The Color of Law sf-1

by Mark Gimenez

  Ray smiled and turned his palms up.

  “What, you complaining? Two of your clients are getting good deals because of McCall’s power.”

  “Ten years, Ray. Ten years for Shawanda, or you can tell the good senator to forget the White House and your boss to forget California. And I want Carlos’s charges dismissed.”

  Ray grinned. He was such an asshole that he actually liked the game, two lawyers negotiating over other people’s lives. Liking the game is an annoying character trait in a lawyer; liking the power is a dangerous one.

  “Twenty, and that’s a great deal, Bobby, and you know it. But if she rejects this deal, I won’t back off the death penalty, understand? And if that information about Clark becomes public, the offer is withdrawn. So get the bitch to agree, fast.”

  Bobby stood and walked to the door, but he turned back.

  “Ray, one more thing: if you call my client a bitch again, I swear to God I’m gonna punch you in your fucking mouth.”

  Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.

  “You called, Scott?”

  Karen Douglas was standing in front of his desk.

  “What? Oh, yeah, sit down, Karen.”

  Scott pushed Dan’s voice out of his mind. Karen sat in one of the chairs on the other side of his desk and tucked her legs under so as not to reveal any thigh. She was twenty-six, pretty enough to be noticed on the street, and the youngest of the four associates working under Scott. She had graduated first in her class at Rice with a degree in literature and first in her law class at Texas. Book smart, but she was having a difficult time adjusting to the practice of law. As a supervising partner, Scott felt a responsibility to teach his new associates the necessary practice skills they weren’t taught in law school. If Dan Ford hadn’t taught Scott those same practice skills, he wouldn’t be the lawyer he was today.

  “Karen, I know you’ve been with us only a few months, but it seems like you’re having some problems. Am I right?”

  She nodded and Scott worried she might cry.

  “Okay, let’s see if I can get you back on track. First thing, your billable hours. You haven’t met your monthly quota once. Karen, my associates exceed their quotas.”

  “But, Scott, two hundred hours a month? Ten billable hours a day? That’s impossible, if I’m honest.”

  “Karen, this is a law firm, not a seminary.”

  He smiled; she didn’t.

  “Look, here’s how billable hours work. First, you always round up. Twenty minutes becomes half an hour, forty minutes becomes an hour, an hour and a half becomes two. Second, every phone call you make and every letter you read is a minimum quarter-hour. You read ten letters, a quarter hour each, that’s two and a half billable hours. Heck, I usually bill four or five hours just reading my mail each morning. And travel-didn’t you fly to San Francisco with Sid last month?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you bill your flight time?”

  “Two hours. I worked on another matter.”

  “How long was the flight?”

  “Four hours.”

  “Then you should bill eight, four hours to the client you’re flying to San Francisco for, and another four to the client whose work you’re doing during the flight. See? That’s six hours you didn’t bill last month. If every lawyer here dropped six hours each month, Karen, that’s twelve hundred hours that wouldn’t get billed. That’s three hundred grand we wouldn’t collect. Each month. Twelve months, that’s three-point-six million. See how it adds up? See why every hour counts? Billable hours are a law firm’s inventory, Karen, so when you don’t bill your quota, it’s like you’re working at McDonald’s and giving away hamburgers.”

  Karen was looking at Scott like a freshman coed watching her first porn flick at a frat party.

  “Scott, you’re telling me to pad my hours. Isn’t that cheating?”

  “Every place except a law firm.”

  Bobby entered the Ford Stevens lobby and was waved through by the smiling receptionist. Each time he walked into the Ford Stevens offices, he smelled something in the air. Like a funeral home, a downtown law office has its own unique smell; but instead of formaldehyde, this place smelled of money.

  Bobby walked down the carpeted corridor to Scotty’s corner office. Scotty was sitting behind his desk and addressing a young woman. He noticed Bobby and waved him in.

  Bobby stepped into the office. The young woman stood and when she turned to face Bobby, he was struck by her appearance: she was very attractive and from her sharp suit, a lawyer.

