From personal experience, I can tell you that lawyers will ask for extensions of deadlines for any number of reasons. Sometimes they’re legitimately overworked and can’t get a brief ready for filing in time. Sometimes they are still trying to gather information and it’s just taking longer than expected. Sometimes they have a vacation coming up or something like that and don’t want to ruin it with work. Sometimes they just procrastinated.
No matter what the actual reason for an extension, though, rarely if ever do you they say they need it for purely personal reasons like that vacation or personal failings like procrastination. They tend to cite “the press of business” or the impossibility of meeting the deadline for reasons out side of their control. It’s always outside of their control.
Which makes the honesty of this lawyer’s request for the delay of a filing deadline so refreshing. He’s been watching the Nationals’ playoff run with his nine-year-old son, dang it, that keeps them both up late, and for that reason he wants some more time to get his work done:
A lawyer asked a judge for a brief extension due to the @Nationals' playoff run, citing "unflagging support of a certain nine-year old boy" who wants to watch the games.
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) October 15, 2019
"With the consent of the parents and baseball fans at the Department of Justice, this request is unopposed." pic.twitter.com/ckfC7SpvlI
Pro-tip: if you are going to ask for an extension because you’ve been up too late watching baseball, make sure you do what this guy did and (a) make sure opposing counsel, in this case the DOJ, will agree not to oppose your request; and (b) only ask for a modest extension like the two days this guy asked for.
Or maybe he didn’t ask for only two days because he was trying to be modest. Maybe he’s just properly assessed the lack of fight in the St. Louis Cardinals right now and is confident that the Nats will have this all wrapped up by Thursday morning.
Seems like a pretty safe bet at the moment.
