by Ron Liebman
Long enough for the judge to see.
“Okay,” the judge said to him, impatient. “Tell us why we’re here.”
Judge Belinda Brown had been a federal judge for enough years to acquire that regal demeanor they all get sooner or later. And it’s often accompanied with a large serving of judicial impatience.
The president, with the approval of the Senate, appoints federal judges. They serve for life. Minority judges don’t exactly overpopulate the federal judiciary. Our first black president had appointed her, and a substantial number of other African-American and Hispanic judges, many of them women.
Judge Brown looked like a judge. She was in her mid-forties, dark-skinned, with stern, unattractive features, eyeglasses even your grandmother wouldn’t wear, and a hairdo like a helmet. She had on a necklace of white pearls pulled out over her judicial robe. Before her appointment she’d been a career federal prosecutor in the economic-crimes section of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office. Another mostly white bastion.
“Your Honor,” Moss said, “as the court knows, we have filed a motion to dismiss this case. The other side has filed its opposition, and we have filed our reply to their opposition—”
“Yes, yes,” Judge Brown said, interrupting. “You are telling me what I already know. What you are not telling me is why we’re here.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Moss said, waiting to see if there was more.
She looked at him and hunched her shoulders, letting him know. What? What do you want?
“Your Honor,” Moss began, “this lawsuit is a fraud. It’s a fraud on our client. And it’s a fraud on this court. And we now believe that Mr. Blake’s law firm is involved in this fraud.”
Okay, I’ll admit that last bit got the judge’s attention.
I got another elbow from Jeremy. Get up, he was signaling. Get to your feet. Object to this.
I started to rise.
“Hold on, Mr. Blake,” the judge said. “Let’s hear Mr. Moss out, shall we?”
It wasn’t a request.
I sat back down. I could feel Jeremy’s heat.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Moss said, again glaring at me as though I had just confessed to strangling my mother.
“Your Honor,” Moss said, “we have known for a while that the underlying case in which a judgment was given in an Indian court was procured by fraud. If we go back in time to—”
Impatience from the judge again.
“Get to the point, Counsel.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Moss said, but I could tell he was going to milk this. The judge didn’t intimidate him. I took note of that. It was the mark of experienced counsel. Someone who’d been in the ring enough times to know not to let a judge run his or her side of the case.
This might have been a good time for me to get back up and object. I didn’t.
So Peter Moss rambled on. He told the judge that the Indian lawyer who had handled the case (not referring to him by name) had done some awful things. Craven and contemptible acts, without which there wouldn’t have been a judgment rendered against his client in the first place.
And then.
“Your Honor, we have reason to believe that Mr. Blake’s law firm discovered this fraud and decided to take on this case despite that. And that makes them complicit in what has become a continuing conspiracy.”
A swift under-the-table kick from Jeremy put me back on my feet.
No sooner was I up than the judge waved me back down.
“You’ll get your turn, Counsel,” she said, not unkindly, I (wrongly) thought.
“Yes, Your Honor,” I said, re-taking my seat.
Was I being too passive? What would Peter Moss be doing if the tables were turned? Moss’s “reason to believe” was just another “on information and belief” ploy. Wasn’t it? Just more bullshit word twisting? Shouldn’t I have been up, vocal, objecting, even if the judge tried gaveling me down?
Jeremy Lichtman’s under-his-breath “Give me a fucking break” didn’t help things.
I watched as poker-faced Harold Kim handed Moss a batch of papers.
“Your Honor,” Moss said, holding the papers aloft like some severed head.
Jeremy kicked me again. I stood.
“Cool your motors, Counsel,” she warned me. “You’ll get your chance.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
That wasn’t me. That was Moss.
He walked over to where I was once again seated and handed me the pack of papers. Our eyes met. His back was to the judge. That benevolent smile was once more on his face. He even winked at me.
In the words of Jeremy Lichtman: Give me a fucking break.
When Moss turned to face the court, he was again all seriousness and righteous indignation.
“Your Honor,” he said, “I have given opposing counsel a copy of a new complaint. We have not yet filed it with the clerk of court. In it we name Dunn & Sullivan as the defendant. We believe they knowingly took on and are pursuing a case built on fraud and corruption.”
Again I rose. Again the judge impatiently waved me back down.
“Shouldn’t your complaint be a counterclaim filed in this case against Mr. Blake’s law firm?” the judge asked, involuntarily shooting a glance my way. (What? She’s now co-counsel with Moss, discussing litigation strategy?)
“No, Your Honor, our motion to dismiss is pending. When we get to argue it, we are confident you will grant the motion and throw that case out of court. But whether you do or you don’t, our client wants this separate, stand-alone case against Dunn & Sullivan for fraud.”
“So you’re filing this new complaint?”
“Maybe.”
That was a bad answer. Even experienced counsel can make mistakes.
“Maybe?” the judge said, with what sounded to me like the beginning of something more than impatience.
“It depends,” Moss said.
“On what?”
“On whether Dunn & Sullivan withdraw their asset-seizure case and acknowledge that they should never have taken it on in the first place.”
Let’s hit the PAUSE button here for a minute.
