The Running Man

I had the strangest experience yesterday. I had been working with a client from out of state. (I am going to be somewhat general here, because I don't want to reveal any confidential material, despite the fact that the person in question is not a client). The matter was a civil matter. A response to the case had to be filed before a hearing Wednesday morning.

The client FedExed me court papers with his original signature, which I needed to file the papers. I filed them Tuesday, right under the deadline. The client flew in Tuesday so that he and I could meet in the afternoon before the hearing. At that time he was going to pay me the fee for the case and we were going to talk strategy.

The client called me 40 minutes ahead of time and told me he was waiting at my office (I was coming back from court). Well, I thought, he certainly is eager.

Sure enough, he was waiting nervously for me when I arrived at the office. I brought him into the inner sanctum. I had already begun faxing the response to the opposition attorney when I brought him into the office. "That's your response," I said, "I wanted to make sure the other side got it before tomorrow."

"I wish you could hold back on that," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well..." he started going into a long story about how he had just come back from seeing the person on the other side of the law suit in Los Angeles, then had flown back to his home state, then had flown to San Francisco and drove up here. Then he said, "Listen, I don't want to hire you if I'm just going to lose." I assured him that he had a good case and that I was confident, under the law, that I could get him what he wanted in the case.

"I don't know," he said, "I talked to Mr. D (the opposition attorney). I'm expecting him to call me back."

"Since I've sent him a fax saying I represent you," I said, "he won't talk to you. Ethics prevent him from doing so."

"Just let me call him right now."

"He won't talk to you," I said, "because he thinks I represent you."

The client stood up. "I'm just going to go outside and call him real quick."

At that moment I knew exactly what the guy was going to do. But I let him go.

Sure enough, when I went out a few minutes later, he had disappeared. My client ran away from me! I was somewhat upset--I had expended hours getting the "emergency" response ready. But I was also somewhat amused. This guy was worried that I would wrestle him to the floor and make him pay me the attorney's fee! I've often been called a "big, scary man," but I've never, in 20+ years of lawyering, had a client run away from me.

The next day I showed for the court appearance--my name was on the papers and I was obligated to do so. Mr. D, the opposing attorney, greeted me with "I'm surprised to see you here. Mr. X came to my office yesterday afternoon and signed a settlement agreement." I asked the time. "It was before 4 o'clock."

The client had already signed the settlement before coming to my office!

I'm still not sure why he didn't just call me and let me know this. It would have saved me a lot of work and both of us some embarrassment.

Oh, and he never showed for court.

Honest Abe

Being a lawyer, I tend to think about Abraham Lincoln from time to time. Lincoln is the American patron saint of lawyers (the actual patron saint of lawyers, per the Catholic Church, is Thomas More, another entry for another time).

Lincoln had this crazy idea that it was better to talk a litigant out of litigation rather than to take thousands of dollars of his money for a useless claim. Lincoln once had a farmer come to his office wanting to file a lawsuit against his neighbor on a boundry dispute. Lincoln excused himself, found the neighbor, brought him back to the office and had the two of them sit and talk it out instead. The lawsuit was never filed.

Lincoln was a smart lawyer. He is famous for his cross examination in which he got an eye witness to a murder to say he saw Lincoln's client commit the stabbing by the light of the moon. Lincoln then pulled out an almanac which stated that the moon was not out at that time that particular night. The client was acquitted.

Lincoln was a railroad lawyer, This means that he did corporate buisness at a time in the country's history when "corporation" was not a dirty word. (I should note, however, that Lincoln was a Republican, and Republicans have always, always been pro-business, for better or worse). Despite working for a corporate master, there is no record of Lincoln ever working to get a widow evicted or to seize the assets of a poor man.

As I go through my day, I sometimes think to myself that to be worthy of the name "lawyer," I need to emulate Honest Abe. By the way, "Honest" is not a nickname usually given to a lawyer, except in an ironic fashion, and there's every indication that people called Lincoln "honest" as a true description of his practice. I try to be honest with my clients. I try to be honest with the opposition and the courts. I say "try" not because I ever purposely deceive anyone, but because sometimes I am "honestly" mistaken about facts, due to the vagaries of humanity.

I, also, try to counsel people not to file lawsuits if talking will get the job done. I've actually talked myself out of a number of clients due to this, but I don't worry about the loss of income to the Bruce family. I'd rather not clog the courts and have angry clients who are getting overbilled for services. I'd rather be a service provider than a money grubber.

One more thing they said about Abe: That he had no enemies in the legal profession.

Oh well. I guess I can't completely emulate Lincoln. But sometimes I wonder what he would have done if he'd had to deal with some of the crazed lawyers I've had to deal with.

On second thought, he probably would have found a way to beat them without getting angry with them. He would have told a joke, cited a law, gone on his way.

Maybe I can try a little harder in the coming year to work on my Lincoln impression. It will only help my practice. And my soul.