The Neon Lawyer (3 page)

Five

Brigham woke up early the next morning. He googled “law firms in salt lake city” and read down the list. At least thirty were within walking distance, and half a dozen were in the US Bank building that wasn’t more than a mile from his house.

He only had one suit, which he’d bought secondhand from a place called Deseret Industries, and two ties. He wore his best white button-down shirt, which meant the only one without any stains, and shined his shoes with a damp paper towel. Brigham stared at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look one bit like a lawyer. He looked like someone imitating a lawyer, who was worried everyone would see through him. It didn’t matter, though—he had nothing else to do today.

The bike ride was short and easy, predominantly downhill, so he didn’t even have to pedal and risk working up a sweat. The US Bank building was on Main Street, past the largest shopping mall in Utah, and across the street from Lamb’s Grill—a place Brigham had always wanted to eat at but couldn’t afford.

He locked his bike to a newspaper bin, got out six résumés, and went in. The first floor was all glass and shine. An old security guard was asleep at a black desk. Brigham sneaked past him to the list of tenants and memorized the floors with the law firms. Then he hopped on the elevators and went to the highest one, on the sixteenth floor.

The law firm had no walls, only glass. The carpets were white and clean and the windows went from floor to ceiling and looked down onto Salt Lake City. Noles, Valdo & Whittaker. Brigham strolled in confidently. It was fake confidence. He actually felt like he could vomit at any second. But he stood in front of the receptionist, who looked up at him without smiling.

“Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to one of the partners, please.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. Whoever is in charge of hiring.”

She looked him up and down as though he were a beggar asking for change. In some ways, he felt that way, too.

She called someone on her phone and said, “There’s some guy here to talk to whichever attorney is in charge of hiring . . . Yeah . . . Yeah, okay.” She hung up. “Just a moment.”

The lobby was plush, and the paintings on the walls all looked as though they cost more than the house Brigham lived in. He could see through the glass back into all the offices and saw men and women in suits hurrying around, their coats off and their sleeves rolled up. Two older men were in a conference room with boxes of documents, a large plasma-screen television at the front of the room showing a PowerPoint slide.

“He’ll see you now,” the receptionist said.

Brigham followed the receptionist to an office in the back where a portly man sat behind a large desk. Documents were scattered everywhere—stacked on chairs, piled high on the desk, and stuffed onto shelves. The man was rubbing the bridge of his nose between red-rimmed eyes with dark circles below.

“What do you need?” he asked.

Brigham stepped forward. “My name’s Brigham Theodore, sir. I’ve recently been sworn in to the Bar, and I’m looking for employment.” He slid his résumé across the desk. “I’ve aced trial advocacy, as you can see. My grades aren’t the best, but that’s because I wanted to have a life, too.” Brigham smiled, but when the man didn’t, he stopped and cleared his throat. “Anyway—”

“Let me stop you right there, son. Trial ad’s great, but no associates here go to trial. The partners handle that. Ten or fifteen years down the line, maybe we’d trust you with a trial. What we need associates for are research and writing—that’s it. And the best researchers and writers are those in the top of their class, and only from certain schools. We recruit mostly from Harvard and Stanford. I’m afraid you’d have to be quite exceptional to compete with them.”

“I understand that, sir, but I’d be willing to work for nothing until—”

“Sorry, we don’t need anyone right now.”

Brigham nodded and put out his hand to shake, but the man had gone back to his paperwork.

The next three law firms Brigham visited were nearly identical: mahogany paneling, attractive legal secretaries and paralegals, and attorneys who wouldn’t give him the time of day. He didn’t go to the right prep schools or belong to the right clubs. He wasn’t one of “them.” He was an outsider, and even offering to work for nothing wasn’t enough to convince them to hire him.

So he decided to expand. He went to every law firm he could find—solo practitioners in basement offices, personal injury firms with offices just off the freeway and surrounded by billboards, social security disability firms that used clerks to do the work that attorneys should have been doing. No one was hiring. The only firm that showed interest, after he’d said he’d work for free, was a personal injury and medical malpractice firm operating out of a house that had been turned into offices. The man interviewing him, Matt something, was nice enough, and the offer of working for nothing perked him up.

But in the end, even they turned him down when one of the other partners informed Matt that they already had three law students working for nothing, and didn’t need any more.

By afternoon, Brigham had been to over thirty law firms and had heard the same thing over and over: business was down, no one was hiring. The ones that were hiring only recruited from the top ten schools, and only wanted a certain type of associate. It was a club you had to be born into and couldn’t join.

