Stuart doesn’t miss very much. I finish another mouthful of rigatoni and signal Nick the waiter for a side order of anchovies.
“Stuart, I looked into the matter. We conducted an investigation in Thailand and found a defective airplane part that was traced to an American corporation. There’s a good possibility that a settlement can be made with them.” As a matter of practice, a good lawyer never blurts out any amount to a client, because invariably, the client will never be happy with it. No matter how much you tell them is on the table, they’ll always want more. Instead, you have to subtly and professionally lead them toward the right conclusion, so that they’re mentally prepared to accept a fair amount when it’s offered.
“In wrongful death cases, people’s lives are often measured in terms of how old they are and how much they could have been expected to earn if their life was allowed to continue to a natural end. People called actuaries calculate morbid statistics like this, and every insurance company has them on staff. In your uncle Label’s case, he was already over seventy, and other than his monthly social security check and some minor legal work he performed for a mutual friend of ours, he was almost completely retired.”
“So how much do you think they’ll offer? A hundred thousand?” I was pleased to hear that he didn’t have ‘billions’ in mind and think that now is the time to bring the conversation to the point where he’ll be amenable to what I can actually get for him.
“Stuart, I think in addition to the condo in Thailand and the boat in the Marina, you should wind up with a settlement much more than that.” He bit eagerly.
“Yeah, how much do you think? A half a mil?” “Well my friend, my goal is not to stop working on them until we can get them to part with at least three quarters of a million dollars.”
Stuart turns white. “Seven hundred fifty K? Are you serious? You think we can even get close to that?”
“It couldn’t hurt to ask. They’re a wealthy corporation and if they did something wrong, they should pay for it.” I can tell from the wheels I hear spinning in his head that he’s already spending it.
“What would your fee be?”
“Well Stu, normally, a wrongful death contingency is in the neighborhood of forty percent, but in your case, I’d like to be a little more creative.” His face is a blank slate waiting for me to create a work of art. “If I can get them to make a check out to you for seven hundred fifty thousand dollars, I won’t take one cent of a fee out of it. I’ll hand it over to you as a favor from one friend to the other, in exchange for one dollar from you. But then, I’d like you to do me a favor: when your uncle’s estate is settled, I’d like to buy that boat of his for the sum of one dollar.”
Stuart’s no dummy. He’s seen that boat on several occasions and knows that it’s easily worth several hundred thousand dollars, but he also realizes that if not for me, he wouldn’t be getting any money at all, and that a legitimate fee could be close to four hundred thousand. It only takes him another few seconds before he sticks out his hand. We shake on it and order some spumoni to seal the deal.
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Less than two months have passed by and a series of completely predictable events has taken place: we got Court approval for Suzi’s two million dollar settlement, and her check was sent. It will be deposited into an certificate of deposit, arranged by my Farmers Insurance Agent, Murray Uniman. I was named executor of her funds and she’ll be able to withdraw a reasonable amount of the interest each year for living expenses. The CD will roll over until she reaches the age of twenty-four. The court asked me to file a written fee request and I complied. The fee I asked for was one dollar. The court happily approved it, as well as my one-dollar annual fee request for handling her trust.
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Stuart just arrived at the boat because I called and told him that the settlement check came in, but I never disclosed the final amount. “Pete, did they go for it? Did we get the whole seven hundred fifty K?” This is one of those rare times when practicing law is enjoyable.
“Sit down, Stu, let’s talk about it.” His face drops. As much fun as it is to surprise him with a big amount, I don’t want to force him into a depression along the way. “Stu, we didn’t get that exact amount, but I’m sure you’ll be happy with what I was able to drag out of them.” I hand him the envelope. He looks down at it with the same feeling of trepidation that every high school graduate gets when receiving responses to college applications. I know the feeling too. Every law school graduate gets it when that State Bar letter arrives telling you whether or not you passed the Bar exam. Now it’s Stuart’s turn. He looks at me as he slowly opens the envelope and takes out the check. His eyes are closed as he holds it up to his face. Fortunately, I have an amyl nitrate ‘snapper’ handy from the boat’s first aid kit, so that if he faints we can wave it under his nose. He slowly opens his eyes and looks at the one-million-dollar amount on the check. Silence. Tears. A big hug for the lawyer.
After the celebration winds down, true to his word, Stuart pays me my one-dollar fee by cashier’s check and further follows through on our deal by signing an option that gives me the right to purchase the boat for one dollar any time during the next five years. I think it best not to hold title to it, just in case my wife liked the first boat so much that she decides to get another one. Even worse, word of the transfer might reach the Marina office and they look down upon ownership transfers that might affect slip occupancy. It’ll only be a matter of time before Myra hears through the court grapevine about me settling several million dollars worth of cases, and her new lawyer will no doubt be sending me a letter. I want the Grand Banks safe from the battle. The foreward stateroom door is ajar and Suzi has been watching the whole show. She doesn’t look too happy. I realize what her problem is: she’s probably thinking that the boat isn’t my fee, because the case belonged to the firm. And she’s the firm. I’m just a managing partner. To make her happy, I assign the option to purchase the Grand Banks over to the firm. She glares at me. A typical female: two million with no fee paid isn’t enough – she wants the boat too. The glare persists. I look right at her. “What?”
