When one has, what is supposed to be, their intellectual superior asking very frantically if you reported them for ethical violations, you have a sign that reads “upper hand,” with an arrow pointing in your direction. However proverbial my sign was today, it was still mine.*+
The small print: *Does not threaten well by others. +Caution: Bites. Hard.
To premise the environment, an in-depth study should be conducted. The perfect storm of events: so very flawless, the following is unbelievable. However, I could not make this up if I tried (for other stories of impossible truth, read the LSAT Saga – back luck and brawling lesbians, with helicopters and guns). The law school confiscates your thinking cap and imagination during orientation - I am without the ability to create entertaining stories with drama and action. My art, for the most part, is in the retelling.
So commences the day:
The story begins with the tale of two roommates. You know them well, but trouble's-a-brewin'.
My roommate is having a bad week. Roommate is having a horrible day. The worst day of a horrible week is not the correct time to try to mess with any person, especially Roommate.
After having a relatively horrible morning, where there were tears and a lot of remorse involved, Roommate’s phone jingled a sound we have come to loathe. Our Landlord’s partner’s wife was causing the phone to ring. In her already unpleasant mood, Roommate answered the phone. Wife proceeded to “notify us” that there would be an open house this Sunday.
Mayday! Mayday!
Roommate, with all the cool ferocity she could muster, told Wife that (1) she was not in the mood to deal with this, (2) there would be no open house, (3) she should consult her attorney before attempting to enter the premises without permission, and (4) this is not a debate, the decision had been made. The rest of her call was jumbled in the retelling, but I did retrieve this: her call ended the same way mine would.
When Roommate educated me about the call, I told her (and she readily agreed) that there would be no further communication verbally with us, and that we would not again have any communication with them because they had retained counsel.
I pledged to make a call to Mr. Bad Attorney (who I have deemed “Buttorney” to make myself happier on the inside) to ask him to advise his client and any agents of his client that the harassment should cease.
The call was a pain in the butt from the outset. I called the firm, was transferred to the “switchboard,” and connected with Mr. Bad Attorney’s secretary. She told me that she needed to “check to see if he is on the phone.” Having dealt with a phone or two in my life, and attempted to dodge a great many calls, I know that this translated to Mr. Bad Attorney being in the office, and his secretary finding out whether or not he wanted to talk to me. Surprise pervaded my being when I was told that he was, in fact, on the phone. Who saw that coming?
I told Secretary that I would be pleased to wait for him to finish his other call. She, in a puzzling state of mind said “OK.” Ten minutes later, she told me he was still on the call, and I responded that I still would wait. We went through this twice more, until I was able to drive my tenacity home. After a lengthy time, she came on the line and notified me that Mr. Bad Attorney “is going to be on the phone for quite a while longer.” I asserted that, “Luckily, I have nothing to do for nearly two more hours, and would love to wait for him.”
Astonished and a bit perturbed, she scoffed “Fine!”
Low-and-behold, a few minutes later, Mr. Bad Attorney answered the phone.
“Hello, who is this?” he asked.
“I am H, calling in regards to your client, Mr. Landlord.
“You are not Ms. Roommate, why are you calling on this matter?” He quizzically stated.
“If you had bothered to look at the lease agreement before you hastily authored your letter to us, you would notice that my name appears right next to Ms. Roommate’s name. As the law would have it, this makes me a party to your letter as well,” I uttered in disbelief.
His obviously poor investigation and lack of facts would become the theme of the call.
I told him, as succinctly as possible – mainly because I did not want to have a long, adversarial conversation with him – that “I request that you advise your client and your client’s agents that they are not to contact my roommate or I any further, as they have retained you as their legal counsel, unless we receive, from you, a signed letter stating that they are released to do so.”
The call instantly became hostile as the unfounded accusations came bounding my way.
“My client tells me that you have not paid your rent for the month of April,” he accused.
“You obviously have not done your research, or you would have discovered that one day before you penned your name to the demand letter, we hand-delivered checks to your client’s agent,” I responded.
“That’s not what my client said, and he seems like an honest guy to me,” Mr. Bad Attorney rebuffed.
