April 19, 2013

41 of 65

For This I Went to Law School?

I can’t say for sure, but I think most lawyers who grew up in the 1950s or 60s have at one time or another wanted to sue Perry Mason for fraud. However, Mason has avoided all lawsuits through the convenient ploy of being a fictional character.

Perry Mason came to us through the pen of one Earle Stanley Gardner, who wrote more than 80 novels beginning in 1933. There were Perry Mason movies and radio drama; and, most famously there was Raymond Burr playing Mason on a long running television series and several made for TV movies. The plot of each episode was the same: Perry Mason’s client was accused of a crime (usually murder); Mason investigated the facts; the case came to trial; at the trial, Mason introduced unexpected evidence causing the actual criminal (almost always someone other than his client) to confess.

That may sound tedious now, but it was not. Perry Mason may have been the best mystery series ever. The programs also showed the glamor of a lawyer’s life, as he always had interesting cases with clients who were innocent and could afford to pay without complaint for a good defense; he had to spend little time in the office doing tedious paper work, which would have taken away from his investigating time; and the trials were always dramatic, exciting and ended with justice triumphant.

What was not to like? To top it all off, my initials are “L.A.W.” and some good friends of mine, who worked at the law school library while I was in college, told me how well I would fit in with the law students. It was fated. I took a year after I graduated college to decide if it would be wise to act against fate and do something different with my life, but everyone else knew what was going to happen.

I went to law school; and yes, we all watched Perry Mason reruns. I passed the bar. I practiced law.

While practicing, I only remember two times that my questioning caused a witness to break down and cry on the witness stand; and neither of those was a murder trial.

I only defended one murder case, and that defendant had to mortgage her home to pay legal fees. There could have been others, but finances are always a problem. Handling a murder case is extremely time consuming, and that is time that cannot be spent earning money representing other clients. I think that was the biggest disappointment with the practice of law. For the most part, law has become a business, and not a profession.

Also, there was the problem that Perry Mason’s tactics often amounted to ethical violations. I guess he wasn’t the ideal role model.

And, of course, there is the unfortunate fact that justice does not always triumph in real life. Many times, the wrong side wins. Litigators refer to going to trial as “rolling the dice.” You just never know what a judge or a jury will do, or why.

I know, I know. Law has always been a business pursued to feed, clothe and shelter the lawyer’s family. It has gotten worse over the years, though. As another fictional attorney, Barrister Horace Rumpole, observed, lawyers are now marketed and sold like a box of cornflakes. Anyone who doubts that should watch daytime television for a few hours.

I never particularly cared for the business of law. Luckily, the universe is designed so that angels appear to help a person move around fate to find a new path in life. One of my angels was, strangely enough, a law partner.

This partner was not the best lawyer I ever knew. He did not like the tedium and attention to detail that is the life of most good lawyers. He would rather think of himself as a “rainmaker.” He would socialize and network to attract clients, knowing that I would grumble and complain, but would perform the tedious tasks that were necessary to represent them. It doesn’t sound that angelic? Well, it certainly helped to pay the bills.

Besides finding clients, this angel/partner sometimes came up with business opportunities, most of which we let pass. There were two I will mention because they served to move me away from the practice of law.

The first was a restaurant. A client whose day job was architecture owned a nice, but failing restaurant in Cherry Creek. My partner happened upon an investor who wanted to be in the restaurant business. A client of ours had once managed a restaurant and the son of one of my partner’s friends had just graduated from cooking school. He combined those elements with some money from our law practice – which is how I became involved – to form a corporation and purchase the restaurant. The chefs we had, the friend’s son and another recent cooking school grad, were great. The manager did not work out, though, and we had to terminate his employment. We hired a new manager with a bit more experience, but wanted to stay more involved and aware of what was happening in the business; so I became a part-time assistant manager.

I cut back my law practice as much as I could, being a lawyer only 5 or 6 hours most days. Around 5 or 6 in the afternoon, I went to the restaurant and stayed until closing. When the cleanup was finished and I had balanced the books for the day and prepared the bank deposit, I went home – late – to sleep for very few hours before waking to put on my day-job part-time lawyer hat.

A few months later, we found a buyer for the restaurant, selling it for a small profit. I then worked to build my practice back up and for a few more years was a full-time attorney, more appreciative at least of the working hours.  I had become a solo practitioner, ending the formal association with my old partner.

The other business was a title company. Again this was my partner’s doing while we were still partners.

A small title company in Georgetown, Colorado had been owned by two local lawyers since the mid-1960s (the previous owner had committed suicide). One of them was the Clear Creek County Judge. In Colorado, county courts did not have jurisdiction to determine title to real property, so it was not a conflict of interest for him.

The other lawyer was eventually appointed district judge. That court did have jurisdiction to adjudicate real property titles, so he probably should have divested his interest in the title company. He did not do that. However, within a few years, his judicial assignments were mostly in Eagle, which is a 90 minute drive over the continental divide from Georgetown. He decided to move there and was ready to sell his half of the company.

The county court judge who owned the other half was a good friend of my partner. They worked it out so that the judge would buy half of the departing partner’s interest and my partner (and I, since the money was coming from the law practice) would buy the other half.

For ten years, my participation was to attend occasional board meetings and do some legal work. The judge would stop in the title office going to or from court (which was right across the street from the title office) to be certain all was well. It usually was. The business was small and the employees easily handled the day to day operations.

Then, the judge had a heart attack and began to think about retiring. After some discussion, I agreed to manage the title company part-time – we were anticipating 15 to 20 hours per week – and continue my law practice. That arrangement worked for a short while, however the title business grew too quickly.

When I took over management, the company had one office and three employees. Before too long, we had grown to three offices with a dozen employees. Running the company became more than a part-time job. It was more than a full-time job. I wound down my law practice, moved my family to the mountains and immersed myself in the title business.

It was a good fit for me. Essentially, title research and real estate closings constitute a legal practice in a specialty I found interesting, though the work is done mostly by non-lawyers. I used the skills I had acquired in law school and nearly 20 years of private practice. I was helping people who were selling or purchasing property, and I was able to live comfortably. Later there would be disagreements with my two partners and litigation. For several years, though, I was living the American dream of running my own business and enjoying my work.

I think Perry Mason would say the same things about the law business; but he is a fictional character.

I am still a member of the bar and I often act and think like a lawyer. Still, I am glad that I have had the opportunity to do something different – more, I guess, like being corporate counsel than being in private practice. I guess the angels were looking out for me.