the way she did...But he was too harsh and combative...and he should NEVER have forwarded that email.
Hopefully, they will both appear on Larry King.
And now, the truly eerie element of this story..When I first got the email passed to me at the office, in my mind's eye I pictured Abdala to look EXACTLY the way she turned out to be...Complete with hairstyle and 1960's appearance!!
there are so many things wrong here, on both sides ... but what I find really interesting is this phrase: "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."
if, in fact, Ms Abdala conducted herself in this manner, i have a certain sympathy for Mr. Korman's response.
i'm with j on this late email/voice mail business...that shit pisses me off too. your welcome to call late because i might be there...just don't leave a lame cover your ass message if i don't pick up. instead, just call again on monday.
actually, the best is when you are working late and someone thinks they are going to leave a message like that and you actually pick up the phone and can literally hear the cowardly hesitation in their voice...then you know you got'em by the balls. ha ha, that's one of the few satisfactions of working late which is an otherwise pretty sad thing to be doing.
Although they both degenerated into total childishness, I have to say that at the beginning I'm definitely on Korman's side... "nor support the lifestyle I am living"?! It is irrelevant what lifestyle a prospective employee maintains. If the salary is reasonable for the work, and they accept it, that's it. What a stuck-up bitch...
The funny thing, too, is that in Massachusetts a verbal contract is considered the same as a signed contract... so if she agreed to the job and then tried to renege, then she's *definitely* in the wrong.
dianna; she looks so motown - what photoarchive did the journalist raid to get the martha-and-vandellas image? high-school?
or did she handpick this one for media distribution? the over-the-shoulder coquette rather than the straight-as-razor attorney. it's def. an image meant for manipulation
i dunno, she didn't handle it well, but korman's playing the jilted fool on this one. he should respond with an image of a sad, would-be boyfriend - like barry white or early smokey robinson, and in sepia tones
my smile is my make-up
since i had my break up with you.... so sad *sigh*
i once got a nasty letter similar to this from someone who had offered me a job. at the time i had three other firms on the line, and never got around to calling this particular (shitty) firm back to say thanks but no thanks. i just laughed. f'ing babies....it just smacks of bruised egos doesn't it?
anybody else wondering what this salary offer was? just curious to know what a lawyer considers unacceptable to support her lifestyle or otherwise fulfill her.
norm ... it's not about bruised ego ... it's about basic courtesy ... firm's typically spend a lot of time with employment candidates ... they're trying to work out their staffing schedules so they can meet client requirements ... when they offer a job to someone, i think there's a reasonable expectation that they'll at least receive a reply to the invitation
"never got around to calling this particular ... firm back" is a pretty immature excuse for what happened, no matter what you think of the firm extending the offer
the only thing worse than not responding to an offer is reneging on an acceptance ... to me, that's unforgiveable, except under the most dire of circumstances
change the subject on a parallel story;
yesterday, sunday, i rushed to the office because i was going to meet with my dealer (weed) @10;30 for a delivery. i was already having some withdrawal shit going on (not cigs, not weed, something else) i made it here @10;15 and started waiting, waiting. i called her @11;00 and said where is the herb? she said, she just woke up and completely forgat about me :(. so i told her she can come around 3;00 pm and i'll be here. ofcourse i went home and had a fight with tina a- for cutting me off from her medicine chest, b) for calling my doctor and telling her not to write me no more candy.
i didn't come back to office to meet the weed delivery and this morn, i found a nasty messege from her for stooding her up at 3;00 pm.
now i have no weed, i don't smoke cigs, no medicine, and no solution at sight, except.....
talk to you guys later bye...
Does that have to do with the "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" line?
I love that line had it been an intern-architect fresh out of grad school. Since she's a lawyer and trust fund baby her line reeks of snobbism.
All too often I think people in our profession accept poor pay & benefits because it's been told to them that's how the profession is. The latest SALARY QUESTION is a perfect example.