Look, no way did Peter Moss expect me to dismiss my case. No fucking way. So what was he up to? At the time I really didn’t know. Hadn’t figured it out yet. Of course, later I would.
This was a setup. Moss had every intention of suing Dunn & Sullivan. Had from the beginning. He was just dragging things out to make us look bad. No, worse. Corrupt. And our Dipak Singh? His name was not going to cross Peter Moss’s lips.
He wasn’t going to name Singh or sue him. That was part of the deal, don’t you see?
Like I said earlier, Dipak had selected Dunn & Sullivan to be his clients’ American counsel. His co-counsel. But it was Peter Moss, Dipak’s opposing counsel, who’d been behind our selection. Dipak chose us only after Peter Moss had paid him to do it. But Dipak must have gotten something else besides his under-the-table money. And what would that be?
An assurance. A promise. Peter Moss must have promised Dipak that no matter what Peter did to us in the case, he would not do anything to Dipak. Dipak would not be sued as we were about to be. Dipak was free and clear.
For him this was a win-win situation.
If ultimately the GRE case were lost, there would be no contingent legal fee for him, or for Dunn & Sullivan. But Dipak gets to keep his Peter Moss payment. If the case is won, why, then Dipak still gets to keep his Moss money and he makes a shitload of money on his contingent fee.
Would we bring Dipak into the case? Technically we could. We’d claim that we didn’t do anything wrong, but if anything wrong in fact occurred, it was on him and not us. But as a practical matter, if Dipak did anything wrong, why were we still in the case, trying our best to win it? No, Dipak got himself a pass.
Would it la
st? Good question.
Okay, roll the tape.
The judge looked long and hard at Moss. “Counsel,” she finally said, “you believe that Mr. Blake’s law firm involved itself in this fraud?” (See?) “On what do you base this belief?”
“Your Honor, with respect, I can’t disclose our evidence, coming as it does from confidential sources.”
(Yeah, right.)
The judge finally turned to me, but she was already steaming.
“Okay, Mr. Blake. Your turn.”
As I rose to speak, my mind racing, grasping for the right words, I realized I couldn’t take the same tack as Moss. Couldn’t say, Well, Your Honor, as far as I know or to the best of my belief Dunn & Sullivan was not involved in any fraud here. This judge would think I was waffling. And if she saw me waffling, she was going to start wondering if there was some fire behind all the smoke that Peter Moss was blowing.
So I didn’t think about right or wrong. This wasn’t the time to reexamine if Dunn & Sullivan was blameless, as I really thought we were. After all, this case came to me directly from Carl Smith. The chairman of the goddamn law firm.
Maybe it wasn’t the time. But time is what I took too much of. It was Judge Brown who was now on fire, waiting for me to say something. I cleared my throat. Waited another beat to make sure I would have a voice when I opened my mouth.
“Your Honor,” I began, “this is outrageous—”
And that’s as far as I got before the judge exploded. (I really should have forced myself into this debate before now.)
Turning to Moss. “Counsel,” she said, motioning him back to his feet. So that both of us were standing before her.
“Now, listen, you two,” she said, wagging a finger at each of us in turn. “Someone is playing games with this court. And I don’t like it. Not one bit. So here’s what we are going to do. We are going to have some extensive discovery in this case. Written interrogatories. Depositions. Full disclosure. Each of you will disclose to the other what you’ve got. We are going to get to the bottom of this. And when we do, each of you better pray that your hands are clean. Are we clear on that?”
Me and Moss (a chorus of two): “Yes, Your Honor.”
“That’s it, then,” the judge said, nodding down to her bailiff, who quickly stood.
“All rise!” he shouted to the mostly empty courtroom.
And after the judge and bailiff disappeared through a side door, Peter Moss came over to me, again all smiles. He shook my hand.
“Told you she was a stickler,” he said, like we were pals, in this together.
I shook his hand. Said nothing. Uncertain really what to say. There was enough heat coming off Jeremy, standing behind me, to fry a chicken.
“Look, let’s get together,” Moss told me. “Lunch maybe, and work out a discovery schedule. Something we can both live with.”
Lunch?
If Moss saw how flabbergasted I was, he certainly hid it well.
“So,” he continued, all hunky-dory, “I’ll give you a call.”
Another big smile. Then, with a little wave of his hand—Bye, see you soon—Moss returned to his table to collect his papers.
Harold Kim was looking our way. Smirking.
I got a little push in my back from Jeremy. I turned.
“We need to talk,” he said. Not happy.
Not happy at all.
And he was right. In my defense, it’s one thing to be at table assisting and another to be the one standing on your feet and speaking. But he was right. I hadn’t handled that well. I needed first-chair experience. You didn’t get that very quickly in big law firms, not as a freshly minted partner. You assisted more senior partners who tutored you along the way. Until it was your time and you were ready. That was how it was supposed to work.
Not like this, learning as you go, on your own, and on the client’s nickel.
Okay, fine, but for better or worse I was first chair here.
I had to be smarter. And do better.
18.
I was having lunch with Carl Smith.
That is, I was supposed to be having lunch with Carl Smith. I got to the restaurant ten minutes early, and twenty minutes later still no Carl.
