That's Because You are a Mat Attorney

For those who read my blog regularly, you know that historically summertime was a slow time in the world of divorce law. Matrimonial attorneys would routinely take off most of the summer due to the various judicial vacations and a virtual closing of the courts in the month of August. I guess due to the increased requirements implemented by the Office of Court Administration, the courts are forced to move along their calendars with specific guidelines. In what is referred to as "standards and goals" the court must move a case through its calendar within set periods of time. Thus the good old summertime has now become a mere extending of the rest of the year with the usual weeks off here and there per part. This week was my partner's vacation week. That meant I had no coverage for the many real estate closings which decided to all close on this very week. A closing which was scheduled to take place last Friday was cancelled at the last minute by the buyers bank due to a computer meltdown. The buyers attorney frantically called my office in an attempt to re-schedule our closing as soon as possible, since his clients were to be rendered homeless by that very afternoon. Unfortunately, the following Monday I was scheduled to be in court and my next available day, as was the bank's was Wednesday. There was a closing I was already handling in my office that day, but I offered it up as an option anyway as long as we could close in my office. The buyer's attorney was livid, calling me inflexible and saying the bank would never close at my office. I reminded him and my frazzled paralegal that we were not the party who adjourned the closing and that since they needed to re-schedule it would have to be at our convenience. There was some more bickering but finally everyone agreed to close in my office.
On the day of the closings some unforeseen circumstances made the 10:00 closing not end until 1:25; this left 1/2 before the start of closing number 2. Once the second closing began(which by the way had its own set of unforeseen circumstances)all the parties advised me that their offices or residences were only minutes away, and that it was a very convenient venue for the closing! The buyer's attorney whose office was indeed the closest and who managed to make yet another closing in his office due to the close proximity of this closing advised the masses that the reason for the change of venue was that "She's a mat attorney and....They are impossible to deal with!"