She sits straight, exhales with great drama and clenches her dentures together. “Lemme think about it.”
“Fine. But just remember. There are many things in your current will that you don’t like. If something happens to you, then—”
“I know, I know,” she interrupts, hands going everywhere. “Don’t lecture me. I’ve done twenty wills in the past twenty years. I know all about them.”
Bosco’s crying over by the kitchen, and she races off to comfort him. Booker mercifully finishes his consultations. His last client is the old man he spent so much time with during our original visit. It’s obvious this fella isn’t too happy with Booker’s summary of his mess, and I hear Booker say at one point as he’s trying to get away, “Look, it’s free. What do you expect?”
We pay our respects to Miss Birdie, and make a quick exit. Legal Problems of the Elderly is now history. In a few days our classes will end.
After three years of hating law school, we are suddenly about to be liberated. I heard a lawyer say once that it takes a few years for the pain and misery of law school to fade, and, as with most things in life, you’re left with the good memories. He seemed to be downright melancholy as he reminisced about the glory days of his legal education.
I cannot fathom the moment in my life when I’ll look back on the past three years and declare that it was enjoyable after all. I might one day be able to piece together some bright little memories of times spent with friends, of hanging out with Booker, of tending bar at Yogi’s, of other things and events which escape me now. And I’m sure Booker and I will laugh about these dear old folks here at Cypress Gardens and the trust they placed in us.
It might be funny one day.
I suggest we get a beer at Yogi’s. I’ll treat. It’s two o’clock and it’s raining, the perfect time to huddle around a table and blow an afternoon. It may be our last chance.
Booker really wants to, but he is expected at the office in an hour. Marvin Shankle has him working on a brief that’s due in court on Monday. He’ll spend the entire weekend buried in the library.
Shankle works seven days a week. His firm pioneered much of the civil rights litigation in Memphis, and now he’s reaping vast rewards. There are twenty-two lawyers, all black, half female, all trying to keep the brutal work schedule required by Marvin Shankle. The secretaries work in shifts so there’s always at least three available twenty-four hours a day. Booker idolizes Shankle, and I know that within a matter of weeks he too will be working on Sundays.
I FEEL LIKE A BANK ROBBER riding around the suburbs, casing the branches and deciding which will be the easiest to hit. I find the firm I’m looking for in a modern glass and stone building with four floors. It’s in East Memphis, along a busy corridor that runs west to downtown and the river. This is where the white flight landed.
The firm has four lawyers, all in their mid-thirties, all alumni of Memphis State. I’ve heard that they were friends in law school, went to work for big firms around the city, grew dissatisfied with the pressure, then reassembled themselves here in a quieter practice. I saw their ad in the yellow pages, a full-page spread, rumored to cost four thousand a month. They do everything, from divorce to real estate to zoning, but of course the boldest print in the ad announces their expertise in PERSONAL INJURY.
Regardless of what a lawyer does, more often than not he or she will profess great know-how in the field of personal injury. Because for the vast majority of lawyers who don’t have clients they can bill by the hour forever, the only hope of serious money is representing people who’ve been hurt or killed. It’s easy money, for the most part.
Take a guy who’s injured in a car wreck where the other driver is at fault and has insurance. He’s got a week in the hospital, a broken leg, lost salary. If the lawyer can get to him before the insurance adjuster, then his claim can be settled for fifty thousand dollars. The lawyer spends some time shuffling paper, but probably is not forced to file suit. He invests thirty hours max, and takes a fee of around fifteen thousand. That’s five hundred dollars an hour.
Great work if you can get it. That’s why almost every lawyer in the Memphis yellow pages cries out for victims of injuries. No trial experience is necessary—ninety-nine percent of the cases are settled. The trick is getting the cases signed up.
I don’t care how they advertise. My only concern is whether or not I can talk them into employment. I sit in my car for a few moments as the rain beats against the windshield. I’d rather be bullwhipped than enter the office, smile warmly at the receptionist, chatter away like a door-to-door salesman and unveil my latest ploy to get past her and see one of her bosses.
I cannot believe I’m doing this.
