When secretaries were tall

When I was small and secretaries were tall'¦ Fans of the Bee Gees will know that this is a slight corruption of their song First of May. In the original, it was Christmas trees that were tall, but that is the nearest you will get to a Christmas article from me this year. There are only 25 fee-earning days till Christmas (if you count 25 December and all weekends) and I must get on with typing another letter to earn myself one more meagre unit.

When I was a small trainee solicitor and secretaries were tall, I, in company with my contemporaries, was terrorised by the secretaries in the firm where we worked. They were temperamental, terrifying and turbulent. They were also immensely muscular, having for years operated massive manual typewriters which demanded the same sized biceps as the riveters of the hull of the Titanic. Indeed, if secretaries of the time had done the riveting, no doubt the ship would have survived the iceberg.

To get anything typed you had to grovel, wheedle and kiss their boots.

Solicitors then thought it was beneath their dignity to be seen with fingers on a typewriter, thus enabling secretaries collectively to behave like the digestive system: by creating a blockage they could bring the whole office to its knees in no time.

Then, it seems (and this may just be the warm glow of reflection) secretaries became much nicer and it was possible to work with them as friends (allowing for the occasional tiff of course when the digestive system blockage reasserted itself).

A symbol of virility

In days gone by the macho boast was: 'I am so busy I can keep x secretaries busy.' 'X' was a figure directly proportional to the self perceived importance of the solicitor concerned. True, when I once thought I was important, I was able to keep two secretaries busy, but I have known very important solicitors who had no difficulty in keeping three or even four secretaries' fingers white with effort as they slid inexorably towards repetitive strain injury.

Technology has moved on. Now, having no secretary (or a fraction of a secretary) is the new macho boast: 'I am so skilled I can survive with just a 32th of a secretary.'

With case management systems, letters almost write themselves. Attendance notes appear on the screen as if by magic. Voice recognition enables you to talk directly to your computer. As it is so easy, why have a secretary at all?

Well I will tell you. As I have found out from working at home this past year, there is much more to producing a letter than tapping out your thoughts on a keyboard. We are typically allocated a unit of six minutes for every letter we produce. If, like me, your files at the end of the case are scrutinised by 'costs negotiators', who query every comma and full stop, you will find that no credit is given for the effort that goes into producing a single humble missive. Six minutes is all that is allowed and this includes:

• Time to find the right file on the computer.