  “Bobby, this is Karen Douglas. Karen, Bobby Herrin.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re working the Shawanda Jones case with Scott. That must be very exciting. When I was in school, I always thought I’d work in the public defender’s office.”

  “But we pay better,” Scotty said. He pointed at the sofa. “Sit, Bobby, I’ll be right with you.” He picked up a thick document and turned back to Karen. “Now, Karen, you’re clear on billable hours?”

  Karen sighed heavily and nodded. “I guess so.”

  “Okay, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is your memo. I’ve read it and it’s great. You researched the law perfectly, you applied the facts, you did everything exactly right…except-”

  “Except what, Scott?”

  “Except you didn’t answer my question.”

  “But you asked whether Dibrell could sue that little town over its denial of his rezoning request. The answer is no.”

  Scotty was shaking his head. “Karen, I didn’t ask you whether Dibrell could sue the town, I asked you how Dibrell could sue. We’re going to sue; we’ve already decided that. It’s part of our strategy to get the town to give us the rezoning we want. And believe me, after their lawyer tells them how much the litigation will cost in fees and expenses even if they win, the town will crater. What I wanted from you is a legal position we can take to justify our lawsuit. You answered whether. I asked how.”

  Karen’s face expressed that dismay unique to a new lawyer learning the ways of lawyers.

  “I…I didn’t understand, Scott. I’ll try again.”

  “Good girl.”

  Karen departed and Scotty said, “Nice body, but she’ll never make it as a lawyer. What’s up?”

  Ten minutes later, they were driving to the federal building.

  “Scotty,” Bobby said, “twenty years is a good deal. I’ve had two-bit dealers go down for life.”

  But Scott wasn’t thinking about what was good for his client; he was thinking about what was good for himself. Which was Shawanda’s pleading out, for twenty or thirty or forty years, he didn’t give a damn. Because if she pleaded out, he wouldn’t have to make a big decision. Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.

  “ Twenty years? Mr. Fenney, Pajamae, she be twenty-nine by then, I won’t even know her. She all I got.”

  Shawanda was pacing the small room, around and around, circling Scott and Bobby in their chairs.

  “I understand, Shawanda, but if you’re convicted of first-degree murder, you might get the death penalty.”

  “Twenty years in prison, I die anyway. Mr. Fenney, why don’t you believe me? I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill nobody!”

  In civil litigation, judges routinely order the parties to mediate their disputes before going to trial. Mediation allows the lawyers to hammer their clients into settlements they don’t like, force them to pay amounts they don’t want to pay, and make them end lawsuits they don’t want to end. But there is no court-ordered mediation in criminal cases. So all Scott could do to try to convince his client to take the plea deal was stand and shout: “Shawanda, please think about this!”

  She stopped short.

  “I don’t gotta think no more about it, Mr. Fenney. I told you before, I ain’t coppin’ no plea!”

  Ray Burns was not happy when Scott and Bobby informed him of their client’s decision to reject the plea offer.

  “That bi-” Ray’s eyes met Bobby’s.
“That woman is making a big mistake. And her lawyers are making an even bigger mistake if they go public with Clark’s past.”

  “What about ten years?” Scott asked.

  “No way. We don’t give ten-year deals to people who stick a gun to a guy’s head and blow his fucking brains out!”

  Scott was back in his office, sitting behind his desk, his elbows on the top, his head in his hands, his eyes closed, and his mind a jumble of thoughts and images: Scotty Fenney, number 22, racing down the field, scoring the winning touchdown, the campus hero…two little girls, one white, one black, sleeping side by side in the big bed, their faces smooth, their hair in cornrows…Rebecca, beautiful and naked and angry…Shawanda, alone in her cell, crying for her daughter and heroin…and Dan Ford, who had replaced the father who had died when Scott was just a boy. What son wouldn’t do what his father asked? Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon. But the boy had a mother, too, and just as the image of a mother reading to her son flashed across his mind’s eye, Scott opened his eyes to find Dan Ford standing over him. And he knew what his senior partner had come for.