While this Will guy is an idiot for spreading this private email, Abdala is equally as childish. I for one will laugh a little louder at the next lawyer joke I hear.
WAIT! WAIT!....Another thing about all of this..Isn't it interesting it all happened around Valentine's Day?? Doncha see? It's the battle of the sexes!!!
Well I dont think out troops need to be over there. But i am doing a paper on WHY US SHOULDN'T BE IN IRAQ! If anyone of you have any websites or any information on this before monday of next week please email me at [email protected]..
Thank-You and I truly apprecatie it,
Does that have to do with the "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" line?
I love that line had it been an intern-architect fresh out of grad school.
A, that's why I responded initially that "this Abdala is now listed among my personal heroes." That attitude, in the context of a young architecture professional, would be respectable.
in the actual context of this email-dispute, she sounds like a spoiled brat of the worst type...and his "barry white" response was rather pitiful. Love is in the air
oh my darling I....can't get enough of your bla bla bla...
-the late great Barry White, remixed.
file...
more like candidates spend money taking days off driving etc. bfd. if you accept a job and then back out without calling...well yeah you are correct.) um...why didn't they call me to ask what's up? it all can be seen in terms of relationships if you ask me. for instance...have you ever been out with a girl (or guy) and never called them back. and what do you do when someone doesn't call you back? you get over it...unless of course your ego is bruised.
norm: i really hope you never interview at our firm with that attitude -- hope we never have a date either
we always communicate a final decision to any candidate who comes in for an interview and we make a very strong effort to reply to every candidate who submits a resume -- i cannot imagine anybody NOT responding to a job offer, no matter the reason
Here's more...she may be able to take legal action...goodness.
y Sacha
Pfeiffer, Globe Staff | February 16, 2006
Once again, a
friendly reminder: The next time you're tempted to send a nasty, exasperated, or
snippy e-mail, pause, take a deep breath, and think again. Then consider the
tale of local lawyers William A. Korman and Dianna L. Abdala.
Korman was
miffed that Abdala notified him by e-mail this month that, after tentatively
agreeing to work at his law firm, she changed her mind. Her reason: ''The pay
you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am
living."
In his e-mail reply, Korman told Abdala that her decision not to
have told him in person ''smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional," and
noted that in anticipation of her arrival, he had ordered stationery and
business cards for her, reformatted a computer, and set up an e-mail account.
Nevertheless, he wrote, ''I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future
endeavors."
Her curt retort: ''A real lawyer would have put the contract
into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so."
His:
''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?"
Abdala's
final three-word response: ''bla bla bla."
That's when the exchange,
confirmed as authentic yesterday by Korman and Abdala, began whipping through
cyberspace, landing in e-mail in-boxes around the city and country, and,
eventually, across the Atlantic.
In short order, it has become yet
another cautionary tale that you should definitely not put in an e-mail anything
you wouldn't want the rest of the world to read.
Think former FEMA chief
Michael Brown (''Can I quit now?"), indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff
(''we need to get some $ from those monkeys!!!!"), and assorted Enron employees
(''This week is not good. I have too large a pile of documents to
shred").
''It almost sounds too obvious, but I'll say it: You should
never write an e-mail that you are not willing to see preserved forever in
history," said Boston Bar Association president-elect Jack Cinquegrana, who
frequently handles cases that use e-mail as evidence. ''The dangers created by
this new world we live in, where everything is recorded for history, are not
only that you could be second-guessed at every stage in the context of a civil
dispute or government investigation, but that your reputation can be affected by
words you don't think you're preserving for posterity -- but really
are."
The e-mail exchange between Korman, 36, a former Suffolk County
prosecutor, and Abdala, 24, a 2004 graduate of Suffolk University Law School,
has circulated so widely that each of them said they have received several
hundred inquiries about it from as far away as Europe. Among the questions
Korman has fielded are whether the back-and-forth is real (it is) and whether
the job is still available (it is not). He received an e-mail from a young
lawyer in Kansas apologizing on behalf of young lawyers nationwide.
