Meeting with MMM ½
4/6/99 Drafting Letter to RK Re: Automatic Orders 1
Phone Conversation with MMM Re: Withdrawing Money ¼
Drafting Letters to Financial Institutions 1
4/7/99 Drafting Addendum to Fee Agreement ½
4/8/99 Meeting with MMM Re: Addendum to Fee Agreement 1½
Preparing Statements: Income/Expenses, Assets/Liabilities 1½
4/23/99 Phone Conversation with MMM Re: Settlement Offer ¼
Preparing Memo on Conversation 1
Research on Value of Medical Degree 3 (?)
Drafting Memo on Value of Medical Degree 3 (?)
4/27/99 Drafting Letter to MMM on DED Settlement Offer 1
Letter to RK Re: DED Settlement Offer 1
Preparation of Discovery Request 1
5/5/99 Meeting with MMM on DED Settlement Offer 1½
5/7/99 Drafting Bottom-Line Settlement Offer 3
5/10/99 Review of Bottom-Line Settlement Offer ¾
5/12/99 Drafting Letter to MMM Re: Bottom-Line Settlement Offer 1
5/20/99 Drafting Letter to RK with Counteroffer 2
5/21/99 Review of Counteroffer 1
Total Hours 31½
Bill $4,725
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: David Greaves
To: Sophie Diehl
RE: Maria Meiklejohn
Date: May 21, 1999
Attachments:
I approve your letter and settlement offer. Send it to Kahn if Ms. Meiklejohn approves, but be prepared for fireworks. Dr. Durkheim will be seriously displeased. I begin to think Ms. Meiklejohn is very canny. She sized you up at a glance and decided that you would be the perfect foil to someone like Kahn. You’re not a member of the club; you’re young; you’re inexperienced; you don’t know the rules or won’t play by them. There’s a kind of formal minuet divorce lawyers dance. You’re doing the tango, and Kahn & Co. don’t know the steps. You come at them with a nothing-to-lose-I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude.
Your hours look fine, including the adjusted time put in on the M.D. memo. The issue still hasn’t been decided by an appellate court in Narragansett, Petrus is still pending, and your memo speaks to the Meiklejohn’s particular fact situation, which is unusual. It’s a win-win situation for us. If they go along, Ms. Meiklejohn will get $100,000 for $900 worth of work, an excellent return on the time spent. And if they balk, it gives us something to give up in the negotiations. I’ve given your Time Sheet to Hannah; she already has mine. I’ll be billing at $150, and I’ve made adjustments so that Ms. Meiklejohn won’t be double-charged. Hannah will prepare the bill for you to give Ms. Meiklejohn at your meeting Monday. And we don’t accept cash, ever, to avoid even the appearance of money laundering. Still, our clients find ways to insult us. One of these days, the honeymoon with Ms. Meiklejohn will come to an end and she’ll turn on you, if only briefly. They always do, or almost always. As I said in my article, in divorce, there are very few satisfied customers.
Which brings me to your May 12 letter to Ms. Meiklejohn. “We lawyers traffic in human misery; we make our money off of it.” In the future, save that kind of observation for Joe or one of the other cowboys upstairs, over a beer. A remark like that invites contempt for the profession and displays a corrosive cynicism about lawyers, which in the long run can only damage the lawyer-client relationship. If you don’t respect what you do, neither will she. Remember, she’s not a friend or a colleague but a paying client who wants to think she’s hired a competent professional to protect her interests.
Maybe you should take a week off and go somewhere tropical. You don’t seem quite yourself. What is it about this divorce that’s getting to you? As I recall, you defended a child murderer without blinking.