  “She turned down the deal?”

  Scott leaned back in his chair. “Word travels fast.”

  “The U.S. Attorney called Mack, Mack called me.”

  “And now you’re calling on me? What’s that saying, shit rolls downhill?”

  “Something like that.”

  Dan strolled around the office and stopped at the huge framed photograph of Scott Fenney, number 22 for the SMU Mustangs, running the ball against Texas. “One hundred ninety-three yards…unbelievable,” he said. After a moment, he broke away and sat on the sofa. Finally, he turned to Scott.

  “Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Now.”

  “I don’t know, Dan.”

  “What’s there to know? We know what Mack wants.”

  “And I know what my client wants.”

  Dan chuckled. “Your client? Clients pay us fees, Scott. Ms. Jones isn’t paying us anything. She’s costing us. She’s an expense to this firm. And she’s expendable.”

  “Dan, I’m her lawyer!”

  Dan stood. “Scott, do you really believe she’s innocent? Do you really believe she didn’t kill Clark?”

  Scott shook his head. “No.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is, Dan, if I don’t introduce that evidence about Clark’s past, she’s gonna die!”

  A look of absolute puzzlement came over Dan’s face. He said, “And how does that affect your life?”

  And that had been the guiding principle of A. Scott Fenney’s professional life since the day he joined Ford Stevens: How would it affect his life? Or, more to the point, his income. Any event-a lawyer fired, a client dumped, a case won or lost, a law enacted or repealed, a natural disaster, a stock market crash, a war, a presidential election-that affected his life and income was, by definition, important. Any event that did not affect his life or income was unimportant, irrelevant, as inconsequential to him as another gang murder in South Dallas. Now, driving home to his $3.5 million mansion in a $200,000 automobile, Scott found himself wondering: How would Shawanda Jones being sentenced to death affect his life and income?

  The answer was obvious: not at all. The day after her conviction, he would be back at his desk, working to make rich clients richer and bringing home $750,000 a year. As he would the day after her execution. She would quickly become part of his past. A year from now he wouldn’t even remember her name.

  Scott had always followed Dan Ford’s advice, and he knew he should follow Dan’s advice now. He should chalk up Shawanda’s pathetic heroin-addicted life as unimportant and irrelevant and inconsequential to his life. He should lose her case and move on, as he had with other clients whose cases he had lost. Even Scott Fenney couldn’t win every case. Those few times he had lost, he had moped around, cursing the judge and jury for a few days, but once the client paid his final bill and the check cleared, he had gotten over it and moved on.

  But there was a difference.

  Scott Fenney had never thrown a case. Or a contest. Or a game. He had always played to win. Every game he had ever played-football, golf, lawyering-had been a test of his manhood, so he had played every game to win. All-out, no-holds-barred, win at all costs-that’s what made him a winner. Every cell in his body was infused with the desire to win, a desire that had taken him from being the poor kid on the block to owning a mansion on Beverly Drive in the heart of Highland Park. But Dan Ford was now telling him to play to lose. Could Scott Fenney play to lose and still be a winner?

  That thought bothered him all the way home. But as he pulled into the motor court behind his mansion, a new more bothersome thought had invaded his mind: How would Shawanda’s death affect Pajamae’s life?

  Scott had said bedtime prayers with the girls, tucked them in snugly, and was standing to leave, but he needed to ask Pajamae a question.

  “Pajamae, do you think your mother could hurt anyone?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Fenney. Mama, she’s got a good heart. She cares about people. Her problem is, she doesn’t care enough about herself. She’s always telling me to love myself, but she doesn’t love herself. My daddy made her like that, hitting her, making her sick. So don’t blame her, Mr. Fenney, it’s not her fault.”

  Then she turned her big brown eyes up at Scott and asked him a question.

  “Mr. Fenney, are the po-lice gonna kill my mama, too?”

