TO-WIT: THE LAST LAUGH

by S. Sponte, Esq.

"Not a chance," said Billy, the same response he had given me seven times before in reply to my request that he contribute something to the settlement. I had beseeched, wheedled and cajoled him now for nigh on to incessantly, and his reply remained the same. I haven't begged anyone that much for anything since I pleaded with my hard hearted high school prom date for a feel. Her reply had been identical, and that's why I suspect she must now be doing defense work too.

The case was quite complex, an adjective I generally apply now to any case in which I don’t know the law. The whole matter revolved around a forged automobile title. The forger was now both penniless and incarcerated, twin qualities that had pretty much insulated him from civil justice's jumbled snare, and thus the remaining and thoroughly guiltless parties were left to slug it out among themselves.

Though I thought I knew the applicable law, Plaintiff’s counsel had faxed around a recent state supreme court decision which, horribile dictu, was exactly on point and which seemed to assure him of prevailing. Both Billy's client and mine could easily be left holding the bag.

However the case was not worth a lot of money to begin with, and the costs and fees would quickly escalate beyond all proportion to value. With Plaintiff willing to significantly compromise to avoid the considerable expense of trial, I had hoped to put together with Billy a modest offer of settlement and to thus put this case quickly to bed.

"Billy isn’t home right now,” a female voice replied the first time I called the number on his letterhead to discuss the matter, “this is his mommy, can I help you?” With that, hope took flight and wasn't expected back any time soon.

"Not a dime," said Billy when he returned my call, "my client's blameless."

And from that perch he steadfastly refused to be dissuaded. The risks, the costs, the aggravation and the time, they mattered to him not one iota, and my client being equally blameless, I was determined to not offer any money unless Billy did the same. Yet despite my resolve, the trial date crept inexorably closer, like a tsunami, merciless, unforgiving and unyielding, caring not a whit that Billy was a toad.

What do you do with a lawyer like that, as unmoved by the pragmatics of law as a stone, a reckless, callow simpleton of the profession whose time means little, whose clients mean less, and who stands oblivious to the unwritten rules to which his colleagues bow, scrape, shiver and sweat on a daily basis, oh what do you do?

What you do, if you're any good at all, is flinch, and that's just what I did the day before trial when I called Plaintiff's counsel and settled the case. Billy paid nothing, true enough, but it still cost my client less to settle than it would have to win by trial. In that regard, if no other, I did my client a service.

So who here had the last laugh? For sure it wasn't me. Yet still I have to stand back and marvel in bemusement and distress at the dark wit and ironic synergies of a profession that can treat the skilled like a poor stepchild and the less talented with wholly unwarranted deference.

Oh, I'll get over it, yes I will. But for the moment I can't help but recall the prom days of my youth when, as now, I was left pretty much feeling nothing at all.

©2007, S. Sponte, Esq.