Unexpected Mentor

Sandy Rettschlag

3 years ago

mentor Having worked in a law office for 56 years one would hope that I learned a lot. Actually, I worked for my current boss’s dad for twenty-three of those 56 years and learned an awful lot. Bruce was his name and he loved to teach. This was fortunate for me as I came to the office without a college degree, having just graduated from high school. I was the only secretary he had for a long time and while training me he was very good at teaching me why things had to be done a certain way and then how to accomplish this. He also gave me free rein once I had certain projects down pat.

In the office, I was the bookkeeper, did taxes, worked on probates, family law, and the list goes on. Our office did everything needed to help people. He was a perfectionist and I feel taught me to be the same. There are some things that are protocols in a law office. One small item that I still feel should be adhered to is always using black ink on documents. This was an absolute necessity to Bruce and I still followed that to the time I retired. Seems like a small thing, but it was felt this was important.

Bruce was a difficult boss but taught me everything that I used up until my retirement. Things in the law changed, but once you know the procedure the rest comes easier.

He always felt that there were other avenues you could go once you were a legal secretary. One such thing was court reporting. I never felt the need to pursue that, but after many years the title “paralegal” became popular. I then decided I wanted to see if I was in fact a paralegal. So, in the year 1992, I enrolled in the paralegal program at St. Mary’s in Milwaukee and discovered that I was actually more than a paralegal. Being a legal secretary for all those years, and with the training, I got from Bruce on the job, made a legal secretary out of me as well as a paralegal.

I would never want to just be a paralegal as the legal secretary training creates a well rounded and interesting occupation in the legal field. Even though Bruce had a very difficult personality, I owe a lot of my knowledge, procedures and training to Bruce.