by Reason of Sanity (2 page)

Indovine calls the staff meeting together in his law firm’s luxurious Century City conference room. “Gentlemen, we have a little competition now.” He holds up a document. “It seems that our old friend Peter Sharp, the faith-healer case lawyer, wants to do some defense work. He’s sent out some inquiry letters, and this one was received by one of our largest clients, Uniman Insurance.” The junior partners see a smile on Indovine’s face and sense that this amuses him, so they react in kind, with sarcastic smirks.

“So what, they’ll never hire h im. I hear he’s a small-time jerk who practices off of a boat in the Marina,” comments an associate.

Indovine disagrees. “I don’t know. He beat us on that bullshit asbestosis case, and the Insurance Industry’s computer database shows that he’s done a good job on some other matters of dubious merit. Perhaps there’s an outside chance our client might take a flyer on him, just to keep us on our toes.”

Another associate comes up with an idea. “Then let’s beat everyone to it. We can farm out some stuff to him… like the losers.”

Indovine takes the ball and runs with it. “Good idea. We can give him the crap to defend. That’ll keep our batting average up and give him a bad track record from the get-go.”

The associate responds. “I’ve got just the case: That slip and fall in the bank. The claimant landed on his side and broke two ribs. Plenty of witnesses to the spilled coke on the floor because it was there for almost twenty minutes before the claimant came in.”

Indovine lays out the strategy. “OK, I’ll advise the client that we have a chance to win this one because the claimant should have seen the dark colored spill on the floor. Then, we’ll tell them that we’re assigning it to attorney Sharp and let him take the blame for blowing it.”

The Saint Bernard has just entered my stateroom with a message in his mouth. Around here we refer to this as ‘dog-mail.’ I remove the moist envelope, blot it dry and open it up to find a letter that came in while I was on vacation. It’s from Indovine’s defense firm:

Dear Mister Sharp:
It has come to our attention that you are desirous of doing some defense work, and we would like to welcome you to the true side of justice by offering to assign some cases to you.

If you would like to associate with us, our client has authorized us to send you the file on a claim that we feel can be handled successfully.

Please contact our office if you’d like to give it a try. Our current schedule allows for a rate of one hundred dollars per hour of pre-trial work, with a minimum advance of fifteen hundred dollars per file, once civil discovery commences.

This is encouraging. If I get some work of my own outside of Melvin’s firm, I can keep the whole fee and only pay the office for secretarial services. My deal with Melvin was that as long as I get the firm’s work done, my time is my own to try and build up an independent private practice. I send a message to Indovine’s office that I’ll give the first case a try and that he should send the file over.

To my surprise, a messenger shows up later that afternoon with a package containing a fifteen hundred dollar advance check and the case file.

I’ll never understand why defense firms operate like this. The file indicates that a man named Mike Drago slipped and fell in the bank. Plenty of witnesses, wet floor, real damages, and now they want to spend more money screwing around fighting it than it would cost them to settle it outright. I guess it’s to show people that they’re not pushovers and if you want to make a claim, you’ve got to be prepared for a fight.

Along with the file is a list of approved and authorized resources I’m allowed to use for private investigation, background checks, process serving, surveillance, and a lot of other services I’ll probably never use. It looks like they want to use a one-ton fly swatter on this gnat of a case – but who am I to argue? It’s their money and they obviously want to spend it.

The file indicates that the claimant already has an attorney named Richard Handelmann, with an office on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. I’ve never heard of him but with almost two hundred thousand lawyers in California, it’s hard to keep track.

I get a notice o f representation off to Handelmann’s office, letting him know that I’m on the case and decide to see what the scene of the fall looks like. Taking Suzi’s advice, I note my mileage before leaving and then head down Washington Boulevard to Culver City.

After introducing myself to the bank manager, I spend a little time with their seventy-five year old security guard, but he doesn’t remember much about the incident. That’s understandable. He doesn’t remember much about anything.

Next, I check with the bank’s security manager, to see if they caught the fall on one or more of their video cameras. I’m informed that yes, the fall is on tape, and the bank keeps copies of the videos for at least six months.

Wonderful. Not only do I have a losing case, it’s even recorded on the bank’s security cameras. Why the hell didn’t this thing settle already? The claimant’s medical bills are over four thousand, he doesn’t claim any loss of earnings, and the file doesn’t even contain one note about authorizing a settlement.

