TO-WIT: THE PAD OF FRIENDSHIP

by S. Sponte, Esq.

I am sitting alone at my desk now, long past working hours. Its very gloomy, both outside and in. Slowly I take out the ancient yellow pad from my lower right desk drawer and slowly I cross off yet another name. Forty years ago there were a lot of names on this list, but now few remain, making every additional loss all the more excruciating.

This all started when I received my semiannual notice from the court to serve as an arbitrator, one of a three lawyer panel to act as judge and jury for the smaller civil cases. Though some colleagues gripe and moan about the obligation, I’ve always kind of liked it. It helps fulfill my fantasy of being a judge without having to spend a lot of time and money kissing butt to get elected while pretending to be, God forbid, just one of the guys.

Now normally these arbitration hearings are pretty laid-back affairs. The lawyers present their cases in a relaxed, less stressful environment than trial. If during the hearing anyone raises an evidentiary objection, we arbitrators always confer before making our guess. At hearing’s end all shake hands, the litigants and attorneys leave, and we arbitrators then make a decision based on as much of the facts and law as we either understand or care to acknowledge on that day and in that place.

As it happened, one of the attorneys trying the case assigned to my panel that day was an old time friend of more than thirty years, a good lawyer, honest, smart, ethical and fair. In my book he’s always been a winner. But not today.

Oh sure, I could have overlooked both the law and the facts to find in his favor. And sure, I didn’t have to spend fifteen minutes at hearing’s end convincing the other two arbitrators that their instincts to rule in his favor were errant. But on that day and in that place, I thought I knew what I was doing. I was also temporarily cursed by the courage of my convictions, and in combination, that’s as deadly a duo to conviviality as exists in this profession.

He was waiting for me outside the hearing room, beaming a smile and giving me an inquisitive thumbs up gesture, gleeful hope radiating from his face. I smiled back, raised my thumb skyward, then turned it down. The hope drained from his face, instantly replaced by the pallor of rage. He first hurled a string of epithets at me, followed up by his briefcase. It struck the door to the hearing room just behind my head, slamming it shut with a sickening thud. (Get the symbolism?)

“Even the magistrate got this one right,” he screamed as he stormed off, and I have to confess I was hurt. I’ve been called dumb before, but never that dumb.

Weeks have now gone by, and he hasn’t spoken a word to me. I see him at lunch, we pass in the street, there’s no response. To him, its as if I’m dead. So tonight I took out the pad of friendship and did what I had to do. I will miss him.

At times like these I try to assuage my angst by reminding myself that things like this happen in our adversarial profession and that, for my part, I must never give in to such base human responses. I am better than that.

Its no easy feat, believe me, but at times like this it helps to summon up all those many hours I spent with my erstwhile friend and to recall that in reality he isn’t all that smart, his table manners are quite atrocious and his golf game really sucks.

Ó2009, S. Sponte, Esq.