TO-WIT: COURT JESTER
As my devoted readers know, all several of them, I am no longer actively engaged in the practice of law. The time to call it quits comes to all of us sooner or later, and I say that because the timing varies widely depending on one’s luck, one’s health, and how much one’s intellect and character merits being struck down by lightning sooner rather than later. Whichever though, come it does.
Although I still have my license and still attend the CLEs necessary to maintain it, I nonetheless tell everyone how much I like having time for other things, like playing the banjo and going to doctors and venting this curious passion I have to write humorously about our profession, as this current endeavor hopefully evidences. I also spend a fair amount of time re-watching some of those old and wonderful television shows that had irretrievably attached themselves to my heart and soul upon first viewing.
First and foremost on that list, as it always will be, is Rumpole of the Bailey. Many of you will instantly understand its prominence in my affections, for you watched it as well and were as captivated by its cleverness, its authenticity, and its great good wit as I was. There are those of you, of course, who haven’t a clue what or whom I’m talking about. Perhaps this then might be a good moment for you to take your leave and spend the time thus gained for your grunting, scratching, and trying yet again to hit the spittoon from ten feet away.
Thanks to the miracle of internet streaming, I recently had the inestimable pleasure of spending an entire evening with Horace Rumpole. I hadn’t seen him in quite a while and was enthralled to find that he had lost none of his charm, none of his wiles, and none of his wit. As ever, I was smitten by the goings on in his practice, his chambers, and his life. I have no intention of going into any of the details; if they interest you, you can find them for yourself. No, my point here lies altogether elsewhere.
I have always thought I had some Horace in me. I too have made people chuckle in a courtroom, I too have been as irascible as a boil on one’s derriere, and I too have caused opposing counsel to turn purple with indignancy; it is, after all, my favorite color. I have even on occasion cross-examined a witness in a manner causing many an otherwise appropriately austere judge to roll on the bench with sweetly inappropriate laughter.
Practicing law not with a rapier of steel but of wit has, for better and worse, been the métier intended me from birth, and in six words, I was really good at it. With such weaponry, I have bested more than my share of bearded, beady villains, and just as I have always loved that penchant about Horace, I am certain he has always loved that penchant about me as well.
So there we were the other night, just Horace and me. He had once again prevailed with his habitual flair, and as I watched the credits roll, I realized that this episode was over forty years old. In an instant I reasoned out that I had been over forty years younger when I first saw it.
And that’s when it coldcocked me; the passage of those forty years has carried off with it almost the entirety of my career. I haven’t been in a courtroom now in a couple of years, I haven’t had a new client in longer than that. I haven’t drafted one new clever pleading or mocked one single opposing counsel in ages. There was just no escaping it; I am not a lawyer anymore.
I know you’re going to think this is hokey because I think it’s hokey, but I became a lawyer to fight the good fight. None of this endless propagating of documents that passes for lawyering these days, no transactional fussing and fuming about for me, no, I wanted the courtroom, I wanted bare knuckles, I wanted to chase down justice until I had it squirming and squealing in my grasp, bent entirely to my will, and I wanted to be the someone who stood up for the no ones who had no one else to stand up for them. Not even the bad back that has plagued me for years and prevents me from being on my feet too long has dulled that lust. That I chose wit as my first line of offense was perhaps the only way I knew how to civilize me. Scratch beneath the surface of a clown and you’ll find flames and sorrow, that’s true, but it does nothing to stop the itch.
I have this recurring dream now. I’m entering a courtroom again, carrying a briefcase in each hand and an accordion file under each arm. The courtroom is packed with an audience that watches with a hush as I sit myself down at counsel’s table. I’ve taken this case only because of the exhortations of referring counsel. He knew I was retired, but he tells me the clients are desperate, that no one else could possibly help them, and that they don’t have a dime to pay me.
The judge enters the courtroom and seats himself on the bench. “Are you ready to proceed, Mr. ______,” he asks me.
The pain in my back suddenly disappears, I grope around for my whoopee cushion, and Horace and I stand up.
©2021, S. Sponte, Esq.