'He eventually settled for a multimillion dollar payout': Company accidentally gives lawyer employee free pension after trying to push him out of his job

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 13, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

This is the story of a group of lawyers who messed up really badly at their jobs, and it's such a satisfying read. U/Villageidiot1984 shared their favorite legal goof, which just so happens to be for their family member, a lawyer at a law firm. 

Being a lawyer seems like an incredibly difficult job. For example, you have to read so many papers and facts, and then remember them while you're defending your client. You'll work long hours before a case. You've got to be able to speak in front of a judge, and you cannot cry or tell them they're being mean. You just have to accept the way they treat you, as a professional does. Then, you have cases you just won't win, and while you can appeal them, it must be frustrating to work so hard only to lose your case. 

However, if you've got the talent and drive to become a lawyer, you can be very well compensated for your efforts. This person's family member also wanted to be a law firm partner, aka the most prestigious role that basically every lawyer hopes to achieve at some point. He didn't get that, but he got something a lot better instead. 

While we're on the topic of workplace whoopsies, this boss made his new hire quit in just 45 minutes. 

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  • 01
    Hand - Signature Financial Controller (for Capex items) with my An Cofff
    via Cytonn Photography on Unsplash
  • 02
    Font - Poorly drafted exit docs free pension м ос This happened to a family member and it's my favorite legal f up story.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 03
    Font - My family member was a partner in a law firm. The way a lot of law firms work is partners who retire get a pension. It's based on their last few years average salary or something similar. This only applies if you truly retire and not go work somewhere else and my family member was not near retiring.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 04
    Font - The two other partners who were in his area of practice at this firm decided to push him out. Instead of trying to come to an agreement for him to leave, they ambushed him in a meeting where they had already drafted exit documents for him to sign. They included some token severance but basically said pack your s or we are going to make this a huge hostile thing and drag your name through the mud, etc.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 05
    Font - There is a non-compete clause in a lot of partnership agreements so you can't leave and take clients and go work somewhere else right away if you're a partner. In their haste to prepare these documents they negated a bunch of these clauses so he would be able to work at another firm without waiting the non-compete period.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 06
    Font - But they missed that some of those clauses were also what governed the part of the pension clause that doesn't let you get the pension if you work for another firm after you leave. Basically, they wrote docs that gave him a pension way early and for the rest of his life, and based on some really good years he'd had for the firm.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 07
    Font - He noticed this when he read them bc he's a good lawyer (lol) and knew they f up and also knew he would be able to get a job pretty easily so instead of negotiating or fighting it he just signed them as is and left. They were very surprised expecting a huge fight or a long negotiation.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 08
    Font - He ended up getting another job pretty quickly at a different law firm. He waited a couple months and then called one of the other partners and said something like "So when are you going to start making the payments?"
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 09
    Font - At his age when this happened they would have had to pay him a large amount of money every year for maybe 40-50 years. They basically s their pants. Once they went back through and realized what they had forced him to sign they started making offers to buy him out of his pension. He eventually settled for a multi- million dollar payout, all because he signed the documents they put in front of him.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 10
    Font - RJack151 Looks like those two are the worst lawyers ever. They forced out the smart one.
    via u/RJack151
  • 11
    Font - ScarletCarson Rose I can't believe their spidy senses weren't jumping off the needle. Never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake
    via u/ScarletCarsonRose
  • 12
    Font - AlvinOwlHirt I've seen that happen before. My husband had several law firms as clients. I don't think any of them read the contract they signed with him. Of course, one issue came up. The judge laughed that lawyer out of court- lawyer even admitted that he hadn't read the contract. Husband is not a lawyer however he could write a tight contract.
    via u/AlvinOwlHirt
  • 13
    Smile - hotlavatube "Ha, ha, we sure got him! Wait... why is he smiling?"
    via u/hotlavatube
  • 14
    Font - Impossible-Gur8548. Does anyone know if an errors and omissions policy would cover that? I'm assuming that's a part of every law firm's business insurance package.
    via u/Impossible-Gur8548
  • 15
    Font - Villageidiot1984 OP. This is a great question! I don't know. One thing I know from talking about the situation is they f the docs up badly. It wasn't like a missing comma. If you read the docs it read like he was owed a pension. It was inexplicably bad.
    via u/Villageidiot1984
  • 16
    Font - The_fishingfool. What is preventing them from scuttling the old firm remaking it with a new name and keep all the same clients minus one pensioner. 171 Reply Share Villageidiot1984 OP. Without giving away too much info, it's an old white shoe firm in New York, scuttling the brand name would have been worth way more than a few million bucks. They were also very embarrassed and didn't want to attract attention to their up.
    via u/The_fishingfool
  • 17
    Font - Edit to add - if a firm did this it wouldn't hold up in court. You can't dissolve a firm to avoid paying your creditors and just keep the assets. You'd have to quantify the pensions values and they would be a creditor in a reorg and get paid out anyway. No bankruptcy court would approve the reorg if the company wasn't actually insolvent and just didn't want to pay its creditors. This gets towards actual fraud which would be much worse than losing some money.
    via u/The_fishingfool

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boss workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance lawyer bosses work malicious-compliance-reddit contract workplace retirement
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