Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

“Because rich people can afford to hire lawyers and fight it in court. Poor people can’t.”

“So the city’s gonna buy them out cheap-with Dibrell’s money, bulldoze their homes, and give the land to Dibrell so he can build his hotel? What’s in it for the city?”

“Millions more in property taxes. The hotel will be worth a hundred million, minimum. Those little homes are worth a million, max.”

“Dibrell gets his hotel, the city gets more taxes, and poor people get screwed. And it’s all perfectly legal.”

“Sid, we do what the law allows…and sometimes what it doesn’t.”

“You know, Scott, screwing the government and plaintiffs’ lawyers, that’s fun, it’s just a game. But poor people? My parents were poor. I grew up in a house like those.”

“Look, Sid, I don’t like it either, but that’s our job. At least we’re only taking thirty homes. They took a hundred twenty homes for that mall out in Hurst, and they’re taking ninety homes for the Cowboys stadium.”

“Well, that makes me feel better.” Sid shook his head. “This is what I went to Harvard Law School for?”

Scott turned his palms up. “Sid, what do you want me to do? Tell Dibrell we won’t do it? If I say no to Dibrell, he’ll find another lawyer who’ll say yes. This deal is gonna get done, those homes are gonna get condemned, and that hotel is gonna get built. The only question is which lawyers are going to get paid half a million dollars for doing it. If Dibrell takes this deal to another firm, Sid, that means I’ve got to fire one of my associates. Are you willing to give up your job-and your two-hundred-thousand-dollar salary-so you don’t have to condemn those people? So you don’t get your hands dirty?”

Sid stared at his shoes. Finally, he shook his head slowly and said, “No.”

“Sid, when I was a young lawyer, Dan Ford told me, ‘Scotty, check your conscience at the door each morning or you won’t last long in the law.’”

Sid looked up. “The law sucks.”

“It’s just business, Sid.”

“They don’t tell you that in law school, do they, that the law is just a business, a game we play, with other people’s lives and money? No, they need someone to pay tuition, kids who don’t have a clue what being a lawyer’s all about, kids who think…”

Scott sat silently, nodding like a therapist as his patient vented. Every lawyer goes through the same metamorphosis that Sid was now going through, like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly, only in reverse: from a beautiful human being to a slimy lawyer. Scott recalled Dan Ford nodding as a young patient named Scott Fenney vented.

Sid was saying, “Last time I went back home, my parents had all their friends in the old neighborhood over so they could show me off, their son the big-time lawyer. How am I supposed to tell them what we really do, Scott?”

“You’re not. You can’t. You don’t. You walk out that door each night, you leave it here, Sid, your lawyer life. You don’t take it home with you. Look, Sid, you’ve only been at this for five years. It takes a while to learn that you only talk about these things with other lawyers. Regular people just don’t understand what we do.”

“That’s the thing, Scott, I think they do.”

“Sid, wait till you get married, have children, you’ll see. You’ll go home and your wife and kids are gonna say, ‘Daddy, what did you do today?’ What are you going to tell them, the truth? Hell, no. You’re gonna lie. We all lie.”

Sid took a moment to consider Scott’s words, then slowly stood and walked to the door, but turned back.

“Oh, Scott, we closed Dibrell’s land deal. We got the environmental report, escrowed $10 million of the purchase price. We’ll start paving over the lead soon. TRAIL will never know about the report, and the EPA will never know about the lead.”

“Aggressive and creative lawyering, Sid.”

Sid nodded and turned away, but Scott could hear him say, “I should’ve gone to med school.”

After Sid left Scott turned to his computer. He was logging in one billable hour to Dibrell’s account for the thirty-minute “office conference” with Sid when he felt a presence. He turned and saw Dan Ford standing in his doorway, about as ordinary an occurrence as going to Sunday morning Mass and seeing the Pope standing at the altar.

“Dan, come in.”

Dan entered, his face creased with worry. He started shaking his head slowly and sighed like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“I knew this case would bring no good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just got off the phone with McCall.”

“ The senator? You mentioned him before, but I didn’t realize you knew him personally.”

Dan nodded. “Mack and I were fraternity brothers at SMU. I’m the executor of his will, I handle a few personal matters for him from time to time. Haven’t done much work for him since he sold the company and went to Washington twenty years ago. But if he’s elected and Ford Stevens is recognized as the president’s personal law firm…Scotty, it’d be a gold mine.”

“Great.”

“Yes, that would be great, Scotty. We could add fifty lawyers, maybe more, on the new business we’d get, corporate clients who’d beat a path to my door and pay any fee I demanded because I could pick up the phone and get the president to answer. You got any idea what that’s worth to a lawyer? I’m a big fish in a small pond here in Dallas, Scotty, but as the president’s lawyer, I’d be a big fish in a big pond. I’d be playing on a national stage…We could open a Washington office. Think what that could do for me. For this firm. For you. Scotty, you could make a million dollars the first year he’s in office, two the year after that, three by the time you’re forty. You’d be filthy rich, just like you tell our summer clerks.”

Dan paused and caught his breath. “But Mack made it clear that if his son’s good name is dragged through the mud at this trial, Ford Stevens will not be his personal law firm.”

Scott leaned back in his chair. “He wants me to hide Clark’s past.”

“Yes, he does.”

“But, Dan, Clark McCall was a rapist and a racist. And now with Hannah Steele’s testimony, we might save Shawanda’s life.”

“Yes, you might at that. But you would also destroy Mack’s chances to be president. Scotty, if the press can put ‘racist’ and ‘rapist’ and ‘McCall’ in the same sentence-even if it’s about his son-his chances of winning the nomination are about as good as me getting laid by Miss America.”

“Dan, why didn’t you tell me you did work for McCall? I could’ve told Buford we had a conflict of interest, gotten out of the case.”

Dan nodded. “I talked to Mack about that option, but he said it would be better to have some, uh, influence with the hooker’s lawyer.”

“In case her lawyer learned about Clark’s past.”

Dan shrugged. “Mack McCall didn’t make eight hundred million dollars by not thinking out all the angles.”

“Clark McCall was a loser, Dan. Rich boy who liked to beat up girls ends up dead because he beat up the wrong girl. Why should we give a damn about his reputation?”

“We don’t. But this isn’t about Clark McCall, Scott, it’s about Mack McCall. And we do give a damn about his reputation because it’s in this firm’s best interest for him to be the next president. Scotty, we hold his presidency in our hands! Think about it. He’d owe me big-time!”

His eyes got a faraway look and his mouth formed a half smile, which meant inside Dan Ford was turning somersaults. After a moment, he returned to the present and said, “So what do you say, Scotty, my boy?”

Scott said nothing. The two lawyers, separated by twenty-five feet of hardwood floor and almost as many years of lawyering, stared at each other as if they were two kids trying to see who would blink first. Scott knew what his senior partner wanted him to say, that he would follow McCall’s orders because what was good for McCall was good for Ford Stevens. But-and Scott couldn’t put into thought why-he couldn’t bring himself to say those words. Whether born of the mulelike stubbornness he had inherited from Butch or his long-standing general disdain for rich boys like Clark McCall or perhaps something deeper, something inside him wouldn’t allow it. Finally, Dan broke eye contact, exhaled loudly, and turned to the door. On his way out, he said, “Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.”