She walks over, takes Stuart’s one-dollar fee out of my hand, and then turns around and exits towards her stateroom. Before she turns completely, I catch a glimpse of a smile on that little cupie doll face of hers.
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I’ve already learned not to question things I see going on that I don’t understand, because they’re usually being orchestrated by the small person who is running the business, the boat, and most of my life – all without talking to me. This time it’s the installation of a small antenna on the radar arch over the boat’s flybridge. The techie doing the work is Don Paige, one of our dock neighbors, and tells me the thing being installed is a new device for picking up broadband wireless Internet signals. He goes on to explain that a nearby boat owner set up a wireless local network, and that people within a thousand feet of his set-up who are line-of- sight with him can be part of his network by using a password that is assigned to us.
Some people are born with certain talents. If you’re having a problem installing your stereo set, VCR, DVD player, computer, modem, or any other electrical device, not to worry, help is at hand. All you have to do is go outside and look for any teen-aged male wearing a baseball cap on backwards. Offer him a Snickers bar and he’ll fix all your electrical hook-up problems. There’s no need to ask him in advance if he can handle your type of problem, because all male children born after 1990 have that knowledge. It’s a special technical gene embedded in their DNA genome. I have a feeling the little princess also has it.
Don is a nice guy who I’ve had some conversations with in the past. I bump into him on the dock and he lets me know how lucky I am “Hey Pete, that’s one heck of a little girl you’ve got there. She knows as much about my wireless network as I do. She talked me into letting your boat in on it. The doc’s got it too.” I can’t figure out how they were able to comm
unicate. She certainly doesn’t speak to me. Maybe these techie people have some new language that I don’t speak. Technalese?
*****
Chapter 11
Beverly Hills’ Wilshire Boulevard has more banks and law offices per mile than any other street in the world, and Los Angeles County’s premier deputy district attorney, my ex-wife, is now in the office of one of them. She’s huddling with her new attorney Daniel Vincent, a lawyer well known for his aggressive legal tactics. “Let me get this straight Mizz Scot, you claim that your ex-husband sold you a burnt-out hull for forty-thousand dollars?” He tries to keep a straight face. “And after promising you half of his law practice income for the next two years, he gets suspended and stops practicing law?” Acting the victim, she admits to the truth of both statements. “And in exchange for that burnt-out hull, you waived your right to any share of his future law practice earnings?” Silence. “Well, you seem to have arranged things in a nice order. Exactly what do you want me to do for you?” Now it’s her turn, and she comes to life.
“First of all, he’s gotten his license back, due to the incompetence of my first attorney. Second, I hear that he got involved in some big wrongful death cases. I want you to take this agreement he’s holding me to, in which I waived my rights to a share of his income in exchange for that burnt out piece of crap boat of his, and I want you to shove it so far up his rear end that it hits his tonsils. I want to nail his ass to the wall for that burning boat stunt he pulled on me, that cost me the loss of a sweet deal. Any questions?”
He’s taken aback by her aggressive attitude. “Well, it seems that you’re quite serious about this matter. I’ll see what I can do.”
Vincent gets the point. He doesn’t like her very much, but that’s never been a requirement in the legal profession.
I remember something that happened many years ago when I was a law student clerking in a law firm. One of the attorneys I worked for gave me the transcript of a deposition to read. When I was finished, he asked me what I thought of the person being deposed. I candidly remarked: “he’s an asshole.”
To which my boss replied “yes, but he’s our asshole.” The moral of the story is that you can’t pick your relatives or your clients; you take ‘em as you find ‘em. This means that the games will now begin. Much like combat between wild animals, there’s a certain amount of circling and snarling that takes place before the fight actually begins. With lawyers, it’s more like a chess game. Each player makes his move with a carefully worded letter that contains the minimum amount of facts and the maximum amount of threats. I’ll get my first letter from him soon enough.
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Back on the 3900 dock, things are getting interesting. Rita is stopping by every week, and now that the kid is living in the forward stateroom, I tell Rita that it wouldn’t be proper for her to stay over when the doc isn’t around. It hurts me to do that, but at least now I have a credible excuse to avoid getting caught and killed.
During the day there are a series of visits to the boat by a team of plain-clothes detectives. They never show me a badge, but they must be police, because no one in the Marina still wears polyester. I’m never told anything. After getting permission to come aboard, they go straight to the forward stateroom, pet the giant guard-dog and enter the little princess’ domain. In a little while they usually leave with a printout of some sort. To my surprise, Jack the mail clerk came to the boat a couple of times to pick up investigation assignments. He never told me what they were about. I get the feeling that I’m becoming irrelevant around here.