The
exchange became public when Korman sent it to a colleague, who asked if he could
forward it elsewhere. ''You can e-mail this to whomever you want," Korman
responded. From there, it took flight.
Korman, reached yesterday at his
Park Plaza law office, and Abdala, reached at her Watertown home, agree on the
basic facts of their short-lived association. Both said Abdala responded to a
job advertisement that Korman posted on the online service Craig's List for a
criminal defense associate at his year-old firm, Korman & Associates, which
consisted of two lawyers. Both said that after a first interview, Abdala said
she would accept the job if it were offered to her. Both said that during a
second interview, Korman told Abdala he would not be able to pay her as much as
he had told her in the first interview; neither would disclose dollar
amounts.
They differ on whether, at the end of the second meeting, Abdala
accepted the job. Korman said he believes Abdala did, and that they even set a
start date, which would have been yesterday. Abdala said there was ''no clear
contract or agreement" and she still wanted to ponder the offer. She said she
ultimately decided not to take the job because the reduced salary ''might have
been realistic for other people to survive on, but I like nicer things. I like
the finer things in life."
''I take no issue with why she chose not to
work here," said Korman, a 1995 Boston University School of Law graduate. ''But
to then insult me by saying I'm not a real lawyer -- that's offensive. ...
Here's a woman who's just starting her career, and that she had the unmitigated
gall to send an e-mail like that blew me away."
Abdala, who described
herself as a ''trust fund baby," was admitted to the Massachusetts bar last year
and said that since then she has ''just been taking it easy" because ''I worked
hard in school." She decided to respond to Korman's job posting because ''I
wanted to establish somewhat of a career for myself," she said. ''No one wants
to be living off daddy." Abdala's father, George S. Abdala, is a Springfield
lawyer.
Abdala said she is now working for herself by renting space from
a lawyer on Franklin Street in Boston, where she will take court-appointed cases
and do private criminal defense work.
Abdala said she has no regrets
about the e-mail exchange. She said she has reported Korman to the Board of Bar
Overseers for ''unprofessional and unethical" conduct for forwarding her e-mail
to an outside party. She also said she believes that Korman's remark about
Boston's ''small legal community" was tantamount to ''threatening my legal
career," and that he circulated the e-mails as a ''cheap ploy to bring more
business to his firm."
Threatening Abdala ''certainly wasn't my
intention," Korman said. ''My goal wasn't to put her on the defensive, but
simply to say there's a strong likelihood, given the small size of the criminal
defense bar, that our paths would cross again." Korman acknowledges he sent the
e-mail to a colleague, and said he did so because ''it was so shocking and
unbelievable."
''All I did," he added, ''was forward a
non-privileged, non-client communication to somebody who then chose to forward
it along. I really don't see where the ethical breach is."
Sacha Pfeiffer
can be reached at [email protected] class=232234222-16022006>
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Cyndi Dean
lang=en-us>Assistant Dean for Information
Technology
UNM School
of Law
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Feb 20, 06 7:55 pm ·
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bla bla bla
this is how the lawyers do it..
-----Original Message-----
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:23 PM
To: William A. Korman
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 sow.
Thank you for the interviews.
Dianna L. Abdala, Esq.
-----Original Message-----
From: William A. Korman
To: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you
Dianna --
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 stationary 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: Dianna Abdala
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: Dianna Abdala
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: Dianna Abdala
To: William A. Korman
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: Thank you
bla bla bla
beautiful. this Dianna is now listed among my personal heroes.
re: bla bla
"bla bla you'll never work in this town bla bla bla"
re: bla bla
"bla go puck yoself bla"
In the criminal justice system..will korman is especially petty..
he also forwarded that to everyone (which is how we know it) and probably should get sued by Abdala for disclosure of private correspondance, and crap like that...
re: bla bla
"that ain't professional abdala"
boss will
re: bla bla
"if the salary don't fit, one must quit, blahaha*"
dianna '100%' abdala
*go puck yoself
zahabla abdala
This is all over the net...