If I were handling this ca se on the other side, I’d make a demand of fifteen grand and wait for the defense to come back with a counter-offer. In this file, there isn’t even a demand from the guy’s lawyer. Something doesn’t compute.

After only about an hour of dozing, the phone rings. The caller ID on my phone shows that it’s my ex-wife Myra, the former deputy district attorney who had me indicted and arrested last year. Fortunately, I beat those charges. “Hello sweetheart, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

“Don’t sweetheart me, you idiot. My sources at the district attorney’s office tell me that your picture turned up on some security tapes today.”

“That’s not surprising. Cameras are everywhere. I stopped for gas. They have cameras at that station. I stopped for a six-pack. They have cameras at the liquor store. Which one did you like best – maybe I can get you an enlargement for your bed stand… or perhaps some wallet-sized?”

“You ’re still the schmuck, aren’t you? The cameras I’m talking about are the ones at the bank in Culver City.”

“You were there at about two-fifteen this afternoon?”
“Yeah, some time around there. Why?”
“Because the bank was robbed minutes after you left.”

ow that Myra’s convinced I’m involved with some bank robbers, it’s almost a relief to get a phone call from Stuart. I explain the day’s events to him and let him know that it’s just a coincidence, but he’s a firm believer in the whacko world of hocuspocus, so in his mind it’s a big conspiracy that I’m now involved in. I tell him to go back to his faith healer for some therapy.

While he’s got me on the phone, he tells me about his buddy Vinnie Norman, who was injured last week when a tree fell on him. Being a friend of Stuart’s, he’s looking for someone to sue. Why am I not surprised?

“Stuart, just because someone’s injured doesn’t mean that someone’s at fault. There are accidents, acts of God, all sorts of reasons why someone can be hurt without having someone to sue.”

“Yeah Pete, I know, but Vinnie was hurt because of a drunk driver.”
“Stu, I thought you said that a tree fell on him.”
“I did, but the tree fell because it was hit by a drunk driver.”
“Well that’s a different story. Do you know if the driver has any insurance?”
“Not likely. He was driving a Lexus that he had just stolen from a restaurant parking lot. He’s in jail.”
“What about Vinnie? Does he have any insurance, like uninsured motorist?”
“Naw, he’s a poor guy. Doesn’t even have a car. He works for me in my Van Nuys warehouse. Do you have any advice for him?”
“Yeah, tell him to take two aspirins and not call me in the morning.”
“Come on Pete, there’s gotta be some-thing you can do.”
I tell Stuart that I’ll look into the matter and that he should stop by the boat tomorrow with the police report of the accident. I really don’t know where to start with this one, but I figure that the internet would be as good a place as any, so I do what any other normal professional person would do - I give the assignment to the little princess in the forward stateroom. She’s the computer whiz. Besides, this’ll be a case that the office will share in, so the office might as well do some work on it.
People who go to law school usually find out pretty early on how they’ll wind up as professionals. There’s an unwritten law that governs the careers of law students, and over the years it’s been found to be quite accurate. Simply stated, the ‘A’ students become judges, the ‘B’ students become teachers, and the ‘C’ students make a really good living, working for the wealthy ‘D’ students.
I was a C-minus student, always hoping that someday my future might be as bright as that of a D student. It never hurts to aim low.
The reason the D students do so well is because instead of developing their knowledge of the law, they spend most of their time developing their knowledge of schmoozing. Law doesn’t bring in clients. Schmoozing does.
If you go to a big accredited law school with ivy growing up the walls, you learn how to play golf. If you go to an un-accredited night law school with mold growing up the walls, you learn how to schmooze. I went to the latter, which was nicknamed the Betty Crocker College of Law, so I never learned how to ruin a perfectly good walk by stopping to try and hit a little ball with a club. All I ever learned how to do was get clients. You never have to worry about having too many clients, because former C-student lawyers looking for work are much easier to find than clients.

The next afternoon, Stuart shows up at the boat. He’s looking as round as ever - obviously, he’s not using the weight-reduction juice he sells all over the country. His buddy Vinnie is with him and I’m told that he’s a former XXX film director, who used to turn out a new porno flick every week, until the vice squad put him out of business. Vinnie is a tall, gray man who looks more like a doctor than a pornographer. He looks surprisingly classy, but that image is destroyed as soon as he opens his mouth and I hear his ‘New Joisy’ dialect. Compared to him all the Sopranos sound like English professors. As we’re talking, I can’t help but notice the odor of grass coming from Vinnie’s sweater… the smoking kind.