The Rise and Fall of Co-Counsel

I've written before (here and here) about my struggles working with out-of-state co-counsel.  Since moving to another firm, it's been less of a problem, but some things have not changed.  The attorneys at my current firm are much more aggressive about demanding things be sent to us with time to spare, and we've been blessed with co-counsel who seems to have their act together.

Until now.

On one of our biggest and most complicated cases, lead attorney for our co-counsel was a very "together" sort of guy.  He always did exactly what we asked, paid attention to how we needed things done, and if I could clone him and replace all our out-of-state attorneys with this guy, I would. 

Recently, he's been bumped up to Partner and given a different set of responsibilities, so his work has now bumped down to some... how can I say it... moron?  Monkey with a typewriter?  Ferret on crack? 

This guy is so disorganized, it makes me cry.  We had to revise the same brief at least a half-dozen times because we'd fix his mistakes and then he'd go and either (a) make new ones, (b) make the same ones again or most often (c) both. 

Most recently, he's decided that the Courts in our State have to function under his State's rules, and is quite intransigent about the issue. 

I can only hope he gets sacked soon, but unfortunately, he probably makes his billable hours quota simply because of all the extra time he spends screwing up his work and arguing with more competent attorneys. 

The only silver lining in this situation is that the Associate in our office working point on this case isn't taking any crap from this guy, so we're just doing things the right way and not mentioning it to him until after we file with the Court and it's too late for him to argue with us.