Go to http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1635472
Don't know how abracadabra mis-spelled the mis-spelling..but in the first letter Abdala wrote "I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sew".
She wrote "sew" instead of "sow", Korman commented on that later on. I think what he did was terrible..She obviously was not correct in writing her initial letter the way she did...But he was too harsh and combative...and he should NEVER have forwarded that email.
Hopefully, they will both appear on Larry King.
And now, the truly eerie element of this story..When I first got the email passed to me at the office, in my mind's eye I pictured Abdala to look EXACTLY the way she turned out to be...Complete with hairstyle and 1960's appearance!!
Wierd!
Wow .... that could have easily happened in our world as well.
But in all fairness, he should not have circulated that email ..
Check it out ...
thats the firm :-
http://www.lawyers.com/wkorman/index.jsp
and thats the lawyer :- http://www.lawyers.com/wkorman/jsp3009769.jsp
there are so many things wrong here, on both sides ... but what I find really interesting is this phrase: "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."
if, in fact, Ms Abdala conducted herself in this manner, i have a certain sympathy for Mr. Korman's response.
i'm with j on this late email/voice mail business...that shit pisses me off too. your welcome to call late because i might be there...just don't leave a lame cover your ass message if i don't pick up. instead, just call again on monday.
actually, the best is when you are working late and someone thinks they are going to leave a message like that and you actually pick up the phone and can literally hear the cowardly hesitation in their voice...then you know you got'em by the balls. ha ha, that's one of the few satisfactions of working late which is an otherwise pretty sad thing to be doing.
Although they both degenerated into total childishness, I have to say that at the beginning I'm definitely on Korman's side... "nor support the lifestyle I am living"?! It is irrelevant what lifestyle a prospective employee maintains. If the salary is reasonable for the work, and they accept it, that's it. What a stuck-up bitch...
The funny thing, too, is that in Massachusetts a verbal contract is considered the same as a signed contract... so if she agreed to the job and then tried to renege, then she's *definitely* in the wrong.
dianna; she looks so motown - what photoarchive did the journalist raid to get the martha-and-vandellas image? high-school?
or did she handpick this one for media distribution? the over-the-shoulder coquette rather than the straight-as-razor attorney. it's def. an image meant for manipulation
i dunno, she didn't handle it well, but korman's playing the jilted fool on this one. he should respond with an image of a sad, would-be boyfriend - like barry white or early smokey robinson, and in sepia tones
my smile is my make-up
since i had my break up with you.... so sad *sigh*
please step into my office because your f***in fired!
i once got a nasty letter similar to this from someone who had offered me a job. at the time i had three other firms on the line, and never got around to calling this particular (shitty) firm back to say thanks but no thanks. i just laughed. f'ing babies....it just smacks of bruised egos doesn't it?
anybody else wondering what this salary offer was? just curious to know what a lawyer considers unacceptable to support her lifestyle or otherwise fulfill her.
norm ... it's not about bruised ego ... it's about basic courtesy ... firm's typically spend a lot of time with employment candidates ... they're trying to work out their staffing schedules so they can meet client requirements ... when they offer a job to someone, i think there's a reasonable expectation that they'll at least receive a reply to the invitation
"never got around to calling this particular ... firm back" is a pretty immature excuse for what happened, no matter what you think of the firm extending the offer
the only thing worse than not responding to an offer is reneging on an acceptance ... to me, that's unforgiveable, except under the most dire of circumstances
These two people deserve each other.
there is definatly a love story brewing out there between the two.
change the subject on a parallel story;
yesterday, sunday, i rushed to the office because i was going to meet with my dealer (weed) @10;30 for a delivery. i was already having some withdrawal shit going on (not cigs, not weed, something else) i made it here @10;15 and started waiting, waiting. i called her @11;00 and said where is the herb? she said, she just woke up and completely forgat about me :(. so i told her she can come around 3;00 pm and i'll be here. ofcourse i went home and had a fight with tina a- for cutting me off from her medicine chest, b) for calling my doctor and telling her not to write me no more candy.
i didn't come back to office to meet the weed delivery and this morn, i found a nasty messege from her for stooding her up at 3;00 pm.
now i have no weed, i don't smoke cigs, no medicine, and no solution at sight, except.....
talk to you guys later bye...
this is how lawyers do it?