Brigham ate a donut in front of the public library downtown. The building was far more futuristic than the surrounding shelters and government-subsidized housing would lead someone to expect. It’d been built when the Olympics had come to Salt Lake in 2002 and was primarily used by the homeless now as a place to waste away the hours of the day. Five stories of glass sloped at an angle to give the impression of falling. Brigham had spent a lot of time there when studying for the bar, and the place felt comfortable to him.

As he finished the last of his donut, he glanced around and noticed a small set of offices. He’d seen them before and never taken notice. Now, they seemed like a glimmer of hope.

There was a sign in front of the building naming the tenants, and they included
T
HE
L
AW
O
FFICES OF
TTB
. He threw the donut wrapper in a trash bin and headed across the street.

Above the entrance to the law firm was a neon sign that read
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
. Brigham stared at it a bit. It was an odd placement since the sign wasn’t really visible from the street. Someone had just wanted neon above the door.

He went inside and tapped the bell on the counter at the receptionist’s desk. After half a minute, an elderly woman stepped out from around the corner. She looked him up and down.

“Yes?”

“May I speak to the attorney in charge of hiring, please? Um, Mr. TTB if he’s available.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, ma’am, I’m a newly minted attorney and I’m here to offer my services.”

She grimaced. “Hold on.”

The woman stepped back around the corner, returning a moment later to tell him, “Go on back. First office to the left. Tommy is ready to see you.”

Tommy, Brigham thought. Not Thomas. He liked this place already. He walked down a corridor and found the office, where a giant of a man sat at the desk. He was easily three hundred pounds, but not fat—not really; he looked more like a linebacker. His black cowboy boots were up on the desk and he wore a gold ring on every finger and both his thumbs. He had a ponytail despite the fact that the top of his head was balding. He had a phone against his ear. He held up one finger telling Brigham to wait, and then pointed to a chair in front of his desk.

“Yeah,” Tommy said into the phone, “I get that. But he’s lookin’ at ten on the child porn charges anyway. So I don’t think the gun charges matter. We’re just gonna plead him. Yeah . . . yeah, okay . . . yeah, bye.” Tommy hung up and glared at Brigham a moment before thrusting out his meaty hand. “Tommy Lenin, pleased to meet you.”

Tommy had a thick Russian accent but every word was pronounced correctly. Brigham guessed he had studied English intensively for some time.

“Brigham Theodore.”

“Brigham. I like the name, brother. So Kathy told me you’re a new attorney.”

“Yes, sir. Been licensed one day.”

He smiled and took a cigar out of the desk followed by a gold lighter, which he used on the end. “That’s great. Good decision, Brigham. Being a lawyer’s a lotta fun. You get to fuck the government every now and again. You like fucking the government?”

“Um, well, I’ve never actually done it. But I’d like to.”

“Excellent. Come outside with me.”

Brigham rose and followed him. The people he saw on the way through the office were an odd assortment. Several men in short sleeves with wrinkled ties, a couple of young staff, and one woman he noticed, blonde and dressed far too elegantly for her surroundings, sitting in the largest office other than Tommy’s. She glanced at him and then away again.

“Come on outside,” Tommy repeated.

Once outside, Tommy sucked on his cigar and let the smoke whirl around him.

“See that there?” Tommy said, pointing to the building next door. “What do you see?”

“Um, a bail bonds agency.”

“It’s a gold mine is what it is, Brigham. That’s how I make my bread. You see, all them uptight sonsabitches at the Bar don’t know nothin’ about what it’s like to actually practice law. That’s why they got all them ethical rules. Lawyers weren’t even allowed to advertise until twenty years ago—we had to take it all the way to the fucking Supreme Court. So now they bind our hands to try and limit us.”

“How so, sir?”

“Take personal solicitation. According to the Bar’s ethical rules, a lawyer can’t personally solicit business. Can’t walk up to some poor bastard that’s been in an accident and give him a card. I been reprimanded by the Bar sixteen times for that shit and nothing has stuck—not a one. But it takes time to fight ’em and earn a living. But now I got this,” he said, looking over to the bail bonds agency. “I have them do all the soliciting and they only send clients to one law firm. You see what I’m saying? If you’re gonna make it in this business, it’s all about gettin’ creative. You wanna fuck the government, but you also wanna hide from the Bar. Don’t appear on their radar. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He stood staring at Brigham, drawing in a large mouthful of smoke, then blowing it out. “Go talk to Scotty. He’ll get you set up. I get fifty percent of any case you bring in. Any case I give you, you get twenty-five percent. Fair?”

“Yes,” he said. It certainly wasn’t anything near fair, but he wasn’t about to argue with the first job he’d gotten as an attorney.

Tommy headed back into the building. He stopped and looked at Brigham. “Welcome to the fire, kid.”

