The Case For Sleep: What Happens In Excel After Dark

Today, every associate’s worst nightmare came to a merciful end in a New York Bankruptcy Court.

The nightmare started for a first-year Cleary Gottlieb associate on the night of September 18th. The associate was called in for some extra muscle on the Barclays acquisition of Lehman assets. At the request of a second-year associate, the first-year reformatted an Excel spreadsheet of critical contracts to be assumed and assigned in bankruptcy on the closing date of the Lehman/Barclays sale. Predictably, this work was done long after normal business hours, just after 11:30 p.m.

On September 19th, Cleary produced the list of contracts based on the associates’ work the night before.

The problem was that the list contained 179 contracts that should not have been included. The Lehman/Barclays sale closed on September 22nd, with the over inclusive list of contracts.

My stomach gets tied up in knots writing that.

The resolution after the jump.


The mistake was caught by Barclays or Cleary on October 1st.

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You know what happens next. Motions and affidavits and long meetings trying to explain how you messed up an Excel spreadsheet one late night, and still no sleep.

According to the various affidavits (posted below) the Cleary first-year did not notice that the 179 contracts were marked as “hidden” in Excel, and certainly didn’t notice that those entries became “un-hidden” when he globally reformatted the document.

Cleary had to file a motion before the bankruptcy court asking for relief from the final sale order due to mistake or excusable neglect.

You have to feel sorry for the associates involved (as it is now a matter of public record, we have not redacted the names in the motion and affidavits posted below. However, if you refrain from mentioning names in the comments, that will go some small way towards keeping their google footprint clean). Who knows how much sleep anybody at Cleary got between Lehman crashing on the 15th and the 18th when the mistake happened? And, as we all know, they don’t teach “Excel” in law school and they really, really should.

S&C’s Rodgin Cohen might tell sleep deprived young associates “don’t sweat the small stuff,” but the whole point is that there is little way of knowing what is small and what is crippling 14 hours into your day.

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But lawyers get paid to avoid these kinds of mistakes at all costs.

There but for the grace of God …

Barclays Relief Motion.pdf

Declaration of 1st Year Cleary Associate.pdf

Declaration of 2nd Year Cleary Associate.pdf