Some of you may already be familiar with the Anonymous Assistant . For those that aren’t, it’s the diary of a young, down-trodden solicitor, which featured for many years in The Times. Helen Bailey is a junior litigation lawyer at CWS (Craven Wiley & Sharpe) a medium sized law firm in the City of London.  She is best friends with Jane, Alex, Liz and Olivia; all of whom have the misfortune of working for the biggest bully in the Firm: The Boss; undisputed leader of the litigation department who values his assistants only for their ability to earn him money.

The diary chronicles the lives of Helen and her friends as they struggle to assert themselves amidst the egos and eccentricities of a large City law firm. Armed with only their wit and guile they tackle toadying colleagues, undermine oppressive partners, quosh secretarial rebellions, defend court proceedings and fight harassment – all in a days work. Here is the latest entry ‘Double Agent ‘:

Sensing my reluctance to be fighting on the side of evil corporate giants The Boss decides to teach me a lesson.

“Ah, Helen.” he smiles.  “As you failed, so shamefully, to get to grips with the Edwards case, the other week, I’ve devised another task to test your mettle.”

He hands me a slim red file.   “This is a favour for a friend of mine so you’d better do it well.  He needs it to be settled as quickly and painlessly as possible. ”

“Ok,” I nod.

“Now, just to be clear,  we are acting for the employer and not the employee .  Have you got that?”

“Yes,” I say, through gritted teeth.

“Good.” He gives a malevolent snort and retreats.

I open the file and pull out the bundle of papers.   Inside is the longest “letter of claim” I have ever laid eyes upon.   And more astonishingly it is addressed to a law firm!

“Dear Sirs,

Re The Termination of My Employment

I write further to our recent discussions regarding the decision to make me ”redundant.” …

…The firm has made no effort to follow the prescribed redundancy processes and I am at a loss to understand how the decision to select me for redundancy can be justified. The only conclusion I can draw is that I have been singled out because I am the only member of staff to have rejected the advances of Philip Carlton.

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