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The newspapers and local television can’t seem to get enough of my ex-wife. She’s good to look at, sounds good, and an obvious love affair immediately springs up between her and any news camera within fifty feet. The district attorney’s office has two Asian gang suspects in custody for the parking lot murder, and there are sound bites galore in the prosecutor’s usual campaign to poison the prospective jury pool. By the time this case goes to trial, the district attorney wants everyone in the county to already believe these guys are guilty.
Television isn’t all that she has working for her. As expected, the exchange of letters starts.
Dear Mr. Sharp:
This office has been retained to represent your former spouse, Ms. Myra Scot. She claims you have knowingly and intentionally perpetrated a fraud by inducing her to waive certain spousal rights in exchange for worthless consideration, namely a fire-destroyed, vessel.
It is the intention of this office to pursue these charges against you in the State Bar Court and with the criminal authorities, if you insist on perpetuating this fraud by your failure to voluntarily rescind her agreement and re-instate your original marital settlement terms, by allowing her to share in some portion of your income.
We understand that you have recently been involved in several lucrative matters and should have no difficulty in doing the right thing.
Very truly yours, Daniel Vincent, Esq.
Not a bad opening. His syntax could use a little work, but I get the message. They obviously know about the wrongful death cases and assume that I took a normal fee. Good. Responding too quickly is like calling back the girl you took out last night, the very first thing the next morning. You shouldn’t want to seem too eager. The proper etiquette is to make them wait at least a week for your response. That gives the client some time to call her lawyer and pester the hell out of him twice a day with the same question “well, did you hear anything? No? Well what are you going to do about it? Just let him get away with it?” This will bug the lawyer to no end, and possibly lower his aggression level towards the adversary - who he will then look to for a response, if for no reason other than to get his own client off of his back. I think I’ll do him a favor by sending a response in four days instead of five.
Stuart has been coming around recently and. he looks paler and slimmer each time I see him, so I finally get up the nerve to ask him about his health. Our office has already gotten his asbestosis case rolling, and as a friend, I want him to be around at least as long as it takes to conclude it. To my relief, he claims to be feeling great and credits his weight loss to a product that he’s distributing.
Stuart loves multi-level marketing. That’s where each person you sell is encouraged to find other people he can sell to, and then each one of them is supposed to sell to several people, establishing an ever-expanding base of customers who are also distributors. The only problem with this ‘pyramid’ type of organization is that it grows geometrically so that in a short period of time there are no more available customers. A good example of that type of progression is the old story of a man who does a tremendous favor for a rich person. When asked what reward he would like, the poor man replies “nothing much, just give me a penny the first day and double it every day for a month.” This doesn’t sound like much to the rich man, so he agrees. If you do the arithmetic, you’ll see that by the end of the month, the rich man is probably no longer rich, because the amount due on the 30th day of that month would be $5,368,708.80, and the total amount paid during the month, over ten and a half million dollars.
In a pyramid scheme the numbers multiply in much the same way, but only the first few involved ever wind up reaping the rewards. All that those ‘downline’ of them ever wind up holding is ‘the bag,’ and a lot of unsold inventory. Stuart claims that this time it’s different, because the product really works, and he’s living proof of it. He gives me a bottle to try. The instructions are simple enough: all you do is take one spoonful each night after dinner and then not have anything more to eat or drink for at least three hours before going to sleep. I try it, but taking one teaspoonful of that god-awful stuff the first night makes me gag, so I give it up. I do like the idea that you’re to take the teaspoon each evening after dinner, and then not have anything else to eat or drink before going to bed.
Aside from the gag-inducing aspect of the product, the plan looks like a decent one, so I tr
y it, but without taking the teaspoon of snake oil Stuart is selling. The most interesting part of the program is that it denies you the late nite snacking that so many of us do. After a month of having my dinner by seven P.M. and not having any snack between then and bedtime is starting to have some results. I lost almost four pounds the first month, and another four the next month.
Stuart notices my success, but doesn’t believe that I haven’t been using the product until I give him the unused bottle back. We both agree: what’s the difference? If the customers need the incentive of spending money and following a program that works, their weight loss is all that counts. And if they can incorporate the no-snacking routine into their permanent life-style, then they can probably keep the weight off forever, so there’s no harm done. Even though the product might make you gag, people are losing weight and Stuart is making money – and those are both good things.
Everything is finally going Stuart’s way, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
*****
Chapter 12
The defense firm that was hired to represent the government and its asbestos suppliers are now considering offering just one mass settlement, so they start to make demands for illness documentation from all claimants. Part of any big defense firm’s strategy is to make you jump through a series of hoops that they hold up. This also gives them a chance to pretend to go over the documentation you provide so they can increase their billable hours. When I ask Stuart what doctor diagnosed him, he hems and haws for a while. After pinning him down, he confesses that he went to some holistic medical provider with a storefront office in the Valley. We can’t find this person listed in the phone book, so I send Jack Bibberman out there to check it out. His result confirms my thoughts about Stuart’s practices. The guy who diagnosed his death-threatening disease isn’t exactly a medical doctor. He isn’t even exactly a chiropractor. He isn’t a doctor of any kind. He’s a faith healer.
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