Eleven
M
Y EXCUSE FOR SKIPPING THE GRADUATION ceremony is that I have some interviews with law firms. Promising interviews, I assure Booker, but he knows better. Booker knows I’m doing nothing but knocking on doors and air-dropping resumes over the city.
Booker is the only person who cares if I wear a cap and gown and take part in the exercises. He’s disappointed that I’m not attending. My mother and Hank are camping somewhere in Maine, watching the foliage turn green. I talked to her a month ago, and she has no clue as to when I’ll finish law school.
I’ve heard the ceremony is quite tedious, lots of speeches from long-winded old judges who implore the graduates to love the law, treat it as an honorable profession, respect it as a jealous mistress, rebuild the image so tarnished by those who’ve gone before us. Ad nauseum. I’d rather sit at Yogi’s and watch Prince gamble on goat races.
Booker will be there with his family. Charlene and the
kids. His parents, her parents, several grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. The Kane clan will be a formidable group. There will be lots of tears and photographs. He was the first in his family to finish college, and the fact that he’s finishing law school is causing immeasurable pride. I’m tempted to hide in the audience just so I can watch his parents when he receives his degree. I’d probably cry along with them.
I don’t know if the Sara Plankmore family will take part in the festivities, but I’m not running that risk. I cannot stand the idea of seeing her smiling for the camera with her fiancé, S. Todd Wilcox, giving her a hug. She’d be wearing a bulky gown, so it would be impossible to tell if she’s showing. I’d have to stare, though. Try as I might, there’d be no way for me to keep my eyes off her midsection.
It’s best if I skip graduation. Madeline Skinner confided in me two days ago that every other graduate has found a job of some sort. Many took less than they wanted. At least fifteen are hitting the streets on their own, opening small offices and declaring themselves ready to sue. They’ve borrowed money from parents and uncles, and they rented little rooms with cheap furniture. She’s got the statistics. She knows where everybody’s going. There’s no way I’d sit there in my black cap and gown with a hundred and twenty of my peers, all of us knowing that I, Rudy Baylor, am the sole remaining unemployed schmuck in the class. I might as well wear a pink robe with a neon cap. Forget it.
I picked up my diploma yesterday.
GRADUATION STARTS at 2 P.M., and at precisely that hour I enter the law offices of Jonathan Lake. This will be an encore performance, my first. I was here a month ago,
feebly handing over a résumé to the receptionist. This visit will be different. Now I have a plan.
I’ve done a bit of research on the Lake firm, as it’s commonly known. Since Mr. Lake does not believe in sharing much of his wealth, he is the sole partner. He has twelve lawyers working for him, seven known as trial associates, and the other five are younger, garden-variety associates. The seven trial associates are skilled courtroom advocates. Each has a secretary, a paralegal, and even the paralegal has a secretary. This is known as a trial unit. Each trial unit works autonomously from the others, with only Jonathan Lake occasionally stepping in to do the quarterbacking. He takes the cases he wants, usually the ones with the greatest potential for large verdicts. He loves to sue obstetricians in bad baby cases, and recently made a fortune in asbestos litigation.
Each trial associate handles his own staff, can hire and fire, and is also responsible for generating new cases. I’ve heard that almost eighty percent of the firm’s business comes in as referrals from other lawyers, street hacks and real estate types who stumble onto an occasional injured client. The income of a trial associate is determined by several factors, including how much new business he generates.
Barry X. Lancaster is a rising young star in the firm, a freshly anointed trial associate who hit a doctor in Arkansas for two million last Christmas. He’s thirty-four, divorced, lives at the office, studied law at Memphis State. I’ve done my homework. He is also advertising for a paralegal. Saw it in
The Daily Record
. If I can’t get my start as a lawyer, what’s wrong with being a paralegal? It’ll make a great story one day, after I’m successful and have my own big firm; young Rudy couldn’t buy a job, so he started in the mail room at Jonathan Lake. Now look at him.
I have a two o’clock appointment with Barry X. The
receptionist gives me the double take, but lets it pass. I doubt if she recognizes me from my first visit. A thousand people have come and gone since then. I hide behind a magazine on a leather sofa and admire the Persian rugs and hardwood floors and exposed twelve-inch beams above. These offices are in an old warehouse near the medical district of Memphis. Lake reportedly spent three million dollars renovating and decorating this monument to himself. I’ve seen it laid out in two different magazines.
