
Law firm mistakes number of days in month, files appeal 1 day after deadline - danso
https://twitter.com/KoernerMatt/status/1187516489676410881
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_31
Off by one errors and issues working with dates. Sounds like writing software
to me.

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throwaway07Ju19
IIRC a Ronco YC talk where he declared "procrastination is the devil".

Except for unusual circumstances, waiting until the last day on a legal matter
is unprofessional. I feel like I am misunderstanding this post.

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londons_explore
Sometimes it is legal tactics... Some court cases are cheaper than the money
you are earning before the result of the court case ends your business...

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patentatt
Yeah, it’s usually not procrastination when it comes to legal deadlines. It is
very common in many practices to purposely file on the deadline for a variety
of reasons. Ripe for mistakes.

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jimnotgym
This sounds like something I might do. I am sure I am a special kind of 'date
dyslexic'. I have very little concept of when things are happening. I refuse
to discuss dates without my diary in front of me, because I have no concept of
whether the date they gave me is weeks away or months away. If you told me now
that I had to get something done by mid-November, that feels like an age away,
the fact that I am on holiday for the next week wouldn't cross my mind either.
I recently got undone by a calendar which had Sunday at the start of the week,
visually speaking...unlike my normal Outlook calendar. It gives me a lot of
anxiety, because I have some things I have to do (like authorising payroll, or
filing tax returns) on certain days.

Is this a real condition, or am I just disorganised?

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mr_toad
> I recently got undone by a calendar which had Sunday at the start of the
> week,

This used to be quite common. It seems to have fallen out of favour in the
last 30 or 40 years.

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gumby
European calendars are typically Mon-Sun, UK/AUS/US/CA etc typically Sun-Sat.
Just as the more-common-in-Europe 24 hour times have been seeping into UK for
decades, perhaps you're seeing the Mon-Sun calendar doing the same thing?

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kuroikyu
UK is most definitely Mon-Sun

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gumby
It is now, but that was the phenomenon I was responding to. When I was a kid
in the 60s it was most clearly sun-sat

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riskneutral
I am sure this happens with lawyers routinely. Usually a deadline will be
expressed in number of days from some event, like “90 days from the date of
agreement” or something. If it is an important deadline, do not trust your
lawyer to do this day count correctly. Ensure all of the assumptions are
correct (date and time of events, whether it is business days or calendar
days, etc) and triple check the day counts on a calendar yourself.

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pontifier
Yeah, I've had the court skip right over my time to respond, with the judge
ruling in favor of his previous employer.

I have absolutely no faith left in the courts.

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Causality1
I'm not a lawyer so I don't understand why you would file it on the last day
anyway. If you're appealing wouldn't you want to file just as soon as you're
ready? Filing at the last minute doesn't give a bad impression to everyone
involved and in doing so harm your case?

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dragonwriter
> If you're appealing wouldn't you want to file just as soon as you're ready?

No, because everything starts a timeline for the next thing, and the way you
get the most time for the next thing (which you might need as much as you can
get) is to do everything possible without penalty to do the current thing as
late as possible. Just because you are ready for the current thing doesn't
mean you want to sacrifice time on the next thing.

There's also interest in not giving your opponent information earlier than
necessary in their cycle for things whose timing isn't keyed off your filing.

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mcv
This all sounds needlessly adversarial. Maybe the new deadline should be based
on the old deadline, rather than the new filing date that's subject to the old
deadline.

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erklik
Reading the other comments, it seems that this is a somewhat standard practice
to file at the last possible moment? If so, could there be a possible
opportunity here for a software that files right before deadline making sure
that mistakes like above do not occur?

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BonesJustice
Unless your software can walk itself down to the courthouse, probably not.
Courts are, to be generous, a bit behind the times.

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gamblor956
Many courts have allowed parties to file documents by email for years and
federal courts have their own e-filing docket that (some federal district)
courts mandate.

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Grazester
Many is not all.

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duxup
Was there a reason to wait until what they thought was the last day?

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qubex
Maybe opportunity cost? Other deadlines looming closer? Giv8ng less time to
the counterparty to counter-sue? Who knows?

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btbuildem
I know I'm guilty of waiting until the last minute myself -- but could they
not file earlier? Why schedule the filing at the last possible moment, why not
even a day earlier?

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semitext
Typically when you file anything that is going to trigger a new set of due
dates for you based on the date of filing, so it is standard practice to file
everything the day it is due, or perhaps the day before at most. That being
said it is also standard practice to use docketing software to handle
calculating due dates, it isn’t the sort of thing you would ever want to
handle manually so I wonder how the screw up occurred.

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ajdlinux
Any US lawyers know whether the attempted-appellant has a cause of action
against his lawyers for professional negligence here?

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gamblor956
Yes, they do.

The lawyers can also look forward to a bar association malpractice
investigation, though unless this is part of a pattern, the likely
disciplinary action will be relatively mild (i.e., no suspension or
disbarment).

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rags2riches
Why not state the deadline as a date rather than a number of days?

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jayess
This is why I always file the day before the deadline.

