Court Appearance

One of the most quintessential moments in any new attorney's life is his first court appearance. A World War I fighter pilot once said that your first time in the air you are either exhilarated and think it is the greatest experience or you are terrified for your life and spend the whole ride trying not to vomit. This is a fairly accurate description of will happen the first time one pushes back the swinging door and sits down on that hard mahogany bench . Luckily, this is not my first time, and I already know I fall into the latter category. My court cherry was popped long ago, and, although my underwear still shows remnants of that stain to this day, it makes me so much more effective than 90% of the other attorneys in court at 8:00am on a Friday.

As I drag myself into the courthouse rotunda, I can see it filling with an array of young eager beavers and nervous nellies, would-be prima donnas, and others who would have been better served by accepting that quarter in contracts class with shame and taking up accounting. The young eager beavers always make me smile. They think that their law firm sent them to court for them to get "experience" and some even labor under the delusion that their firm's partners must really trust them and be confident in their abilities to send them to court so soon.

Ah, to be young an ignorant. What most of these youngsters don't appreciate is that there is a very good reason a partner sent him or her to court in his stead---and it is not due to some benevolent motive. Nigh, if you have been practicing under three years and find yourself in court at 8:00 am on a Friday on a case that is not your own, you better give that file another look because chances are, there is some little nugget of information buried deep inside that is about to explode in your face like the ass of a goose before takeoff. There is a reason you got that file 10 minutes before the court appearance and it is not because the partner "forgot" about the case or "had a scheduling conflict."

Now, I know that not every file has a doggie landmine lurking inside, but there are many other reasons why a young associate could find themselves in peril in court at this hour. For one thing, it’s a Friday, and while we are all professionals, the dirty little secret our clients don't know is that 80% of us continue the law school tradition of Thursday "bar reviews" to drown out the misery of the last four days. Aside from alcohol, Friday is when most of us are thinking about that call we have to make to our bookies to make up for that hit we took last week when our favorite team flushed four weeks of hard-earned fees down the drain in less than two seconds because their field-goal kicker doesn't know which direction straight is.

Thus, there is a very good chance that the judge is hung-over and malcontent, that opposing counsel is hung-over and irritable, and that the clerk and court reporter will be giving you that look like your wife/girlfriend/friend with benefits gives you when you come home at 10:00 after a few cocktails (which you did last night).

The smart youngins know this and thus have good reason to be losing their breakfast in the men's lavatory. What scares me are the naïve ones who think they are showing up to court to actually advance some worthy cause. These people are hard to deal with because they are too ignorant to be scared and probably actually read their file last night and are seeing clearly after their three doublegrandemochalateechines. However, if one has his wits about him, he can dredge up some statutes or vague common-law notions from the back of his cobwebbed mind and confuse the poor soul before any damage is done.

It is armed with this knowledge that I can confidently walk into court and look the judge square in the eye and say "Good Morning, Your Honor" and mean it.

New Client

A partner sent me into a meeting with a potential "new client" today. While ostensibly trying to help me "make contacts" in the community, I've been here long enough to know that any "new client" handed off to me comes from the reject pile. You know, the friend of a friend of a friend of a partner, whom they know has no case. These jewels of headaches, nightmares, and daily frustration come down the sanitary pipeline so the partners can look good to the public, while ensuring their associates spend endless hours swimming in muck, working on cases with no value so the firm doesn't have to pay their bonus at the end of the year.

Well, Mr. X comes in with a tale of woe and agony. He has been mistreated, maligned, his reputation besmirched and impugned, and he is angrier than a bull getting its testicles squeezed. After I sort through the wonderful web of woe he has fashioned, I am able to divine that he is upset because someone is threatening to sue him over a contract he signed. I then proceed to ask the obligatory question to which I know I will receive a negative response, to wit: Did you read the contract before you signed it?

After prolonging the matter for another 1/2 hour, I tell him I need to look into it before I can take the case and then tell the potential client he owes me $150 for my hour of time. He protests that he thought the initial consult was free. He then has the nerve to be offended when I ask him if he has been physically harmed in some gruesome fashion or otherwise has some potential jackpot of a case that I can take on as a contingency fee.

I send the poor man on his way after getting his phone number. I then give the contract another looksee and open up one webrowser to loislaw and another one to e-bay. My college furniture has finally bit the dust, and as much as I hate to get rid of uncle Joe's plaid hole-ridden coach, it is time to part ways. The fair maiden I entertained last evening was not impressed when the slipcover from Bed Bath and Beyond was inadvertently moved and revealed this time capsule from the days of arena rock.

After an hour of looking for a new couch to no avail, I call Mr. X and ask him to come back in this afternoon. I then sit down with him and segue into a fifteen minute monologue of legal jargon, run-on sentences, and deliberately obscure explanation of why he is screwed. Hey, that C I got in contracts at least makes it sound like I know what I am talking about.

I then ask for my $450 dollars, and you would think I asked for his first virgin daughter. Protestations, rants of indignity, and explicatives about lawyers flow from his mouth faster than the wildfires in California. After patiently enduring this nonsense, I explain to him that he has to pay a doctor if his arm hurts and the doc tells him it is not broken. He has to pay the plumber who can't find the source of the clunking noise under the sink. Why am I any different? Obviously I was not getting through to this man, so I explained what a small claims complaint was and directed him to our collections department.

If I am lucky the business manager will put a crowbar to his wallet and I can go shopping tonight.

Introduction

Seeing as this is my first post, I suppose I better introduce myself. The web is full of blogs by attorneys, mostly big rich important people at big important law firms, saying big important things. But most attorneys aren't handling the mult-million dollar real estate deals or raking in the bucks with big class action lawsuits.

Most attorneys, especially new ones, are trying to eek out a living, hoping to have a positive cash flow after their food, rent, and student loans are paid for each month. Most new attorneys don't drive the BMW or lexis or have the company car pick them up at their high rise condos. No, most new attorneys are driving around in the same used volvo held together by bumper stickers they drove in law school, hoping that the addition of the big "attorney" pizza sign on top will bring in some business.

This blog is dedicated to all those would-be rainmakers forced to take on pathetic cases involving pathetic people just to keep their lights on at home---they great unwashed "lower class" of attorneys, the ambulance chasers, scumbag protectors, and people who make used car salesmen look like fashion geniuses.

So while some fill their free time fretting about whether their ginormous firm will make them partner in four years (hint: they wont), I offer this sweet dish of rants, complaints, sarcasim and snobbery for your daily intellectual digestion.