And the fact that I needed to pee, really needed to pee, wasn’t helping. (I didn’t want to be in the bathroom when—and by that time, I was thinking, if—Carl Smith walked in.) So how did this luncheon come about?
After last week’s hearing, Jeremy, Gloria, and I left the courthouse rebundled against the cold and walked up Pearl Street to Centre and then turned on Worth for the Starbucks there. It was bitter out; it hurt your face just to walk those few blocks.
By then it was about 11:30 a.m. The Starbucks was steamy warm and mostly empty. We ordered our coffees and sat at one of the tables in the back, piling our coats, hats, scarves, gloves on the empty fourth chair.
Once we’d settled in, I made no bones about the fact that I had fucked up. A blind man could have seen that I was down on myself.
“Well,” Jeremy said, prying the lid off his overheated no-foam skim latte and blowing on it.
“Well what?” I said.
Jeremy looked at me for a while. Thinking, then he smiled. “Fuck Peter Moss. Fuck Judge What’s-her-name. We’re better than them.”
“Really?”
“Well . . . ?”
Gallows humor. We chuckled. It relieved some tension.
Gloria hadn’t said a word. Not being a lawyer put her more in the ranks of an enlisted person than an officer. By instinct and military training, she wasn’t about to volunteer anything but would speak her mind when asked.
“And you?” I asked.
I watched as Gloria took a sip of her espresso macchiato. She grimaced, then looked around for the serving table where the milk and sugar were kept, then apparently thought better of it. Took a second sip, seemed to decide it’d do as is. I could see the cord of muscle in her neck.
“What do I think? We got our asses kicked, that’s what I think,” she said, shrugging. “So what?” she continued, pursing those Jolie lips. “The case is just starting. You know, like they say, fuck me once, shame on you. Fuck me twice . . .”
Jeremy and I chimed in, “Shame on me.”
“Okay, so how do we prevent a repeat performance?” I asked.
And as I did, I braced myself for Jeremy telling me what I was afraid to hear: that this case needed a full-time, experienced litigation partner. Someone senior to me. Someone for me to assist. There would be no punches pulled by him. None.
“What you need,” he said, “what this case needs . . .” He bent to sip at his coffee, leaving the cup on the table. “What it needs is a rabbi.”
“A what?”
“A rabbi. A godfather. Someone at the firm you can consult with from time to time. A seasoned sideline coach.”
Back to my still-no-show Carl Smith luncheon.
The waiter came by for the umpteenth time and topped up my water glass. I had ordered a Diet Coke when I got here. Drank that, and since then I’d been sipping at this bottomless glass of ice water. My bladder was about to burst.
After Jeremy, Gloria, and I left Starbucks and got back to Dunn & Sullivan’s Times Square offices, I shot off an e-mail to Smith. It was short. I felt I needed to report to him. This was a case he’d brought in. He was the responsible partner. And I wanted to ask him for a rabbi, as Jeremy (to my relief) had suggested.
I kept a print copy of the e-mail:
To: Carl Smith
From: Carney Blake
Subject: GRE
Carl:
We were in court today on the GRE matter. It did not go well. I would like to brief you.
Carney Blake
Partner
Dunn & Sullivan, LLP
One Times Square
New
York, NY 10036
That’s all I wrote. It wasn’t until later that I learned putting anything in writing was a problem. For Smith.
Two days after my e-mail, his secretary called and told me that I was to meet him for lunch that day, 12:30 p.m. sharp, at DB Bistro Moderne on West Forty-Fourth Street.
“Be on time,” she admonished me. “Mr. Smith has a full schedule.”
When I got to the restaurant, I was told that indeed Mr. Smith’s office had booked a table in his name, and once I relinquished my topcoat, I was shown to that table. Right behind me was a tropical-fish tank. The bubbling sound from the tank’s water-filtration system was not helping my need to pee.
And so there I sat. I was about to get up and chance a quick men’s-room run when I saw Carl Smith being led to our table by the hostess. I stood to shake hands. Smith didn’t even look at me before taking the seat opposite. I sat back down.
In the blink of an eye, our waiter was tableside.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Smith,” he said, with a deference befitting a head of state.
In New York so many young waiters and waitresses are out-of-work or looking-for-work actors. And they bring their personas to their daytime jobs. Like this guy. Beautifully styled wavy brown hair, wonderful teeth, just effeminate enough to wonder.
Smith didn’t respond.
“Shall I tell you the specials?” the waiter said, flashing a game-show-host smile. A performance in the wings here.
“No,” Smith said. Then, ignoring the waiter (servers were apparently not deserving of the Carl Smith preprogrammed charm offensive) and addressing me instead. “Know what you want?”
While waiting, I had studied the portfolio-size menu I’d been handed when seated.
“Yeah,” I told Smith.
Back to the waiter, with Smith’s unopened menu resting on his starched white napkin.
“Lobster salad. Iced tea,” he just about snarled.
Even though he was perhaps a wannabe actor, this was New York. And DB Bistro Moderne was no ordinary restaurant in this town. So this waiter had been schooled in how to read the clientele. In a flash the smile disappeared.