TO-WIT: FOUND IN TRANSLATION
I knew something was on her mind because she brought the letter in for me to sign and just stood there tapping her foot. "Yes," I queried, looking up at her over the top of those damned reading glasses Father Time has gifted me.
"Well, I typed i t the way you dictated it," she said, "and now I'm just waiting for your changes." "If there are changes I'll let you know," I snapped with a modicum of irritation, and she turned to go. But by the time she'd taken no more than two steps, I'd read through the entire salutation and I bade her stop. "I can't say this," I said, and, as always, she smirked. This is our ritual, and over our more than thirty years together we have reenacted it perhaps a thousand times - a year. She always knows when I can't send out a letter to opposing counsel the way I dictated it . It’s the plethora of hyphenated adjectives that clues her in.
The letter was gloriously merciless. In terms of the vituperative quality of the phrases and the artful, elegant way they were strung together, it was a work of art. I had broken new ground and probably a few new laws as well.
Now I don't dictate these kinds of letters to opposing counsel simply because I'm irked. I'm always irked. No, it usually takes something pretty significant to warrant such stylish excoriation, and on this occasion - but in no other in his career of which I am aware - opposing counsel had been successful.
Yet though I often dictate such letters with scorching earnestness, I almost always edit them with arctic prudence. When depositing such things in the US mail, there are issues of professional courtesy to consider. There are also those pesky federal obscenity laws. So I cleaned up the letter, removing all but a few veiled references to lineage, and off it went, bearing precious little resemblance to the document of original intent.
It would be a mistake for you to conclude from this that my epistles to opposing counsel always go out whisk broom clean. Oh no, I am not nearly that genteel - or professional. I have over the years developed a series of words and phrases which, although seemingly harmless on the surface, nonetheless give sufficient vent to my irk-laden spleen. You just have to know how to translate them, and now, just because I love you, that's what I intend to do.
So if you and I have locked horns over the last four decades, this might be a keen time for you to dig out some of those old files, pull out the correspondence and follow along. I do not intend to embarrass, annoy or anger anyone. Rather I intend this as a paean to the subtlety of the English language, and I know you will take this in the spirit with which it is intended.
"NO OTHER LAWYER I KNOW COULD GET THIS KIND OF OFFER FROM ME" - "Only a clown l i k e you would take this offer seriously."
"YOU DID A MARVELOUS JOB ON THIS CASE" - "Thanks so much, I couldn't have won this case if you weren't so inept."
"PERHAPS YOU MIGHT WISH TO RETHINK YOUR POSITION" - "Even the trial court would find it laughable."
SURELY THIS CASE CAN BE RESOLVED AMICABLY." "NO decent lawyer would make me do any real work on this pissant case."
"I KNOW YOU WILL TAKE THIS NI THE SPIRIT WITH WHICH IT IS INTENDED" - "Thank God t h e r e i s no chance you could ever understand what I'm really up to. "
© 2007, S. Sponte, Esq.