Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

When Dan had first taught him that tactic, it had seemed so clever, so goddamn lawyerly clever. As it had when Scott used it on Frank Turner, famous plaintiffs’ lawyer, negotiating a settlement with Tom’s last girl-what was her name, Nadine? Now, after talking to Hannah Steele, it didn’t seem so clever.

Scott sat down on the sofa and said weakly, “Tom’s girls didn’t claim rape. They claimed sexual harassment.”

Dan dismissed Scott’s comment with a wave of his hand.

“Semantics. Sexual harassment, rape-bottom line, someone got screwed. Scotty, my boy, you did exactly what a lawyer’s supposed to do, exactly what I taught you to do: you settled a legal dispute for your client. Just as I did.”

Even more weakly: “Doesn’t make it fair.”

Dan laughed again. “ Fair? Fair ain’t got nothing to do with the law, son. Fair is where you go to see farm animals and ride the rides.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Hannah?”

“You didn’t need to know, Scotty. Why didn’t you tell me you hired a PI to go digging into Clark’s past?”

“Dan, I really believe Clark beat and raped Hannah.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, so do I. Of course, I believed all the others, too.”

“The others? There were more?”

“Seven, counting Hannah.” Dan shook his head. “That little fuckup cost his dad almost three million, just buying off girls. Plus, of course, my fee: twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars to buy off a rape victim?”

Another bemused look from his senior partner. “As I recall, you charged Dibrell fifty thousand to buy off his last girl.”

Scott’s face felt hot. “I thought it was just business.”

“It is, Scotty. It’s just business. Clark’s girls were just business, Dibrell’s girls were just business, and this is just business.”

“Not to Shawanda. It’s her life.” Scott met Dan’s gaze. “I can’t drop it, Dan.”

“Sure you can…because I’m asking you to. Scotty, are you going to say no to Mack McCall-to me — for a goddamn heroin junkie? For a prostitute?”

“No…for her daughter.”

“Her daughter?”

“Yeah. She needs her mother and her mother needs me. And I might be able to save her life.”

“Don’t start believing your own bullshit, Scott.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your campaign speech. You’re not Atticus Finch. No one is. Hell, who would want to be? He lived in a middle-class home, drove a middle-class car-what was it, a Buick?”

“Chevrolet.”

“You drive a Ferrari.” That amused Dan. “Scotty, that movie did more damage to the legal profession than Watergate. Lawyers of my generation, we went to law school to dodge the draft. But the generations that followed us didn’t have a war to worry about, so they went to law school to be some kind of goddamn hero. But that’s not what being a lawyer’s all about. And truth is, they don’t want to be another Atticus Finch any more than I do, any more than you do. He had nothing. But they-and you-and me, we want it all-the money, the house, the cars, all the things a successful lawyer can have today. And how does a lawyer become successful? By doing his job, which is making rich people richer. And we get paid very well indeed for doing our job, and not in chickens and nuts like Atticus. Our clients pay us in cash. Which is a very good thing, Scotty, ’cause you can’t buy a Ferrari with chickens and nuts.”

Dan walked over to the window and gazed out.

“When I graduated from law school, Scotty, a wise older lawyer gave me some good advice. He said, ‘Dan, every new lawyer must make a fundamental choice from which every other decision in his professional life will follow. And that choice is simple: Do you want to do good or do well? Do you want to make money or make the world a better place? Do you want to drive a Cadillac or a Chevrolet? Do you want to send your kids to private schools or public schools? Do you want to be a rich lawyer or a poor lawyer?’ He said, ‘Dan, if you want to do good, go work for legal aid and help the little people fighting their landlords and the utility companies and the police and feel good about it. But don’t have regrets twenty years later when your classmates are living in nice homes and driving new cars and taking vacations in Europe. And you have to tell your kids they can’t go to an Ivy League school because you did good.’”

Dan turned from the window.

“My son went to Princeton and my daughter went to Smith.”

Dan sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms.

“That’s the choice every lawyer makes, Scotty, and you made your choice eleven years ago when you hired on with us. You chose to do well. You stood right there, said you were tired of being the poor kid on the block, said you wanted to be a rich lawyer. Now you want to be a good guy? I don’t think so.

“Scotty, this law firm exists for one reason and only one reason: to make as much goddamn money for the partners as humanly possible. And how does this firm do that? By representing clients who can pay three and four and five hundred dollars an hour for our services. By doing what our clients want, when they want it. By never saying no to our clients. Because we know they can always take their legal fees to a law firm across the street or across the state or across the country. Because there’s always another law firm ready to take our place at the trough.”

“Dan, she’s got a little girl. I’ve got to do right by her.”

“You’ve got a little girl, too. You want to do right by her?”

He rose and came over to Scott, sat beside him, and put his hand on Scott’s shoulder. His voice was now fatherly.

“Scotty, you’ve always followed my advice, and you’ve done okay by my advice, haven’t you?”

Scott nodded. “Sure, Dan, but-”

“Then follow my advice now. C’mon, son, don’t do this. Not to yourself, not to this firm…not to me. I need an answer for McCall, Scott. Now.”

Scott buried his hot face in his hands as the battle within raged on, Dan Ford versus Pajamae Jones fighting for his soul:

I need an answer for McCall. Now.

Are the po-lice gonna kill my mama, too?

And he heard Bobby’s voice: She needs someone strong to protect her…someone like you used to be. Gut-check time for Scott Fenney.

“No, baby, they’re not gonna kill your mama. I’m not gonna let them.”

“What?”

Scott removed his hands from his face and turned to Dan, who was looking at him oddly. Scott realized that when his gut had answered the call, it had done so out loud. He said, “Tell McCall no.”

Dan removed his hand. “That’s not the right answer, Scott. Try again.”

“My answer is no.”

Dan stood, walked across the room, and sat behind his desk. He folded his hands on the mahogany top.

“Scotty, Mack McCall’s a U.S. senator now. He dresses nice and talks nice on those Sunday morning political shows…but underneath that politician’s demeanor, he’s still just a Texas roughneck. He grew up poor in the West Texas oil fields, started working the rigs when he was fifteen. It’s a hard life, it makes a man hard-it makes some men mean. Mack’s one of those men.”

Dan picked up a pen and studied it a moment; then he said, “Back in college, we were at a party at Martha’s sorority house. She was Mack’s fiancee then, a pretty girl and wealthy. She was Mack’s ticket, and he wasn’t about to let someone else punch it. Well, a football player got drunk and made the mistake of flirting with Martha. Mack told him to leave, but he said no. So Mack told him to step outside. Now, that boy outweighed Mack by fifty pounds, but he didn’t stand a chance. Mack beat him with brass knuckles, might’ve killed that boy if I hadn’t pulled him off. I said, ‘Mack, why the hell did you do that?’ All he said was, ‘No one takes something that belongs to me.’”