“Well, I am telling you that your client’s agents have been in possession of our checks for days now. I have no idea what or how much he has told you, but you do not have the whole story,” said I.
“My client would not lie to me, are you saying he is?”
“I am not saying your client is lying, all I can say is what I know I have done.” I responded.
“Do you have cancelled checks? Send me copies,” he said as he spouted out 10 digits I chose to ignore.
I told him that “there are a number of problems he and his client bear with their assertions. First, the house is in violation of the warranty of inhabitability. There have been numerous conditions, of which his client had been informed for over 5.5 months – more than half our current lease period – and that as a result we are well within our rights to withhold any rent that his client claims is due. Second, as you will read in the letter you shall receive tomorrow; the lease agreement is without terms of delivery. Therefore, as you will find when you research the law, the landlord must physically go to the most prominent point on the property and demand any due rent. Even with the foregoing aside, in an attempt to remain conciliatory with your client, we paid our rent anyhow.”
At this point I told him that he obviously had not done his research, and that it is also apparent that he did not have the entire story from his client. I told him that I would not discuss the issue until he had all the facts.
Then, it got ugly.
“You cannot stop my client from having an open house. They are within their rights under the lease agreement,” he said.
Knowing he had not read the lease very closely, I decided to have some fun debate with a lesser-informed foe.
“If you had taken the time to actually read the lease you would find that the word ‘may’ appears. During my first weeks of law school, we discussed the construction of contracts, you know, like the effect commas have when placed in different locations, and the meaning of certain words.” I said proud of my knowledge.
“The word ‘may,’ unlike ‘shall’ or ‘will,’ means possibly or is permissible. Not only did we inform your clients that an open house is possible at a later date, but we have allowed the property to be shown with a prior appointment. However, even if you are right, and I am pretty sure you are not, the agreement provides that showings can only take place at times deemed reasonable…”
He cut me off, and angrily asked me “where does it say that?”
I retorted that “it is located in paragraph 15; the same paragraph that you cited in your letter to us.”
The sound of the opening and closing of a file cabinet was noticeable in the background. As paper ruffled he mumbled something to himself, probably reading the lease agreement for the first time.
It was time to continue. “You know very well that we are law students, and you also know that we are in close proximity to finals…” I started.
Cut off mid-sentence, he was concrete in his denial that he did not know our schedule. I responded that, again, he obviously did not have all the facts, and that his client knows that the reason we refused an open house was our intentions to study, uninterrupted, for finals. I also reminded him that, as a legal practitioner, he is expected to know the full story before making any factually untrue statements, and that he is as culpable for a falsification as his client, because he signed his name on the demand letter.
After that, I was allowed to continue my previous statement, “… it is unreasonable to hold an open house during law school finals.”
He responded with the laughable reasoning I did not expect from an experienced lawyer. “Springtime is the best time to sell real-estate, and that most open houses occur on Sundays in the afternoon.”
I nearly laughed. I had to make the obvious statement: “Inasmuch as I am sure the time seems reasonable to your client, a contract goes both ways. As such, it has to be reasonable for us as well.” I restated the fact that it is unreasonable for law students to have their residence shown during an open house during finals season.
“I don’t think other people would agree with you,” he said.
Again, I had to make the obvious reply. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Bad Attorney, I could care less what others think,” I began. “I am relatively positive I could convince a Judge that I am correct; I am even more positive that I would not even have to convince a Judge; they would already know that we are correct, because we have the law on our side.”
He started to make outlandish suggestions, including driving to the law school to study, going outside to read or going into a room. On the face, these are not bad suggestions. However, silence is key, a computer is necessary and time cannot be wasted. Yeah, law school is intense.
I told him that “I do not know how it was thirty years ago, but…”
Cut-off once again by Mr. Bad Attorney turned horrible interrupting annoyance. “I will not be talked down to by a law student. I will not take condescension.”