  FOURTEEN

  Execution of the defendant would violate her civil rights under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States…

  The defendant. Her mother. Execution. Damn.

  Pajamae was playing in the pool with Boo; they were standing in opposite shallow ends and tossing a Frisbee back and forth across the deep middle part of the pool. Scott was sitting on the patio reading Bobby’s brief that argued Pajamae’s mother should not be put to death if found guilty of murdering Clark McCall.

  It was another blazingly hot Sunday afternoon in Highland Park. The girls were cool in the pool. Scott was sweating in the shade of the patio awning. Rebecca was down in the exercise room climbing the Stairmaster to nowhere in air-conditioned comfort. Consuela was in Little Mexico being courted by Esteban Garcia. Scott had driven her down that morning to the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe Catholic Church located at the northern boundary of downtown Dallas, which was also the southern boundary of Little Mexico. Esteban was waiting at the curb, dressed in black boots, black trousers, and a long-sleeve white shirt starched crisp; he was clean shaven and his hair was slicked back. He looked like a Mexican matador. He greeted Consuela de la Rosa like a princess, taking her hand to help her up and out of the low-slung Ferrari. She turned and waved good-bye to Scott, then walked to the entrance of the church like a teenager in love. She was brown and beaming.

  Scott was white and worried.

  Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Now.

  What if he said no to McCall? What could Mack McCall do to Scott Fenney, Tom Dibrell’s lawyer? McCall might be the senior senator from Texas and Dan Ford’s former fraternity brother, but he paid no legal fees to Ford Stevens. So saying no to McCall would not harm the firm; of course, it wouldn’t help the firm either. But still, no harm, no foul. Sure, McCall could block A. Scott Fenney’s future nomination to the federal bench, but that did not concern Scott; he had no intention of taking a pay cut to only $162,000 a year. Saying no to McCall would result only in a pissed-off U.S. senator; Scott could live with that.

  But could he live with a pissed-off senior partner?

  How would Dan Ford take no for an answer? Saying no to Dan would be breaking new ground for Scott; he had never said no to Dan, never even considered saying no. Now Dan wanted to be the president’s lawyer, which required that Mack McCall be elected president, which required that Scott Fenney hide Clark McCall’s past, which required that Scott say yes.

  Dan would not be happy if Scott said no.

 
; But Scott brought in over $3 million in fees for the firm each year, and that always had a way of brightening Dan’s mood. And if Scott promised to increase his billings to Dibrell to $4 million this year- which would require some seriously creative accounting — surely Dan would forgive Scott (who was like a son to him) this one act of rebellion. Surely.

  Still, Scott Fenney had never said no to a coach, a client, or his senior partner. If the coach called an end sweep on third and 20, he ran it. If a client wanted him to coerce a sexual harassment settlement by threatening to bring up the woman’s sexual history, he threatened it. If a senior partner wanted him to rubber-stamp a decision to fire a fellow partner, he did it. But now a U.S. senator and his senior partner wanted him to hide critical evidence and watch his client be executed. Could he do it?

  What if he did? What if Scott Fenney said yes to Mack McCall and Dan Ford? Both men would be very happy. McCall would be elected president, Ford Stevens would be the president’s law firm, and Dan Ford would be the president’s lawyer. The firm would open a Washington office, new corporate clients would pay millions in legal fees to the firm, and the partners would double their income. Scott Fenney would be filthy rich. All of which sounded good until he heard Pajamae’s little voice: “Catch it, Boo!”

  Mr. Fenney, are the po-lice gonna kill my mama, too?

  Scott heard the French doors behind him swing open and felt the rush of cool air against his warm neck. Rebecca stood beside him and he smelled her sweaty scent. She was wearing a tube top and short running tights that clung to every surface of her lean body. Scott felt the urge to pull his wife onto his lap and hold her close; but like a dog who had gotten smacked the last hundred times he had gone after a bone, Scott did not make a move in that direction. They watched the girls play.

  “It’s good she has a friend now,” he said.