Does that have to do with the "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" line?
I love that line had it been an intern-architect fresh out of grad school. Since she's a lawyer and trust fund baby her line reeks of snobbism.
All too often I think people in our profession accept poor pay & benefits because it's been told to them that's how the profession is. The latest SALARY QUESTION is a perfect example.
While this Will guy is an idiot for spreading this private email, Abdala is equally as childish. I for one will laugh a little louder at the next lawyer joke I hear.
I love the photo, too. It's just great, captures her perfectly. She does look coquettish.
agfa8x has it nailed on the head - these two deserve eachother. I think I'll email them BOTH!
WAIT! WAIT!....Another thing about all of this..Isn't it interesting it all happened around Valentine's Day?? Doncha see? It's the battle of the sexes!!!
Well I dont think out troops need to be over there. But i am doing a paper on WHY US SHOULDN'T BE IN IRAQ! If anyone of you have any websites or any information on this before monday of next week please email me at [email protected]..
Thank-You and I truly apprecatie it,
Liz
Does that have to do with the "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" line?
I love that line had it been an intern-architect fresh out of grad school.
A, that's why I responded initially that "this Abdala is now listed among my personal heroes." That attitude, in the context of a young architecture professional, would be respectable.
in the actual context of this email-dispute, she sounds like a spoiled brat of the worst type...and his "barry white" response was rather pitiful. Love is in the air
oh my darling I....can't get enough of your bla bla bla...
-the late great Barry White, remixed.
file...
more like candidates spend money taking days off driving etc. bfd. if you accept a job and then back out without calling...well yeah you are correct.) um...why didn't they call me to ask what's up? it all can be seen in terms of relationships if you ask me. for instance...have you ever been out with a girl (or guy) and never called them back. and what do you do when someone doesn't call you back? you get over it...unless of course your ego is bruised.
norm: i really hope you never interview at our firm with that attitude -- hope we never have a date either
we always communicate a final decision to any candidate who comes in for an interview and we make a very strong effort to reply to every candidate who submits a resume -- i cannot imagine anybody NOT responding to a job offer, no matter the reason
did she really say bla bla bla......?
Kinda tacky.
ROFL !!! this is best communication skills ever!!!
Here's more...she may be able to take legal action...goodness.
y Sacha
Pfeiffer, Globe Staff | February 16, 2006
Once again, a
friendly reminder: The next time you're tempted to send a nasty, exasperated, or
snippy e-mail, pause, take a deep breath, and think again. Then consider the
tale of local lawyers William A. Korman and Dianna L. Abdala.
Korman was
miffed that Abdala notified him by e-mail this month that, after tentatively
agreeing to work at his law firm, she changed her mind. Her reason: ''The pay
you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am
living."
In his e-mail reply, Korman told Abdala that her decision not to
have told him in person ''smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional," and
noted that in anticipation of her arrival, he had ordered stationery and
business cards for her, reformatted a computer, and set up an e-mail account.
Nevertheless, he wrote, ''I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future
endeavors."
Her curt retort: ''A real lawyer would have put the contract
into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so."
His:
''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?"
Abdala's
final three-word response: ''bla bla bla."
That's when the exchange,
confirmed as authentic yesterday by Korman and Abdala, began whipping through
cyberspace, landing in e-mail in-boxes around the city and country, and,
eventually, across the Atlantic.
In short order, it has become yet
another cautionary tale that you should definitely not put in an e-mail anything
you wouldn't want the rest of the world to read.
Think former FEMA chief
Michael Brown (''Can I quit now?"), indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff
(''we need to get some $ from those monkeys!!!!"), and assorted Enron employees
(''This week is not good. I have too large a pile of documents to
shred").
