Pretty much everyone today passes along by email some daily item of of news or amusement (a joke, disaster story, or just an anecdote offering a moment’s entertainment). People also commonly exchange stories of just how rudely people will sometimes behave in business these days in situations when no further profit is to be expected. The combination recently ran amok bringing 15 minutes of unwelcome fame to a naughty little Boston attorney.
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
Feb. 19) – Two weeks ago, newly minted young Boston attorney Dianna Abdala e-mailed a prospective employer, William Korman.
“The pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living,” she wrote, turning down his job offer.
Korman was not happy.
“You had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date).”
He’d already ordered her stationery and business cards, and set up her office computer and was amazed she conveyed her second thoughts by e-mail.
“It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional,” he wrote.
Abdala’s response? “A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so,” she wrote.
“This is a very small legal community,” Korman responded. “Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?”
Abdala finally answered, “Bla bla bla.”
An ordinary office spat? Nope. Korman forwarded the exchange to a friend … and it spread throughout the Boston legal community — and then to the Boston Globe, to the International Herald Tribune, to ABC News’ “Nightline.”
It was the “bla bla bla” heard round the world — making Abdala the most famous, perhaps notorious, 24-year-old lawyer in America.
