During my initial years of law college, I was interning in a chamber back in my hometown. It was a busy day for my senior with multiple matters in multiple courts and quasi judicial bodies. There was an execution petition matter where we were representing the judgment debtor and as my senior could not be present at the time, he asked me to get a passover through another advocate.

I agreed to do so, but then I felt very awkward about going and asking another lawyer to seek a passover. I made a couple of half hearted attempts which did not translate and ultimately, the matter was called out, and there was no representation made, which led to a warrant being issued against the client.

He was obviously miffed but did not scold me. I have no idea how i got off easy on that.

I have been doing this for dog's years so I had to think back (not becuase I haven't badly fucked up since but because I have gotten very good at solving any bad fuck up since).

We had to send out some documents on a deal, and there were very similarly named founders in competing companies. In one, we were representing the founders on the deal - one of whom was named Karan M (name changed obviously lol). In another deal, we were representing an investor (ABC VC) who investing in a company run by a founder named Karan A.

Accidentally sent a mail with one of the transaction documents - not super confidential - but still having some data that I was supposed to send to our client Karan M, to lawyers on the other side, as well as the other counter-party founder - Karan A.

Karan A then contacted: (a) our client, ABC VC, and told them that I fucked up, (b) our client, Karan M, and told him that I've leaked confidential information of Karan M's company to Karan A, and (c) Wrote a mail marking ABC VC and my partner calling me out for being careless and saying that he doesn't want to work with ABC VC because he's not sure if the confidential information being shared by him (Karan A) with ABC VC would be safe in our law firm's hands.

Thought my life had ended in that moment honestly.

But I was quite lucky to have two good things happen to me then: (a) My partner was a gem of a person - atleast on things like this (an absolutely asshole to work with, but stood by his juniors on everything, and (b) Our client ABC VC was an amazing client who I had, personally done several deals with.

Both got onto a call with Karan A and absolutely tore him a new one for escalating a minor issue. Told him that it was a genuine mistake that can happen to anybody - and that he was the one who escalated and spread more confidential information.

I still got a talking to, but nothing that was the end of the world.

I now double check my "to" and "cc" fields multiple times before sending out.

Corporate Lawyer A1 here:

I was working on a PE/VC transaction representing the Company. The investor counsels finally gave the greenlight and I was supposed to circulate the document for signing. It was Diwali Time and I was in celebration mood. So I didn't check the pre-execution versions thoroughly and just updated the placeholders, formatting etc. and circulated the transaction documents for signing on DocuSign. The investor counsel calls me few days later saying that clause referencing on the circulated doc is incorrect and to edit it in the final doc. I started checking the document to correct the clause referencing and meanwhile realised that there was a major fuck up - i.e. while I was formatting the document before circulating on DocuSign, I had also deleted several important clauses like liquidation preference, pre-emptive right etc. by mistake. Now the document I had circulated on DocuSign to all parties didn't have these clauses and only I knew it. I couldn't cancel the DocuSign document since majority of signatories have already signed it and also since Promoter had wanted the document executed on Dhanteras, which day had already passed by then. I was afraid that the investor/their counsels/client/ Partner will find out and was super stressed. Once the document was fully executed on DocuSign, I downloaded it and tried editing it. But since few clauses were missing in entirety, editting was difficult since DocuSign had the envelope ID on top - which meant I couldnt add a new page in between with the missing clauses. In the end I finally added pages in between and copy pasted the DocuSign envelope ID to the new pages so that it didn't look like it has been added. But still because of these clauses insertions in between the formatting ended up very fucked up - by which I dreaded my opposing counsels would figure out the manipulation I did to the document. I sent the updated executed doc to investor counsels and dreaded their call regarding the docs. Finally days passed and investor counsel didn't notice and nobody noticed and finally I felt relieved 😅..

1. During my time as an A0, I had to prepare and send my senior some 125 signature pages to be signed next morning. It was my first month in the job and I didn't knew that emails through Outlook are actually sent around 5-10 seconds after hitting the send button. I was working on this till very late; was super sleepy so just pressed the sent button and immediately put down the laptop lid (before the mail was actually sent) and went to sleep. Unfortunately, the email was not sent and remained in my outbox. Senior kept waiting for the signature pages to be sent to the client. He even called me but it did not wake me up. Eventually, the signing was delayed. My Partner was super angry and I was scolded a lot. Nevertheless, the signature pages were sent in the afternoon and were signed the same day.

2. A few months later, I issued a CP Completion certificate to investors even though one of the CP was not completed. Informed my senior about this and he panicked a lot after learning about this blunder. We soon contacted the Company Rep to issue us the completely executed document which was the missing CP. Resent the CP Completion email. No one said anything and we never discussed about this mess I created.

A0 mistake

We were working on an advisory for a foreign client and I had done a shit ton of research for the matter. My practice area is smaller and more niche so not a lot of research comes as easily as Gen Corp / disputes.

Turned over the research, sat with my seniors, finalised everything into one doc and got ready to send it to the partner. Started proofreading the doc on a whim right before sending and realised that I had switched the appeal status for two cases with the same party name (one of these was a writ and the other an appeal).

Completely lost my shit because I knew that it had the potential to change our legal opinion (which could take days longer) and hyperventilated for a full hour - finally summoned the courage to message my PA - who promptly got on a call with me - only for both of us to come to the conclusion that it didn’t really impact our assessment and a couple of words had to be changed. Apologised to the PA about 10 times only for them to say it was completely fine, and it caused no issues. Made the change - sent out the doc to partner and subsequently to the client - life went on.

Moral of the story is that fuckups are only as big as we make them out to be (usually).

My anxiety however, continues to pervade my daily work life, and I do check a case status thrice before I open my mouth about it now :p

I was interning in my first year of law school at a Tier 1 law firm in litigation. One day, the Partner called me into his chamber and asked,

“Are you working on anything right now?” I hesitated and said, “No sir.” So he handed me some work on the Societies Registration Act and a bit of stamp duty stuff. As I was about to leave his chamber, he stopped me and casually asked, “By the way, do you know what a society means?”

Now, I had this terrible habit back then of saying “yes” to everything just to sound smart. So I confidently said, “Yes sir.” And then I explained: “Sir, a society is like… where people live. With parks, roads, buildings…” (Basically I described Gokuldham Society from Taarak Mehta 😭). The Partner just stared at me for two seconds. This man was an Oxford grad.

Then he calmly asked - “Which year of law school are you in?”

I went - “Sir… first.”

He nodded and said,
“Dude, you better brace up.”

I replied,
“Thank you sir.” 😭

And I walked out like I hadn’t just ruined my own career in 30 seconds.

Filed a petition, forgot to add the annexures. The judge points out to my senior that besides the impugned order nothing is on record so he can't pass any orders. Application was withdrawn (obviously), client ran away to some other office.

I apologised to the boss, he didn't say much - he's good natured and I hadn't really fucked up often so probably allowed a pass.

--

At the very start of the career, didn't know district courts (in Delhi at least) had a separate list for bail matters, based on the bail-roster of the district. Told the boss that our matter is third, not taking into account the separate list of 15+ bail matters. He reached the court at 10, only for our matter to be taken up around 12. He had to miss at least two other hearings in other district courts because of this mess up. He was fuming the entire time, but didn't say much to me directly.