TO-WIT: KISSING IT GOODBYE
It was a very nice phone call from a colleague I had not heard from in some forty-five years. He had read one of my columns and was calling to tell me how much he had enjoyed it.
“You may not remember me,” he said, “but we had a case together a long time ago. I just wanted to let you know how much I’ve liked your writing over the years.”
I’m glad he evidenced such exquisite taste, but he was wrong; I remembered him very well. He had bested me in a case all those years ago. “Bested me” doesn’t accurately describe it; “eviscerated me” is more precise, and that’s why I remember him.
First off, let me tell you this; if getting my butt kicked is a criterion of remembrance, I don’t remember most of you at all. But this one was bad. I had been representing the president of a small corporation, and he was representing a disgruntled shareholder. We both had about the same level of trial experience, but there was one major difference; he knew something of securities law, and I knew squat. Much to my astonishment, that actually affected the outcome.
As we were exiting the courthouse following our first judicial conference, he snarled at me and said that I had better bend over and kiss my butt goodbye. I didn’t mind so much that he said it, I’ve said worse, but the way I eventually got humiliated in that case haunts me to this day.
The best move my client ever made was to fire me midstream and hire a lawyer who knew what she was doing. It made no difference though, my client lost everything, and probably deserved to. The news of the outcome came to me as an analgesic. He had, after all, fired me, there was that, but even more cathartic, I could have easily achieved the same result.
I have been away from the practice of law now for a couple of years, and that’s not the only case that has left me harboring disconcerting feelings. I still carry some of thee things around as personal affronts. It’s not that I disliked losing, it’s more that I hated it so profoundly that the feelings eventually migrated deep into the DNA of my psyche. It is no wonder, then, that I still yearn for revenge.
The lawyer in me is still very much around, and it seems like only yesterday when in the angry heat out of the moment I slammed my fist down on the table, rose to my feet with the alacrity of a he-wolf in defense of his cubs and screamed “I object, I object, I object.”
It seems like only yesterday because it was only yesterday. “Will you please shut up and sit down,” my wife yelled at me, “everyone in the restaurant is staring at you. Your pancakes are getting cold and you’re scaring the waitresses.”
My wife also tells me that I often snarl in my sleep. That’s not new, my first wife said the same thing, though that was more a lack of domestic tranquility than anything else. Still maybe the time had come for me to get some help.
“And why do you think such things still anger you,” the therapist asked me.
“If I knew the answer to that,” I replied, I wouldn’t need your help, now would I?”
“Ah, hostility,” he replied, “very good, let it out.”
I let it out by getting another therapist, but as it turned out, however, therapy did not seem to be the answer.
Surely I can’t be the only retired lawyer suffering with this post –career anger syndrome. In desperation I turned to Google for help; it was the only search engine that recognized the search term “nutzoid.” In short order, I came upon a website called PLEASE, an acronym that stands for Post Litigation Ease, and it seemed to be exactly what I needed. There was a phone number listed and I called for more information.
“Hi,” I said to the person who answered the phone, “I am a retired lawyer, and I am having anger issues.”
“You, and a million others,” the woman on the phone replied, “have you hurt anybody yet?”
“No,” I told her, “but I have been banned from IHOP.”
“You should consider one of our hand–embroidered punching bags. They’re the perfect thing for venting one’s raging hostility, and I can offer you a 15% professional discount.”
I do not have raging hostility,” I screamed at her and slammed the receiver back down into its cradle.
So maybe it’s not possible for me to just let this go. Perhaps there is a better way, and I think I know what it is. I know who those few lawyers at the root of this problem are, and they all know who they are as well.
So let me say this to them: if you knew what I have in mind to get even it would wobble your knees and crush the air out of your chest just like when opposing counsel asks one of those brilliant cross-examination questions that blows your entire case right out of the water, taking your contingent fee and your kid’s college tuition with it. Oh and hallelujah, it will be great. It's a pity though that I never thought of any of those brilliant cross-examination questions when we were litigating. It might’ve saved me lot of grief and sorrow.
©2024, S. Sponte, Esq.