Within minutes I’m led by a secretary through a maze of foyers and walkways to an office on an upper level. Below is an open library with no walls or boundaries, just row after row of books. A solitary scholar sits at a long table, treatises stacked around him, lost in a flood of conflicting theories.
The office of Barry X. is long and narrow, with brick walls and creaky floors. It’s adorned with antiques and accessories. We shake hands and take our seats. He’s lean and fit, and I remember from the magazine spread the photos of the gym Mr. Lake installed for his firm. There’s also a sauna and a steam room.
Barry’s quite busy, no doubt needing to be in a strategy session with his trial unit, preparing for a major case. His phone is situated so I can see the lights blinking furiously. His hands are quiet and still, but he can’t help but glance at his watch.
“Tell me about your case,” he says after a brief moment of preliminaries. “Something about an insurance claim denied.” He’s already suspicious because I’m wearing a coat and tie, not your average-looking client.
“Well, I’m actually here looking for a job,” I say boldly. All he can do is ask me to leave. What’s to lose?
He grimaces and snatches at a piece of paper. Damned secretary has screwed up again.
“I saw your ad for a paralegal in
The Daily Record.”
“So you’re a paralegal?” he snaps. “I could be.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I’ve had three years of law school.”
He studies me for about five seconds, then shakes his head, glances at his watch. “I’m really busy. My secretary will take your application.”
I suddenly jump to my feet and lean forward on his desk. “Look, here’s the deal,” I say dramatically as he looks up, startled. I then rush through my standard routine about being bright and motivated and in the top third of my class, and how I had a job with Brodnax and Speer. Got the shaft. I blast away with both barrels. Tinley Britt, my hatred of big firms. My labor is cheap. Anything to get going. Really need a job, mister. I rattle on without interruption for a minute or two, then return to my seat.
He stews for a bit, chews a fingernail. I can’t tell if he’s angry or thrilled.
“You know what pisses me off?” he finally says, obviously somewhat less than thrilled.
“Yeah, people like me lying to the people up front so I can get back here and make my pitch for a job. That’s exactly what pisses you off. I don’t blame you. I’d be pissed too, but then I’d get over it, you know. I’d say, look, this guy is about to be a lawyer, but instead of paying him forty grand, I can hire him to do grunt work at, say twenty-four thousand.”
“Twenty-one.”
“I’ll take it,” I say. “I’ll start tomorrow at twenty-one. And I’ll work a whole year at twenty-one. I promise I won’t leave for twelve months, regardless of whether I pass the bar. I put in sixty, seventy hours a week for twelve months. No vacation. You have my word. I’ll sign a contract.”
“We require five years’ experience before we’ll look at a paralegal. This is high-powered stuff.”
“I’ll learn it quick. I clerked last summer for a defense firm downtown, nothing but litigation.”
There’s something unfair here, and he’s just figured it out. I walked in with my guns loaded, and he’s been ambushed. It’s obvious that I’ve done this several times, because I have such rapid responses to anything he says.
I don’t exactly feel sorry for him. He can always order me out.
“I’ll run it by Mr. Lake,” he says, conceding a little. “He has pretty strict rules about personnel. I don’t have the authority to hire a paralegal who doesn’t meet our specs.”
“Sure,” I say sadly. Kicked in the face again. I’ve actually become quite good at this. I’ve learned that lawyers, regardless of how busy they are, have an inherent sympathy for a fresh new graduate who can’t find work. Limited sympathy.
“Maybe he’ll say yes, and if he does, then the job’s yours.” He offers this to ease me down gently.
“There’s something else,” I say, rallying. “I do have a case. A very good one.”
This causes him to be extremely suspicious. “What kind of case?” he asks.
“Insurance bad faith.”
“You the client?”
“Nope. I’m the lawyer. I sort of stumbled across it.”
“What’s it worth?”
I hand him a two-page summary of the Black case, heavily modified and sensationalized. I’ve worked on this synopsis for a while now, fine-tuning it every time some lawyer read it and turned me down.