''It almost sounds too obvious, but I'll say it: You should
never write an e-mail that you are not willing to see preserved forever in
history," said Boston Bar Association president-elect Jack Cinquegrana, who
frequently handles cases that use e-mail as evidence. ''The dangers created by
this new world we live in, where everything is recorded for history, are not
only that you could be second-guessed at every stage in the context of a civil
dispute or government investigation, but that your reputation can be affected by
words you don't think you're preserving for posterity -- but really
are."
The e-mail exchange between Korman, 36, a former Suffolk County
prosecutor, and Abdala, 24, a 2004 graduate of Suffolk University Law School,
has circulated so widely that each of them said they have received several
hundred inquiries about it from as far away as Europe. Among the questions
Korman has fielded are whether the back-and-forth is real (it is) and whether
the job is still available (it is not). He received an e-mail from a young
lawyer in Kansas apologizing on behalf of young lawyers nationwide.
The
exchange became public when Korman sent it to a colleague, who asked if he could
forward it elsewhere. ''You can e-mail this to whomever you want," Korman
responded. From there, it took flight.
Korman, reached yesterday at his
Park Plaza law office, and Abdala, reached at her Watertown home, agree on the
basic facts of their short-lived association. Both said Abdala responded to a
job advertisement that Korman posted on the online service Craig's List for a
criminal defense associate at his year-old firm, Korman & Associates, which
consisted of two lawyers. Both said that after a first interview, Abdala said
she would accept the job if it were offered to her. Both said that during a
second interview, Korman told Abdala he would not be able to pay her as much as
he had told her in the first interview; neither would disclose dollar
amounts.
They differ on whether, at the end of the second meeting, Abdala
accepted the job. Korman said he believes Abdala did, and that they even set a
start date, which would have been yesterday. Abdala said there was ''no clear
contract or agreement" and she still wanted to ponder the offer. She said she
ultimately decided not to take the job because the reduced salary ''might have
been realistic for other people to survive on, but I like nicer things. I like
the finer things in life."
''I take no issue with why she chose not to
work here," said Korman, a 1995 Boston University School of Law graduate. ''But
to then insult me by saying I'm not a real lawyer -- that's offensive. ...
Here's a woman who's just starting her career, and that she had the unmitigated
gall to send an e-mail like that blew me away."
Abdala, who described
herself as a ''trust fund baby," was admitted to the Massachusetts bar last year
and said that since then she has ''just been taking it easy" because ''I worked
hard in school." She decided to respond to Korman's job posting because ''I
wanted to establish somewhat of a career for myself," she said. ''No one wants
to be living off daddy." Abdala's father, George S. Abdala, is a Springfield
lawyer.
Abdala said she is now working for herself by renting space from
a lawyer on Franklin Street in Boston, where she will take court-appointed cases
and do private criminal defense work.
Abdala said she has no regrets
about the e-mail exchange. She said she has reported Korman to the Board of Bar
Overseers for ''unprofessional and unethical" conduct for forwarding her e-mail
to an outside party. She also said she believes that Korman's remark about
Boston's ''small legal community" was tantamount to ''threatening my legal
career," and that he circulated the e-mails as a ''cheap ploy to bring more
business to his firm."
Threatening Abdala ''certainly wasn't my
intention," Korman said. ''My goal wasn't to put her on the defensive, but
simply to say there's a strong likelihood, given the small size of the criminal
defense bar, that our paths would cross again." Korman acknowledges he sent the
e-mail to a colleague, and said he did so because ''it was so shocking and
unbelievable."
''All I did," he added, ''was forward a
non-privileged, non-client communication to somebody who then chose to forward
it along. I really don't see where the ethical breach is."
Sacha Pfeiffer
can be reached at [email protected] class=232234222-16022006>
size=2>
Cyndi Dean
lang=en-us>Assistant Dean for Information
Technology
UNM School
of Law
(505)
277-0695
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