TO-WIT: VERY WELL DONE
It was going to be a difficult hearing, no doubt. Judge didn’t like my client, my client didn’t like Judge; I didn’t like Judge, Judge didn’t like me, and my client and I weren’t all that crazy about each other. It had all the makings of a perfect storm.
At precisely ten o’clock, His Honor took the bench with his law clerk at his side. I would have given him full marks for punctuality had not the hearing been scheduled for nine.
“Let’s get on with it,” he said, “I’d like to find your client guilty before lunch.” There was no doubt that Judge had cited my client for contempt and scheduled this hearing for the sole purpose of ripping him a new one, and it was my charge to see to it that my client left the courtroom with naught but the same one he had entered with, not counting me.
The law clearly favored my client and the hearing went well; but for the judge, and, trust me, he was an enormous but, the outcome seemed assured.
Sure enough, at its conclusion Judge gruffly dismissed the contempt citation and exited the courtroom. My client stood to say something but my kick to his shins convinced him his silence would be sufficiently thunderous.
As I was leaving, client in tow and intact, the tipstaff approached me. “From the judge’s law clerk,” he said, and he handed me a sticky note that read “Very well done.” I nodded my head appreciatively to the law clerk and walked out.
“Very well done.” Huh! As I started the drive back to my office I stuck the note on the dashboard of my car; when I got back I stuck it to my desk, and when I went home that night I stuck it to my bedpost, forgetting for the moment that someone very special to me might misconstrue the meaning of the unfamiliar handwriting.
I didn’t know the law clerk, I have no idea if he’s a clever guy or a raving loony; sometimes in this business it’s hard to tell the difference. But I liked the applause, no matter the source, because it was just that, applause, and I bet you know why.
Who but us understands what we do? Who but us gets the clever argument, the artful cross examination, the brilliant brief, the expert wheedling and cajoling of a jury? And when was the last time a client said to you “Great summation,” or “Terrific brief.” Who but us knows “wow?”
Was my performance “wow?” I don’t know. I prepared well and I got the right result; but in the end that result, as results always do in this profession, depended entirely on how things get filtered through someone else’s brain, and I never know where that brain has been. If my client had been found in contempt, would my performance still have been a “wow?”
A few weeks later my client called. “Can we talk about the case,” he inquired. Was there to be applause?
“Sure,” I said, “what’s up?”
“You told me I hadn’t done anything wrong,” he went on, “that the law was clear and that this should be a slam dunk, right?”
“Yep,” I said, “that’s what I told you.”
“Then why was your bill so high?”
I still have that sticky note, though I’ve moved it from my bedpost, where it had no chance, to my shaving mirror. I see it now every morning when I shave and it always says the same thing, “very well done.” I repeat it out loud to myself several times, I take the razor away from my neck, and then I go to work.
© 2015, S. Sponte, Esq.