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
TIME SHEET
Attorney Work Product
Client: Maria Mather Meiklejohn
Attorney: David Greaves
Date: May 21, 1999
Rate: $150/hour
Date Item Hour(s)
3/16/99 Preparing Memo to ASD on Divorce Interview n.c. (1)
3/23/99 Review of Interview Documents n.c. (1)
Preparing Memo to ASD on Representation n.c. (¼)
3/29/99 Meeting ASD & DG ½
Review of ASD Recusal Letter n.c. (¼)
Memo to ASD on Recusal Letter to MMM n.c. (¼)
4/5/99 Review of Official Documents ¼
Memo to ASD on Proposed Next Steps 1¼
4/6/99 Review of MMM Letter & Memo ¼
Review of Draft Letter to RK ¼
Review of Draft Letters to Financial Institutions ¼
4/22/99 Review of DED Settlement Offer & Letter from RK ½
Memo to ASD on DED Settlement Offer ½
4/27/99 Drafting Response to RK on DED Settlement Offer ½
Preparing Discovery Requests ½
5/3/99 Review of MMM Letter on DED Settlement Offer ¼
Preparing Memo to ASD on MMM Letter ¼
5/10/99 Review of Draft MMM Counteroffer ½
Preparing Memo to ASD on MMM Counteroffer ¼
5/21/99 Review of Letter to RK and Final MMM Counteroffer ½
Total Hours 6½
Bill $975
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
BILL FOR SERVICES
Attorney Work Product
Client: Maria Mather Meiklejohn
Rate: $150/hour
Period: 3/16/99 to 5/21/99
Date: May 21, 1999
Attorney: David Greaves 6½ Hours $975
Attorney: Anne Sophie Diehl 31½ Hours $4,725
Total: $5,700
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: Sophie Diehl
To: David Greaves
RE: Ms. Maria Meiklejohn: Settlement Offer Approved
Date: May 24, 1999
Attachments:
Ms. Meiklejohn waltzed into my office today, all smiles and complaisance, nothing like her recent correspondence. She approved the letter and settlement offer I drafted for Kahn, the bottom-line offer, and the bill. They made her practically giddy with pleasure—she positively hooted several times as she read over the papers—and she was surprised the bill was so low. “I thought I’d used up the retainer. Are you sure you’re not undercharging me?” She liked the request for reimbursement alimony and thought the time I spent on the memo well worth it. She said her husband was going to go berserk when he read the offer. “I’m feeling like Napoleon at Trafalgar. I’m not going to win, but I’ll do serious damage to the other side.” (My mother once said something very much to the same effect, though tailored more to my parents’ particularly apt nationalities. I thought it was a French/British thing; apparently not. Do all divorcing women feel like Napoleon, grandiose and fatalistic? What do all divorcing men feel like?) She smiled at me. “It’s better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees, no?” I asked if she was worried about her husband’s response. “Oh, I’m ready for him,” she said. “There’s really nothing he can do to me. Jane is the only thing that really matters, and if he challenges me on custody, I’ll sic my father on him. Just let me know if you need more money.” And then she was gone. She must have upped her meds.
The offer will go out tomorrow.
P.S. I shouldn’t have been disrespectful about lawyers in my letter to Ms. Meiklejohn. I’ll do my best to see it doesn’t happen again.
P.P.S. You must agree t
hat having to behave oneself all the time is a downside of civil practice. Don’t you find it at least a bit constricting? Don’t you ever want to say what you’re really thinking?
IV. NEGOTIATIONS
BRUCE MEIKLEJOHN
50 SAINT CLOUD
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
May 25, 1999
David Greaves
Traynor, Hand, Wyzanski
222 Church Street
New Salem, NA 06555
Dear David:
Maria showed me the settlement offer. That little Sophie Diehl is dynamite. I’d like her to work for me. Just kidding. Where did she go to law school?
The bill was a surprise. You charge me that much for a tenth of the time. You don’t have to eat the bill. I’ll pay. It’s worth it. I’d give anything to be in the room when Durkheim reads that letter.
I’d like to take you and Ms. Diehl to lunch at the Plimouth Club. What do you say to next Thursday, June 3?
Thanks for coming to the New York meeting. I know you don’t like being window dressing (not for three days), but having you there was very useful. For the first time since negotiations started, they looked worried. As they should. I’m going to take them over, one way or the other. You made them see that. How many shares will I have to sell to pay that bill? Just kidding.
Let me know about the 3rd.
Sincerely,
Harry Redux
* * *
From: Sophie Diehl
To: Maggie Pfeiffer
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 23:28:54
Subject: Harry Redux 5/26/99 11:28 PM
Dear Maggie:
Harry showed up tonight around 9, drunk as a skunk. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone that drunk since high school. He couldn’t stand up and was sloppily affectionate. (Memories of Jack.) At least he didn’t puke all over everything. In high school the boys always puked everywhere, on the car seat, on themselves, on you. Did they drink to puke? Anyway, Harry kept on saying how sorry he was. God, I hate drunks. I put him in the shower, made him drink a quart of water, then put him to bed. He’s there now. He hasn’t shaved in days, and he’s got huge, dark shadows under his eyes, like Nehru. He looks awful and yet he’s still so beautiful. I don’t know what he’s been up to—other than his cups in Jack Daniel’s. I couldn’t get a coherent word out of him, except, of course, “Sorry.” Do I sleep on the couch, or do I get into bed with him?
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Love,
Sophie
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: David Greaves
To: Sophie Diehl
RE: Bruce Meiklejohn’s Letter on MMM’s Settlement Offer
Date: May 27, 1999
Attachments: Bruce Meiklejohn’s Letter of May 25, 1999
Bruce Meiklejohn has invited you and me to lunch at the Plimouth Club on June 3. Can you make it? I think you’d enjoy yourself. Let me know. We can go somewhere else. Porter’s would work for you, wouldn’t it? He was very impressed with your work on the settlement offer. He said he wanted you to work for him. I’ve attached his letter.
That quote from Ms. Meiklejohn about dying on your feet. Where’s that from? Hemingway? No Frenchman said that, nor any Englishman. Men think they’re Sherman marching on Atlanta or Grant taking Richmond. Again, divorce as war, but a civil war, and victory is not in doubt.
P.S. I’m sorry I roped you into this divorce. But, come clean, aren’t you having a little fun with it? Truce?
