Write My Way In: A Creative Writer at a Law Firm

Maxine M. Torres

Life is loaded with narratives. I have learned that anywhere and everywhere that

many forms of plotty or plotless stories take place, humanity has never really been

without creativity—however concealed and impalpable this creativity in a particular

environment may seem.

Still, it would not come as a surprise if a given situation permitting labor law

relations and creative writing to blend appeared peculiar.

On that account, I’ll be honest that it wouldn’t have been my first guess as to

where I’d be interning as a creative writer either.

Tao po, Nograles Law

I’m not much of a fan of oversimplified axioms. I found that it simply just

resonated with me to view all things with a little bit of nuance, a little bit of convolution, a

little bit of jumble; as oftentimes, life tends to be. Now, I feel it is more apt for me to put a

twist on the saying, “Opportunity knocks on your door.” For me, instead, it has been

“actively pursuing Opportunity until you find its complete address, and knock on its

door.” It’s a lot longer, less catchy, and low-key suspiciously kind of stalkerish, but it is a

more accurate description of the process of finding Nograles Law Offices (NLO), in my

personal experience of the entire internship hunt.

To briefly introduce by directly quoting the introductory company description of

Nograles Law Offices on their official website: “Established in 1991, Nograles Law has
since then successfully guided its clients in the field of Labor and Labor Relations.

Nograles Law has provided legal strategies and solutions to its clients’ labor issues and

concerns, including illegal dismissal cases, corporate reorganizations and redundancy

programs; corporate mergers and acquisitions affecting employee rights; strikes; CBA

negotiations; and the hottest topics of the season — “endo,” contractualization, and joint

assessment cases. Indeed, Nograles Law’s three decades of experience in the

specialized field of Labor has enabled the Firm to quickly and effectively resolve a wide

spectrum of Labor matters.” Displayed on NLO’s client page are familiar corpo names in

multiple industries, such as San Miguel Corporation, Inc. under Food and Beverage

Manufacturing; Meralco Powergen Corporation on Oil, Power, Energy and Utilities; Bank

of the Philippine Islands (BPI) in Banking and Finance; Ayala Property Management

Corporation in Real Estate and Property Management; St. Luke's Medical Center in

Pharmaceutical, Nutrition, and Healthcare; as well as ABS-CBN Corporation under

Television and Broadcasting, to name a few.

Essentially, Nograles Law Offices concerns itself with issues on

employer-employee contracts, corporations, and labor relations across various

industries, like those listed above. The law firm, along with its members, prides itself as

a trusted partner and counsel in labor and employer practices. These practices are

valuable to allow for an amicable settlement between parties.

Now, I learned that opportunity only waits for a limited amount of time. If you

don’t pursue them, or answer the door for them, they won’t stick around for long. So,

when Atty. Soledad Nograles messaged my Pa and told us I am eligible to work with

them at Tektite Towers (formerly the Philippine Stock Exchange Centre) in Pasig,
Ortigas—I was nonplussed, to say the least. Nonplussed, because of the idea of

securing this odd but grand opportunity; mixed feelings of being overwrought and

embarking on something new again—but also because I’ve never really been to

anywhere in my life, characterizing myself as the sort to not do a lot of traveling, apart

from knowing the route from home to school, a few familiar nearby favorite points, and

my way back. Sometimes, I still get lost around Marikina, where I’ve been all my life.

And lost I got the first couple of times I visited the office.

I familiarized myself with the layout of the building easily enough. “For as long as

I’m in the building, with personnel to approach, or employees and staff to point me in the

right directions, I should be alright,” I thought. I was right, actually. I didn’t have much of

a problem inside. I even got to scout on my first few days during my break, went up and

down the floors, and studied the areas.

Outside of the building, however, was a different foe. I was alone, as one would

surmise, and I was okay with looking out for myself most times. Although, I would admit

that there were times my imagination ran on the interning experience with a group as

opposed to being lone, with a pack who would have your back, and how I wouldn’t have

minded a peer as company or karamay. I thought that there would’ve been a little bit

more space to feel more laid-back and safe.

The Workplace and the Team

All went almost uncannily smooth that morning on my first day: I arrived twenty

minutes past six, noticed that the office doors were locked, and spent some time

touching up at the restroom on floor 22nd. I peeked again at the office doors around
7:30. Lights were on—it was time to take a deep breath, and come in. I was supposed

to look for a certain someone named Ms. Caryl.

Ms. Ca was attentive, focused, and dutiful. She readily toured me around the

office; she showed me the hallways, rooms of the lawyers, conference rooms, record

rooms, designated rooms for accountants, as well as a dining area. She took time to

brief me in on basics and workplace essentials—what happens around the firm, what

the employees do, introducing me to them, and where and which work I am expected to

assist in. She and I got along very well.

I also even chanced upon the owner, Atty. George. In the two minutes we held a

conversation, he asked if I wanted to take up law, then proceeded to swiftly and gently

instruct me to familiarize myself with a position paper on an ongoing case he was

handling. I browsed it and got a feel of it, though I never got to finishing the estimated

500-page stack of documents. I had met him and Atty. Sol, the owners of the firm, about

three times already, and each time they would gleefully encourage me to take up law.

The first task assigned to me was to formalize a letter report. It was a simple

enough task of proofreading and editing, but I had to be very carefu,l as I kept in mind

that I was corresponding with Atty. Sol via e-mail about a confidential case.

It's been a nice environment to have gotten acquainted with; the office

employees and staff are accommodating, giving me adequate, fairly simple, doable

tasks to finish within a very reasonable amount of time. They’re even also kind to

quickly invite and pull me away from my corner for meal times.

Arguably not part of the work itself, but one particular challenging characteristic

of preparing to go to work and being a proper worker involves discipline and being
well-trained with managing your time and schedule. To me, this means if I have to make

it to work at 7 in the morning on the dot, I have to be awake at 3:45 to make ample time

for preparation considering I have other working family members who are preparing with

me—factoring in setbacks so we can all leave on time and be on the road by 5:30.

These organization skills are necessary before one gets to start with anything.

Early mornings and slippery pathways to work.

On work itself: my primary role is essentially a drafter, proofreader, and editor of

letter reports for court hearing cases on labor law relations and issues, but sure enough

that task delegations and my work assignments aren’t limited to that. I had a relatively

more active past few days as compared to the weeks prior, performing tasks such as

encoding, physical and digital document sorting and filing, errands, pubmat design,

Excel computations, as well as browsing a position paper. For more writing tasks, there

were times my acting supervisor asked me to prepare more letter requests as well as

compose and proofread e-mails. Apart from that, the rest of the duties they assign to me
have more to do with encoding than composing, like creating fee arrangement (FA) file

templates or renaming documents.

Proofreading and typewriting letter descriptions for mailing.

Between studying the structure of a position paper, Excel computations, and

reviewing letter reports, I would say that the very latter is perhaps the most challenging.

As the process goes, I receive an informal message summary of a court hearing and I

need to analyze its content. Then, I refer to previous letter reports to understand what is

ongoing on the case. I try my best to formalize the composition, check for spelling and

construction errors, and add necessary details based on the references.

 Files of fee arrangements for sorting.

After that is finished, I e-mail it to an attorney for their review and approval. At

times, it gets several corrections and sent back to me before it’s finalized. Whenever I

ask questions to the employees though, they never hesitate to explain processes,

define terms, and help me visualize what is happening on paper.

Overall, it has been a positive experience, and it has been my joy and privilege to

join the team, and experience work during those 200 hours.