“I was not talking down to you, nor was I meaning to be condescending,” I said as angelically as possible. “I was attempting to tell you, before I was interrupted, that either you do not remember how law school works, or perhaps it has changed. I cannot speak for you, but I can say that perhaps 30 years ago you went to law school, but I am a law student in the present. I can say that every minute of time is precious to law students, and I cannot afford to have any interruptions, intrusions or inconveniences. I certainly cannot waste any time.”
I relayed that I appreciated his concern for my well-being, but that holding an open house during finals is ludicrous, and cannot occur.
Then, the illegalities assumed their position.
“If you do not do honor the lease agreement, I will notify the bar association. Not honoring the terms of a lease is unethical,” he said.
“Are you threatening me?” I asked. “It sounds like you are making a threat, and I do not like being blackmailed or coerced to do anything I do not have to do.”
This part is fuzzy, but he back-pedaled quickly, and then started to make threats and statements of extortion about notifying the bar association, and how hard it would be to pass the bar examination as a result.
As sad as I was to ruin the surprise of our letter, I let the goose have a gander. “As you will read in our response tomorrow, we have already preempted your attempts to extort and coerce us,” I said proudly. “We have forwarded your demand letter and our response to the Bar Association.”
Uh oh. Somebody’s in trouble. Doo-doo hit the fan.
“Did you file a grievance with the Bar Association?” he asked with a worried tone, with a hint of angry.
Gleefully, I responded that “I did not file a grievance; I merely forwarded the letter you sent us, and the response we are sending you. I have nothing to hide; you best hope you do not either.”
“It seems to be the same thing,” he scoffed.
“Well isn’t that the problem: the way you think things seem to be is far different from what they actually are,” I rejoined.
“Who did you send the files to? If you filed a grievance, I am going to need to report you to the Bar also. In thirty years I haven’t had a complaint filed. I have been a member for decades,” he sputtered angrily.
“Who did I send the files to,” I rhetorically asked. “I sent the document to the American Bar Association, the New York Bar Association, and every other organization I could find,” I said with a smirk.
“You just sent it to the bar,” he asked.
“No,” I said assuredly. “I sent it to the Bar Association Ethics Committee and every other legal ethics committee I could find in the State and County.
My parents always explained (and my experience supports) that one of the worst things one can do to an enemy is to take the “wind out of their sails.” It is better to tell your parents that you were a ‘bad boy’ before your brothers can. Not only is the punishment less harsh, but your brother does not get to have the joy of turning you in.
In this case, Mr. Bad Attorney’s boat – the forgotten fourth ship of Columbus’ fleet, ‘The Bob’ – was without wind. The ship is going to end up in Greenland: a beautiful icy abyss, all alone.
I was tiring from arguing with an uneducated, baseless wall. I told him that, “as of this moment, we will no longer communicate orally. The only way we will respond to you or your client is by certified mail or, if he so chooses, the filing of suit in a court of law.”
Obviously enraged, Mr. Bad Attorney scoffed at me and stated that I could not tell him how to mail a document. “I will mail documents to you however I want. If I want to do it through service of process or hand-delivery, I will do that!”
“You are right,” I said. “You can do it however you want. If you wish to spend money in that fashion, that is your prerogative. However, oral communications cease now.”
He started to babble and talk over me. So, as calmly as possible, I told him that “I am no longer going to discuss this issue any further. I consider these issues closed, and sincerely hope you advise your client regarding all applicable laws regarding trespassing, extortion, harassment and a wide selection of intentional torts. I am going to hang up the phone now and …”
He cut me off and began to babble. Again, I repeated my closing line, “I am going to hang up the phone now, even though you are not listening and I will probably hang up while you are talking. I wish you a good day.” My follow-through was perfect. Index finger to the end button: as quickly as he had realized he screwed up mighty well, I was able to take in the glory of bad lawyering. Lawyers like this make me want to specialize in Legal Malpractice. As my father said, there is nothing better than suing a bad attorney.
If Mr. Bad Attorney wants to take us to court, it will be a spectacle. To witness a 30-year veteran lawyer lose to law students would be precious. However, I really need to concentrate on finals. It would be better if this all just went away.
I am never a lucky-ducky.
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