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: Sophie Diehl
To: David Greaves
RE: Bruce Meiklejohn’s Invitation
Date: May 27, 1999
Attachments:
I’d like to have lunch with Bruce Meiklejohn—at Porter’s, not at the Plimouth Club, but we’ll have to change the date. I’ve got an evidentiary hearing on the 3rd. How about next Tuesday, the 8th? I promise to behave myself, but of course I can’t work for him. I’d be disowned. If you think I’m cranky now, just put me in the library with the Uniform Commercial Code. The only thing I remember from my course on commercial transactions (viz., the only thing I had to remember, according to my professor) was that the bank never loses.
The quote about dying on one’s feet is attributed to La Pasionaria, during the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway wasn’t a bad guess (he may even have used it in For Whom the Bell Tolls), though you clearly didn’t grow up under the tutelage of a Marxist father. (See supra, on being disowned.) That was my father’s favorite war. (Mine is WWI, the most heartbreaking slaughter.) He even wrote a book on England’s tacit support of Franco and the Nationalists (Papa’s interpretation), The Sixth Column.
I was planning to take off tomorrow for the Memorial Day weekend. I hope that’s okay. I’m going to Wellfleet, to my mother’s and Jake’s. My sibs are all coming. Is there anything else I need to do before I go? I’m up on all my other cases.
My parents’ divorce was a guerrilla war. The collateral damage was extensive and the pacification program unsuccessful.
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
May 27, 1999
Bruce Meiklejohn
50 Saint Cloud Street
New Salem, NA 06555
Dear Bruce:
I am glad you approve of the legal work the firm is doing for your daughter. Sophie Diehl is first-rate, smart as they come. She graduated from Yale, where she spent most of her time working on capital cases with Stephen Bright and his Southern Center for Human Rights. She then clerked for Anne Howard on the 13th Circuit. She’s not for you; she doesn’t know a tort from a breach of contract. That being said, she and I would like very much to have lunch, though she can’t make the 3rd. She’s got a very busy criminal calendar. Could you do the 8th? And would you be our guest at Porter’s? Sophie has a weakness for their double lamb chops.
Yours,
David Greaves
I did it again
* * *
From: Sophie Diehl
To: Maggie Pfeiffer
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 19:18:03
Subject: I did it again 5/27/99 7:18 PM
Dear Maggie—
You were right. Again. DG showed me a letter from the Big Client that made it clear he was in New York on firm business, advising on a takeover. If he saw my mother (and he still may have), she wasn’t the object of the trip. Just a fringe benefit.
I don’t know what to say about last night. I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it. Harry slept for about six hours. When he woke up at about 4 a.m., he hadn’t a clue how or why he came over. He was very apologetic (replaying the earlier part of the evening) about barging in. I don’t think the original apologies had to do with his turning up; I don’t know what they had to do with. Thank God, I slept on the sofa. As he got dressed to leave, I told him that he’d shown up about 9:30, completely slammered, sentimental, and apologetic. (I intended “completely” to modify all three adjectives.) He was embarrassed, but not as embarrassed as he might have been, or should have been. “I’m a wreck,” he said, smiling wanly and shrugging. Papa would have done the same thing. The gorge rose in my American throat. I wanted to say something mean like “I’m not charmed,” but I held my tongue. (Am I showing progress?) He apologized once more and left.
I’m off to Wellfleet for the weekend. The sibs are all coming. Perhaps I’ll ask my mother point-blank if she’s messing around with my boss. What’s the worst she can do? Perhaps I won’t ask her.
I feel better,
though I’m not sure why. Because Harry showed up? Because I wasn’t charmed? I often wish I could be like my father and Harry, self-dramatizing and self-forgiving. Buttoned-up is what you said I was, no? You were right. But those drama queens need sane people like me. No wonder my mother married Jake after all those years with Papa. I don’t know how he does it, but he never behaves badly. Jake says it’s because he was overanalyzed.
What time tomorrow are you leaving for Williamstown? How will you celebrate your anniversary?
Love to you and Matt,
Sophie
P.S. I’m so happy you and Matt like the print. My divorce client told me that paper was the proper gift for the first anniversary, so I thought, what better than an Ed Ruscha. But there’s paper and then there’s paper. “In my mother’s family,” my client told me, “the standard gift was engraved monogrammed note cards. Cream vellum, charcoal or navy lettering. I got seven sets on our first anniversary, from various great-aunts, two in the name of Mrs. Daniel E. Durkheim, one spelled ‘Durkhiem.’ ” What was it like to open that seventh box? Do you laugh, or do you cry? No returns possible, or regifting.
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: David Greaves
To: Sophie Diehl
RE: Meiklejohn at Porter’s Next Week
Date: June 2, 1999
Attachments: Letter from Bruce Meiklejohn
Letter to Bruce Meiklejohn from Mia Meiklejohn
I received a very interesting letter this morning from Bruce Meiklejohn, with an enclosure, another very interesting letter, from his daughter to him.
Lunch is on with him on the 8th at 12:30 at Porter’s.
BRUCE MEIKLEJOHN
50 SAINT CLOUD
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
The Divorce Papers: A Novel Page 21
