“Harold Garrison on line four,” the receptionist said.
Scott didn’t recognize the name. “Did he say what it was about?”
“No. Mr. Humphrey talked to him and told me to forward the call to you.”
“Okay, I’ll take it.”
Scott knew from the receptionist’s response that Mr. Garrison was a potential client referred down the line from the firm’s senior partner. He couldn’t dodge the call. Leland Humphrey would ask him about it later. He punched the flashing button.
“Scott Ellis, here.”
“Yeah, this here is Harold Garrison. My son is in trouble with the law, and I have to talk to someone today.”
Scott looked at his calendar. “What kind of trouble?”
“He’s locked up at the jail for teenagers.”
“The youth detention center?”
“Yeah. The police picked him up this past weekend. I’m leaving town tonight and need to see a lawyer before I get on the road.”
“What are the charges?” Scott asked.
“Uh, the summons from the juvenile court said he’s unruly and delinquent.”
“That could mean a lot of things. Did anyone at the detention center tell you anything more specific?”
“Yeah, a guy wrote it down on a piece of paper.” The phone was quiet for a few seconds. “It says ‘assault with a deadly weapon with intent to inflict serious injury, assaulting by pointing a gun, and criminal damage to property.’”
“Those are serious charges.”
“Lester says it’s a big mistake. He ain’t never been in any kind of trouble before.”
“Lester is your son?”
“Yeah.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen. He’ll be seventeen in less than a month.”
Scott’s calendar was clear at three o’clock. “Can you come in at three this afternoon?”
“Yeah, but I need to know you’re a fighter. I want someone who can win.” “I’ve had some success,” Scott responded.
Actually, he’d appeared in juvenile court two times since graduating from law school. In his first case, he represented a student who was suspended from school for fighting. The other matter involved a young man charged with illegal possession of a few pills. Scott worked out deals for both clients that involved supervised probation. He wasn’t sure that met Mr. Garrison’s definition for success, but the juvenile court process was informal and the results predictable. He was confident that he could do as well as any other attorney in town.
“How much is this going to cost me?” Mr. Garrison asked.
Scott thought quickly. “Did Mr. Humphrey mention a fee?”
“He said it might be $2,500 if it has to go to a hearing.”
“That sounds right.”
“Do I have to bring all of it this afternoon?”
Scott hesitated. The cardinal rule of criminal cases was to get the entire fee up front, but he didn’t want to lose the chance for courtroom experience.
“Can you do that?” he asked.
“Only if y’all take cash. I don’t have no checking account.”
“Yes, sir. Cash will be fine.”
Scott Wesley Ellis, the newest associate of Humphrey, Balcomb and Jackson, checked the time on the small digital clock that divided his working day into the six-minute intervals billable by the law firm at rates of $115 to $160 per hour. He quickly completed a billing slip: “Initial phone call—Garrison case.”
Scott’s cream-colored office was at the end of the hall on the second floor of the firm’s two-story, brick building. Everything in the office was there for a reason. Scott’s diplomas and his law license were framed and hung in a razor-straight row behind his desk. A picture of his father at the main entrance to Fort Bragg stood at attention next to a similar photo of Scott taken at the same location twenty-five years later. Inside the top drawer of his desk every pen and paper clip was in its place. The young lawyer didn’t have to look twice when he needed something.
The dark-colored wooden surface of his desk and the small antique table where his phone rested were always shiny. Scott tried to keep clutter in the office to a minimum. There weren’t any pleadings or documents on the floor, and stray letters or memos found a home in the proper file or ended up in the trash can without lingering in paperwork limbo. As much as possible in the midst of a developing law practice, Scott tried to manage the flow of work from his in-box across his desk and into his out-box. For him, outward organization was a key to efficiency.
As a child, Scott had ridden his bicycle past Humphrey, Balcomb and Jackson on his way to the barbershop. He never imagined that one day he would enter the building as an attorney himself. The same shiny brass nameplate was still there, but the firm had expanded over the years from three to seven attorneys. Lawyers, secretaries, and paralegals occupied every available inch of both floors.
From his office window, Scott could see the steeple of the First Baptist Church and the southwest corner of the Blanchard County Courthouse. One of the advantages of practicing law in a small town was convenient access to the halls of justice, and all the law firms in Catawba clustered around the courthouse like baby chicks around a hen.
Scott’s salary was smaller than his counterparts an hour down the road in the office towers of Charlotte, but at the smaller firm he had the opportunity to sit at the feet of Mr. Humphrey, a true Southern orator whose courtroom demeanor was so compelling that other attorneys would listen and take notes in the gallery when he gave a closing argument. Scott wanted to be a trial lawyer, and if there was courtroom potential in his future, he believed Leland Humphrey could call it forth.
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