So yesterday I got on my building's elevator, and a woman entered, and then a tall fellow. He looked at me and said my name. I said his. We got off on my floor together to catch up. I'll call him Jose, since that's his name.
Jose and I worked together at a firm in the Grove -- back in the 80s. He was married and had kids close in age to the Ds -- big teddy bear of a guy. Years after we met, we both had our own firms, and kept in touch. He had a "Door Law" practice -- took any clients who came through the door.
Once he had a car crash case -- he was going to settle for the $10K the tortfeasor had in insurance, but asked my advice. He had zero idea what uninsured coverage was. Turned out his client had $100K in liability coverage, but had never rejected UM. I explained this to Jose, and his $10K case turned into a $110K case. I was kind of hoping for a nice bottle or a dinner -- never came. That was ok.
We sent him a small case, and it turned out to be a big case -- big for him. His deal with us was to share in the fee 2/3 to him and 1/3 to us. The fee was $30K. He "forgot" to tell me he settled the case, but the client was a friend of my secretary Norma's, so she knew. We planned to bonus her based on our receiving the co-counsel fee. When I called him, he said "Sorry -- I'm broke. I can't pay you." That was not ok.
I had zero more to do with him over the decades, but Mike, who kept in touch, told me about a dozen years back, that he was disbarred. Sure enough, he stole from his trust account, and the Bar told him they no longer saw him fit to practice law.
Well, yesterday he told me since 10 years had passed, he applied for readmission. He took the Bar Exam and passed, and was now going through a vetting process. I thought about telling him off, but he has a sort of sad sack way about him. So I just said "Well, if you need a letter of recommendation, tell the Bar to contact me -- I'll tell them you only stole from my firm once, and it was probably 20 years ago!"
He chuckled, nervously, said goodbye, and got back on the elevator.
Jimmy Buffet's lyric was indeed sage: "Good times and riches and son of a bitches -- I've seen more than I can recall."
I went to the office and reviewed old emails. I had forgotten I had them -- I had an AOL account forever, and in 2017 while Wifey was in Atlanta, she got annoyed that AOL was charging $3 per month, and canceled her account -- canceling MINE as well. It was a TOP 5 most livid I was with her -- she had thoughtlessly tossed aside my entire electronic life over bupkis.
And, as I learned, reinstating my account was nearly impossible -- it ended up taking months -- during which time I switched to Gmail.
Well, I never deleted the old AOL stuff, and pulling it up for an depo was trip down memory lane. There were messages to and from the Ds about graduate school. There was a long email from Scott, my nephew of another brother, about J School at Maryland and how much he enjoyed it.
After work, I fetched Kenny at Baptist, and then fetched Wifey. We then drove to the Grove, for our bon voyage dinner for ourselves -- talking excitedly about next week's trip to France. They're arriving Tuesday -- we're due the following day.
There are worse things to look forward to than a river cruise down the Rhone. Wine and food await -- my kind of trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment