The good and bad of a weekend

Saturday was a long day which offered quite a lot of fun and sobering thought. At first Cindy and I drove up to Stockbridge and did a little shopping at a flooring store. We found some stuff that we liked, borrowed some samples, and then drove on toward Dunwoody. On the way, Cindy decided that she wanted to stop at the J C Penny Outlet Store. This huge building off I-75 sits above the highway and is some place that I always glance at on my way north or south, but for which I have rarely stopped.

This time, Cindy wanted to look and see if they had an entertainment center which would hold the television set that Kevin and Susan gave us. The television is a dinosaur which is so large that it doesn't really fit anywhere in our house. At any rate, Cindy and I stopped in the store and looked around. They had no entertainment centers, had a food prep table which we thought about buying (but which had insurmountable problems due to the way the drawers were installed in the box) and ended up buying four red kitchen chairs and a small box radio, which I am listening too, kind of, in my office.

Anyway, we drove on to Dunwoody where Cindy opened birthday presents and then Cindy and Momma went on to Perimeter to shop. Dad and I sat in the kitchen and watched football for several hours. Finally, Kevin and Susan came over with the girls and we talked with them for awhile. That evening, we ate at Olive Garden, where I ate light with a salad and pasta with tomato sauce. It was good.

That night, the dessert came when Georgia upset Alabama in Tuscaloosa. That was fun. Oh, and W&L won as well, although I didn't find about that until Monday morning.

Sunday, we drove over to Jonesboro and ate at Cracker Barrel. I had roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and cabbage. As I was paying, I told the cashier that my meal was good but that I didn't get as much roast beef as I would have at my momma's house. I then told her that there had to be some compensation for eating with your mother.

That afternoon, the Falcons got beat, surprise, and the afternoon drifted into a torpor of tiredness and concern about the dealings ahead on Monday. I would have liked to go to a movie or get some exercise.

The sadness of this weekend revolved around indications that my father is drifting off a bit into the last phase of his life. As we sat at the Olive Garden I looked at and watched my mother and father. Momma is the same person, bubbly and personable and very young looking for her age. But Dad seemed to be weighed down by the years a bit. He had difficulty hearing people talking, seemed a step behind on conversations, and didn't participate as quickly in the evening. This is the beginning of that last phase, I am afraid. We need to draw around him and make sure that these days are as connected with him because these moments are so precious.

Cindy thought I needed to make sure that Frank and his family come up and participate in holiday fun. When you are away for long times, you don't have the opportunity to see and guage the subtle changes in personality and temperment. Frank needs to see that as Susan and I can.

Seasons of life.

Psalm

Thank God for the end of this week!

Those high school years

Well, by now you have had an opportunity to digest my skills in dialogue. I always thought that I handled dialogue well and that I would be a better playwright than a novelist. I know in ninth grade, I wrote two miniature plays for English class and got quite a reception. Ninth grade was a dreary time when I was at the old Peachtree High School. The principal was ready to retire and he would pretty much allow anything to happen to ensure that the boat stayed smoothly rocking towards his ultimate retirement. In the meantime, the lassez faire attitude was communicated to the student body and pretty much anything went. Couples were groping in the stairwells (particularly Pat Burke and Shan Gastineau). Classrooms emptied when the teachers turned to face the board. In the afternoon, the parking lots were full of students, ditching class in full view, socializing on their cars. That was probably just the surface of what was going on.

I hated it. I couldn't wait to transfer to Dunwoody when it opened. The atmosphere was much more controlled and disciplined (even for the early 70's).

Anyway, my favorite class was English with Ms. Gilbert. In the third quarter she split the class into groups and had us rewrite and perform an act each of Romeo and Juliet and then do a second play afterward. I was so excited that I went home and wrote an entire one act play in an afternoon. I took it back to school the next day and everyone liked it. After we performed it, Ms. Gilbert gave it to one of the upper grade English teachers who read it to his class. It was finally nominated to the Dekalb County Arts Fair and won a second place ribbon. I was excited.

My second play was a western, which had some good parts but I had to play the lead myself and I didn't like acting much. Oddly, my Juliet ended up being an actress. How really ironic.

Anyway, that was a good time. I later wowed them with a rendition of Patrick Henry's 'Give Me Liberty' speech. My speech took forty minutes to do and I just performed it without a break (with the exception of an announcement over the loud speaker which forced me to stop for a few minutes while we heard about something really important). That was probably the precurser to my leadership years at Dunwoody. It was only the next year when I was speaking before the student body, running for student body president.

Dunwoody was so much better. I think John Boswell and I were the only students who really enjoyed Dunwoody High School. Even with all the embarrassment and growing pains. Oh well.

The hearing

Today, which isn't over by a long shot, has already been a long day. However, there have been some interesting things which have happened. I went to a hearing calendar for Spalding Superior Court at 9:00 this morning. When no judge or district attorney personnel showed up, the Clerk ultimately showed up around 9:30 and informed us that court had been postponed until 11:00. I then showed up at 11:00. The doors to the courtroom on the third floor were locked and sheriff's deputies posted at the door to let only law enforcement personnel and attorneys who were willing to sit in the courtroom and not leave into the courtroom. Apparently, the defendant who was sitting in the courtroom had people in Miami, really bad, connected people, who were threatening him or someone else with bodily injury or worse. Nothing like a little excitement to race the heart a little.

Anyway, the Judge didn't show up from Fayette County in the morning, so court was postponed until 1:00. At 1:00, I went up to the third floor courtroom; the double doors were wide open at the time. I entered the courtroom past the bailiff and looked for a chair near the door. As I began to sit down, the Judge, who was sitting on the bench already, said in a fairly loud voice, "What are you doing here, Tom?"

Being surprised by his presence in the courtroom and a little nonplused by the question, I jumped up from the chair, approached the bench and asked, "Where do you want me to be, judge?"

He smiled at that and replied, "Nowhere else, necessarily. I just don't see you in this court that often."

"Well," I said, "I seem to get one felony criminal case a year."

"But I thought I had seen you earlier in the year already?"

"I don't remember that, judge. However, I have to feed the babies, you know."

"Well, that's true. I remember when I was practicing, I'd just about grab whatever came through the door."

Shaking my head, I answered, "That is true."

I left the area in front of the bench and sat back down and waited for court to start. Very soon thereafter, the new Assistant District Attorney entered the courtroom and noticed me in my seat. He asked me if I wanted to talk to the judge. I quickly agreed and we approached the bench.

As I approached the bench, I asked the judge, "Judge, may we discuss something with you."

"Sure, Tom," he said.

"Your honor," I began, "I have a case on your calendar, and..."

"What kind of a case?"

"A drug case, your honor."

"Its on your calendar, judge," the ADA offered.

"Yes, toward the back, judge," I added.

"OK, well, what do you want, gentlemen."

"Well, your honor, the assistant district attorney has offered a plea bargain which we are prone to accept; however, my client is only 17 years old and its his first offense and we would like to get first offender treatment..."

"What's he charged with?"

"Well, that's the problem. He is charged with possession of less than an ounce of marihauna and," my voice got a little weaker, "possession of meta-amphetamine."

The judge raised his eyebrows, "Tom, you had me until then."

"Your honor, I know that you don't ordinarily give first offender treatment on such a charge, and I wouldn't even make the request if he had a record, but he is only seventeen and..." My voice trailed off.

The judge looked down at his papers, "Tom, I wouldn't do this just for anyone, but I'll do it for you, just this time."

My heart skipped, "Thank you judge, thank you."

He looked at me critically, "Let's not sentence him today or tomorrow."

The ADA interjected, "Yes sir."

The judge turned to his court reporter, "Take the _____________ case off for today and tomorrow."

I stepped back from the bench and walked crab-wise away from the judge and leaned into the assistant district attorney. "Let's do the sentence on the 5th of October."

"That'll be fine."

I looked back into the crowd in the courtroom, caught the eyes of my client and his family and motioned for them to follow me out of the courtroom. As we met together in marbled gallery outside the courtroom, I smiled and said, "The judge agreed to the first offender treatment."

A quick smile came over my client's face and his mother sighed deeply, "Thank God."

"Let's get out of here."

The elevator opened and we escaped with our prize: a bit more freedom and the chance for the boy to show his repentance to the world. I bounced off the surface of the floor for the rest of the day. Even a short hearing in Magistrate's Court at three thirty couldn't keep my feet on the ground. A day later and I could still feel the electricity in my arms.

Little victories

Things do go right sometimes. Today, I had a criminal case and all I wanted to do was get my client first offender treatment so he wouldn't have a felony record on him after he finished his probation. The problem arose when we found out who the judge was who was going to preside on his case: Judge Johnnie Caldwell, Jr. Johnnie, the district attorney when I was a young lawyer, was rather hardnosed, prosecutorial and didn't ordinarily give first offender treatment on such a case.

I felt that our possibility of keeping this conviction off my client's record was very slight. However, when the assistant district attorney and I approached the bench, Judge Caldwell agreed to give my client first offender treatment because "it was me." That felt good and everybody was happy in the end. Sometimes it feels good to be an attorney and work something out for your client. All the stress is gone and everybody is happy with me.

The old man does ok from time to time.

Passing the bar

The height of stress one suffers from lawyering involves a three-fold process. The simple task of laying down that line causes me to question the statement, the number of processes and my ability to successfully undertake this explanation. However, I suppose that it is the nature of writing that allows me to continue, despite the possibility of errors in the action.

1. Mastery of the law and facts. The first aspect of the practice of law which causes practitioners stress requires a knowledge of the laws which might apply in the case as they are applied to the facts of the case. I understand that though he was extremely untutored in contrast with a lot of other lawyers of his day, Abraham Lincoln was considered a good lawyer in his time, which contrasts with the rustic portrait we acquired as school children. Our simplified portrait of Lincoln consists of log cabins, rail-splitting, candles and writing out his lessons on a coal scuttle with a piece of coal. The picture of Lincoln does not include matriculation at a university or college. As a matter of fact, his only schooling involved some time spent in a one room school house on the flatlands of Indiana.

However, Lincoln was considered a good enough lawyer that he found his way into the listes with some of the best educated lawyers of his day. In studying Lincoln as a lawyer, I have found that his foremost gift as a lawyer was the ability to read the facts of the case. In a book I read as a law student, I read about a case in which Lincoln appeared as counsel for a railroad in Indiana. A train track had been laid across a railroad bridge over a river somewhere in Indiana. A boatsman attempted to navigate the currents passing under the railroad bridge. Apparently, the boatsman lost control of the boat and crashed against the bridge. The boatsman sued the railroad for damages and Lincoln found himself defending the railroad in the suit.

Prior to trial, Lincoln apparently travelled to the scene of the accident and studied the river and its currents as they travelled under the bridge. He even had a young boy sail paper boats downriver into the currents surrounding the bridge. After several hours spent watching the paper boats floating under the bridge, Lincoln knew enough about the facts of the currents and the affect of the bridge on those currents that he was able to argue to the judge and jury about the facts of the case in such a way that he exemplified a far better handle on the facts than opposing counsel and their experts. His ability to determine the factual basis for the lawsuit overcame his lack of formal education in the law.

In any given suit, whether civil or criminal, any number of statutory and common laws may apply to the facts of the case. One requirement of being a lawyer requires one to acknowledge which of the multiplicity of the laws do apply to the case and bear on the issues at hand. In law school, this talent in 'seeing' the issues and applying the laws which apply to those issues is called "thinking like a lawyer." The bottom line concept involves being creative in acknowledging the issues and the laws and being inductive in separating what does or doesn't apply in the case.

The practice of law is one of the more practical of pursuits. Ultimately, the end result is the most important part of the vocation. Unlike in football, it is not how one plays the game but who wins which is paramount. So much goes into the mix of representing a client in a law case. So much of this endeavor is outside the control of the lawyer. However, quite often, the result of the case, the ruling, or verdict is what everybody sees in the end. Since there are so many factors which can affect the end result, the lawyer is required to confidently posit the law and facts and somehow blame the other side when things don't go the way of his client. In this way, the practice of the law is more of an art than a science. The beauty of the art is that one might still win even if the law and the facts are not necessarily on one's side.

2. Adversarial Struggle. The second factor which gives us pause in the practice of the law involves the fact that most law suits involve a struggle between two or more contending sides, both of which are represented by lawyers who are attempting to posit a case to a judge or jury. In this regard, the practice of law is more of a game or sport. In some respects, the practice might even take on some of the pageantry of the knights in the listes. Of course, some might argue that the practice of law is less like the battles of those romantic knights of old, and more like a shouting match in which the team with the loudest shouters is the victor. In many cases, the trial of a law case becomes a trial by ordeal as the sides battle each other, expending time and money in order to win the case.

However, there are not many other adult pursuits which involve a situation in which in order to earn a living one must attempt to establish one's trade while the competitors attempt to undo what you do. I suppose it is arguable that all trades are like this, but few are so direct. Perhaps the vocation of a military man or an athlete are a few trades which are more directly adversarial than a lawyer.

Of course, I have heard it said that on the frontier, the first lawyer starved until the second lawyer arrived in town. There is a certain amount of truth in this, and a local bar which is supportive and mentoring of its members is a wonderful example of one of those odd instances in lawyering which tends to drive most non-lawyers crazy. What could be more frustrating for a client to be embroiled in a law suit with another citizen, battling tooth and nail, only to find his or her lawyer outside the courthouse, socializing heartily with the lawyer who represents the other side. To the good lawyer, there is nothing more heartwarming than the relationship with his or her brothers and sisters in the bar. To the client this is imperceivable.

Once we cross the bar and enter the arena of the courtroom, however, we are called on to battle like true combatants, and take advantage of every fact, law and slip of the tongue on the part of the other side, its advocates and witnesses. There is always a struggle to represent one's clients with vigor and enthusiasm, even despite the fact that the other lawyer is your brother or sister. It creates quite a emotional problem for the lawyer and just a little more stress when preparing for court.

3. Representing one's clients. The third problem presented by acting as an advocate for another involves the fact that we do, indeed, act for others, who will suffer at our failure or profit by our success. I heard a story one time about a lawyer in North Georgia who had ably represented his client in a drug case in the local Superior Court, only to listen as the jury found him guilty in the case. After the jury came back into the courtroom to find his client guilty, the lawyer listened as the judge sentenced his client to several years in the penal system of Georgia. It being several minutes before the noon hour, the Judge excused the jury and the others congregated in the courtroom for an hour for the noontime meal.

As the courtroom emptied, the client turned to his lawyer and said, "What do we do now?"

The lawyer patted his client on the back gently and said, "Well, I'm going to lunch; you're going to jail."

Hopefully, we are not all so callous as to have this attitude when our best efforts fail to find success for our clients. However, this points to a stressful part of a lawyer's job: our clients hang on our success or failure in and out of the courtroom. When we fail, they fail. When we succeed, they succeed. As Hamlet might have said in this regard, "this problem should give us pause, when we consider the result of our efforts as they pertain to our clients."

This is the problem with being a lawyer, particularly a lawyer with some sense of responsibility and empathy. When the client enters the office, he has a problem which he wants rectified. Quite often, the possibility of loss, punishment or judgment hangs over his head like a dark cloud. He comes to you to deliver him from these dangers. At the same time, you hopefully recognize the possibility of success or failure in the air and can gauge that for your client before you undertake his representation. A lot of times the client might even want an estimation of the odds and require you to undertake the vocation of a bookmaker.

However, the ultimate truth here lies in the fact that the problem is not yours, but your clients. No matter how involved you become in this problem, you ultimately will not share directly in the pain or sorrow of the loss. The tricky part, of course, is that you will ultimately benefit from his problem, whether you are successful or not.

When you enter the courtroom, you are his expert, his advocate and his counsel. You have a favored place in the courtroom which allows you to approach the judge as if a relative or friend among strangers. You are given the benefit of the doubt concerning what leaves your mouth and rolls off your tongue. Usually, when you speak, everyone must listen. However, again, when you leave the courtroom, it is he that pays. Hopefully, this does not offer you solace, but creates some creative anxiety which will push you when you cross the bar or when you prepare in the days before.

So these are the matters which cause anxiety for the barrister. As we know some anxiety is good, because it pushes us forward to do our best when confronted with difficulty. However, it also scars our hearts and pushes us toward our ultimate demise, the dark vale which awaits us all.

The latest news on Kate

Well, Kate called late last night and let us know that she had fixed her car (the battery connection was loose) and that she had been nominated by PSA to homecoming court. Now she is happy, feeling rather accomplished and looking forward to October 6th. Cindy and I will now be travelling to Clinton on the weekend of October 6th. I hope that she does get to walk out on the field on the 6th. It would be very good for her physical self image. Kate is a pretty girl and has a middling problem with self esteem from time to time. She is smart and pretty and funny and witty and everything a daughter could be.

No matter what, Cindy and I will be there on the 6th.