Six

Brigham stood awkwardly in the middle of the office, people passing him without saying hello. He looked for the blonde woman he’d seen earlier, but he couldn’t find her. There were probably a dozen lawyers; no one noticed that he was new.

Finally, a man as round as a basketball and wearing thick glasses stepped out of an office. He shuffled over and put out his hand, which still had chocolate stains on it—or at least what Brigham hoped were chocolate stains.

“You’re Brigham, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Scotty. Everyone calls me that ’cause my name’s Scott and I’m from Scotland. ’Cause o’
Star Trek
.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“Lemme show you around.”

They began the tour at reception. Scotty had a nervous tic and every once in a while his shoulder would twitch as he pointed people out and shouted their names. When they were out of earshot again, he’d tell Brigham something awful about them.

She had an abortion last year.

He likes to cheat on his wife with transsexuals
.

He shoplifts for fun
.

She got drunk once and blew a guy who turned out to be her uncle
.

Brigham’s initial impression of chaos and a disjointed staff vanished. He could see the theme now: All of these people were there because they didn’t have better offers. Only the staff were salaried. Scotty told him the lawyers all had the same deal Brigham had been given.

Near the end, they’d reached the corner office where the blonde woman was drafting a document. Brigham’s heart raced. He tried to appear as cool as he could by leaning against the wall, but his shoulder slipped, and he nearly fell over. The woman grinned.

“Hi, Brigham Theodore.”

“Molly,” she said.

“He’s the new guy,” Scotty chimed in.

“Well, welcome to the firm.”

Scotty walked away but Brigham stood there, racking his brain for something, anything, to say. He noticed a collection of basketball trophies, and photographs on the wall.

“You played?” Brigham said.

“In college. You?”

“No, running was my sport.”

She glanced back to her old photos. “If women had an even shot with men, I would have been able to go pro. But I abandoned it for law school because I thought that’s what would lead me to the glamorous life.”

“Has it?”

She chuckled. “I’m here, aren’t I? But I can’t complain. My class had a hundred and ten graduates and less than half of them have full-time employment. Take out the ones that aren’t doing anything related to law and you’ve got a quarter of a law school class that are actually lawyers.”

“Same with mine.” He glanced down the hall at Scotty, who hadn’t noticed Brigham wasn’t there and was talking to himself. “Tommy seems . . . interesting,” Brigham said. “Why is it the ‘Law Offices of TTB’?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Brigham shook his head.

“TTB stands for Tommy Two-Balls.”

Brigham chuckled but stopped when he saw she was serious. “Why would he ever call his law firm that?”

“You’ll have to ask him. A lot of rumors, but I doubt any of them are true.”

Scotty yelled out, “Brigham, you comin’?”

“I’d better go,” Brigham said to Molly. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

Brigham followed Scotty past the break room and to what looked like a utility closet.

“Your office,” Scotty said. “Hang out for a minute and we’ll get some work to you. Just drafting documents and stuff.”

“Can I ask you something—do people here make good money?”

Scotty shifted from one foot to the other and Brigham got the impression he was uncomfortable. “Depends on them. If you hustle and get clients you’ll do fine.”

And with that, Brigham was left alone. The office had a desk and chair, but the desk appeared to be from an elementary school. He sat behind it and looked out the only window in the room to the parking lot. His view was of the last car in the row and a Dumpster.

He sighed, wondering why he’d chosen to go to law school in the first place. His degree was in biology. His college counselor had kept trying to talk him out of law school, saying that someone with a scientific mind wouldn’t enjoy the work—unless he were to go into patent law, which Brigham had no interest in.

He stood up again and peeked outside the office. People were shouting into phones and others were speaking in hushed tones, recounting cases either won or lost. He went outside and turned around. He stared at the neon sign, then glanced over to the bail bonds place. A man who looked like the Terminator stepped out, got onto a Harley, and sped away.

Brigham strolled into the bail bonds office. A woman with a small dog sat behind the counter.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Brigham. I just got hired next door.”

“Oh, another lawyer. You a young kid.”

“Yes ma’am. Twenty-six.”

“Why you wanna work for Tommy Two-Balls?”

“It’s a job.”

“You wanna know why he calls himself that, don’t ya?” She shook her head. “The only person who knows is Scotty and he don’t tell no one.” She took out a stack of business cards and slid them to him. “You get a client that needs bail, you send ’em to me. For every client that you send me, I send one that needs a lawyer to you.”

“Isn’t that . . . I mean, don’t the Bar ethics rules prohibit a mutual-referral plan with a non-lawyer?”

She stared at him for a moment in silence, and then burst out laughing.

“Thanks for the cards.”

As he left, she was still laughing.