by S. Sponte, Esq.
“The only Zen you find on the tops of
mountains is the Zen you bring you there.”
Robert Pirsig
“Which way is up?”
S. Sponte, Esq.
“It happened just the way you said it would,” gushed my client with spontaneous, effervescent praise. “You said I would win, you told me when and how much and you were right, absolutely right. You are the greatest lawyer in the world.”
As a lawyer I never know exactly how to respond to spontaneous, effervescent praise, mostly because in the course of my professional career I have only encountered it none other times. In this particular instance however, as I talked to my client by telephone to tell her that the court had granted our motion for summary judgment, she was almost completely correct in her assertions. I had told her she would win, I had told her how much she would win, I had told her when and how she would win, and all of it had happened exactly as I had foretold.
However, as for her claim that I am the greatest lawyer in the world, well, she was only indulging in a bit of impulsive hyperbole. That she happened to be correct was mere coincidence.
Because of the way her case concluded, my client has no doubt been left with the impression that there is some sort of science to what I did, some sort of exactitude to the legal system that, on this singular occasion, played out in perfect harmony with expectations. But it’s a myth, to be longed for, for sure, but a myth nonetheless.
I didn’t think it was a myth when I graduated law school. Then I needed and wanted passionately to believe that the practice of law was rational, reasonable, scientific and predictable, capable of constructing clear and concise order from chaos, and I clung steadfastly to that belief until I had accumulated enough professional experiences to convince me that it was simply not so. It took about two weeks.
The simple and painful truth is that there is no science to this business, no clear-cut path to a result. As lawyers we do not even have the scientist’s luxury to modify the experiment and do it over again in an effort to obtain the desired result. Whatever limitations scientists may otherwise be obliged to contend with, res adjudicata is not one of them, unless of course, in the case of a physician’s patient, you count death.
I learned early on in my career not to predict anything for a client. The first time I did it, the results were disastrous. The case seemed simple enough, an automobile collision at an intersection. My client had been t-boned by another driver who had clearly run a stop sign.
“It’s an open and shut case,” I said with the youthful disregard of one who has never faced a jury, “and it’s worth $3500.00.”
But the defendant was young and handsome and my client, an elderly gentleman and bit irascible to boot, testified that at the time of the accident he had been wearing a hat. Well, the jury must have been composed entirely of people who have driven behind old men wearing hats, for it took them only five minutes to find for the defendant.
I took the loss hard, but my client was more philosophical. “It’s okay, young fella,” he said, placing a supportive arm around my shoulder, “you can pay me the $3500.00 over time.”
Why then, with such an instructive history, had I gone so far out on a limb in this latest case? I did it because I knew. For the first time in my career, I felt something. It was not a hunch, it was not a guess, it was not even a prediction. It was a certainty. I knew the facts, I knew the law, and I instantly perceived how the case would go. From the moment the client left the office after our first meeting, it was all fully formed in my head, procedure, result and all, and for the first time in my career, I was right on all counts.
It wasn’t just intuition. It was the perfect distillation of knowledge, experience and confidence in my ability, all singing the same tune, all foretelling the same result.
There is a wonderful little book, Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugene Herrigel. He writes of learning archery from a Zen master. He tells how the simple act of archery is broken down into many basic components, placing the arrow in the bow, drawing the bow, aiming for the target, loosing the arrow at the exact instant when the results are perfectly pre-visualized, and how each separate component of the act is rehearsed time and again until the process is no longer physical but rather intuitive, more sensory than anything else, when archer and arrow become one, the target becomes a mutual destination and the Force is with you.
For one brief and shining moment, that was me and it was glorious. I may never again see with such exactness, as the practice of law does not often lend itself to such clarity of vision. But the feeling is addictive.
The key is focus, and to that end, I have now adopted a mantra. At the conclusion of every initial client interview, I now retreat to my office, dim the lights, sit cross-legged in my desk chair with my eyes closed, and I repeat my mantra silently to myself. “Help, help, help.”
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Copyright 1991, S. Sponte, Esq.