by Una Tiers
Laslo didn’t but he would keep an eye out for the government attorneys. From the description, they had horns.
“Oh one more thing judge. I have to tell you that some attorneys create drama.”
“Drama?”
“You’ll hear it, “Judge this is very important.” He said these words in mocking baritone tones.
“Okay.”
“Here is what you do, look bored. Throw in a subtle eye roll and if that doesn’t work, tilt your head to the side as if you hear a whistle.”
“Really?”
“The court reporter, if there is one, can’t record gestures but both attorneys will read the look on your face.”
Laslo nodded.
“They do it to impress their clients. It has nothing to do with the law or with the facts.”
Judge Adam Curie was a kind old grandfatherly man and Laslo wondered why he didn’t retire. Was he another law addict?
“Things were different years ago; lawyers were civil to one another. They used to work together to get their client a good deal to end the dispute. Today it’s a verbal brawl that will escalate; I assure you, it’s just a matter of time.” Curie’s voice was gentle, soothing and wise.
“Is that why there are sheriff’s in the courtroom?”
Judge Curie laughed manically, making Laslo doubt his sanity.
“Of course, things have changed for the better because we have a lot of women attorneys in the courtroom now. That’s nice. Very nice. And women judges. Have you met Judge Dorothy?”
Laslo nodded and smiled.
“Read the probate code judge, it’s the way to learn the law.”
Laslo didn’t doubt his sanity after that remark; the judge knew what Laslo needed to do to lay the groundwork.
Judge Dorothy Wizard was what Laslo considered a real lady. She moved gracefully, smelled good, smiled a lot and had curves, lots of them. He struggled to keep his mind on what she was saying rather than on her magnetic natural beauty.
“Every attorney is different, you have to watch their body language and if they send you courtesy copies of the pleadings that helps.”
Laslo asked, “What are courtesy copies?”
“Copies in advance of a hearing. The smarter attorneys will almost always send them.”
Laslo nodded. “There is a lot to learn besides the law.”
“You’ll catch on. Is there anything particular you need to know?”
He couldn’t resist falling in love even with his history of two failed marriages to two other lawyers.
“Where do I start?”
In response, she handed him her copy of the probate code. “This is our bible, and when you are completely familiar with it, you will be ahead of almost every attorney who appears before you. Did you know Judge Curie was the main author of the big revision back in 1975?”
Rather than shouting “amen,” he carried her copy back to his office still savoring their talk. At his desk he noticed the lingering scent of her perfume on the book and on his mind. He locked the book away for privacy.
That night he took her book home and thought everyone on the bus and subway knew his secret. After that, he placed it in a plastic bag and carried it to and from court each and every day, it made him smile.
While organizing his books in the office, he saw a brand new copy of the probate code in the pile on his desk. He considered returning the copy to Judge Wizard, but decided against the idea. Her copy felt like an old friend, an old nice smelling friend. When he read it at bedtime, he thought of her. He thought of her at other times too, sometimes when the lights were out.
Laslo was surprised that probate was more complex than following the terms of a will. There were repeated challenges to the meaning of the words and phrases in the wills and in some cases there was even a disagreement over who was related to the decedent (the dead person).
He observed the other judges for a few days. Sitting in the back of the courtrooms in his suit, he didn’t expect much attention. However, so many attorneys asked to borrow a pen from him that he estimated it cost the county about thirty dollars in pens for the week. Apparently no one actually sits in the court room solely to observe.
The acoustics weren’t designed to allow the people sitting at the back of the courtroom to hear what was going on. Nervously, Laslo changed his seat from the back seating to the lawyer tables where he could hear a little more of what was said.
He noticed that the court rooms seemed to be organized to stress the importance of the judge more than anything else. The platform where the judge, court reporter and court clerk sit are elevated with the judge seated higher than everyone else and the clerk and court reporter one step higher than the room at large, like a pyramid. There is a small ledge in front of the judge at the lawyer level, either for papers or to keep the lawyers farther away from the judge.
The morning calls were usually the lawyers arguing over one thing or another. Sometimes a client accompanied them. When the case was called, everyone connected to the case crowded up to the front of the room.
Several feet behind the platform are tables where the attorneys sat and waited for their cases to be called and in the rear are the benches for everyone else.
When Judge Requin spotted Laslo in the courtroom, he stopped the proceedings and told Laslo to get his robes. He wanted Laslo to sit right next to him, like a puppet or ventriloquist dummy. Laslo didn’t think there was enough room for two men on the top platform and when the sheriff was sent to find a chair, Laslo excused himself and didn’t return.
After a few days of observing court he came to the conclusion that probate not only included the wishes of the dearly departed but a whole lot of arguments between the living and the dead. This seemed disrespectful but mostly reeked of greed.
He wondered if this was the deep pocket theory. That’s where greed follows the money. He wondered if the disagreements were because one of the parties (the decedent) couldn’t set the record straight.
Laslo started to develop a new appreciation of the concept of charitable giving.
Chapter Eight
In his fifth week as a judge, Laslo got his hands on a gavel, so to speak. He was assigned a morning court call when Judge Fullhammer had a doctor’s appointment, Judge Curie had sprained his back and Judge Requin was out on a personal day. The cases were shifted around and Laslo would hear several cases from each of the other calendars.
Months later he learned that when one judge is out sick, another judge hears two calendars at the same time.
However, for his first day, all of the brand new cases were assigned to him. This was called the prove-up day. The will, if there was one, was formally admitted to the record, and an executor or administrator was appointed.
Laslo knew two days ahead that he was going to be on the bench and he spent ten hours a day reading everything he could find about the opening of new estates. He studied the preprinted forms until he had most of them memorized.
As the dawn of his first day on the bench arrived, he was ready although he hadn’t slept more than ten minutes all night. In those ten minutes, he was pursued by dancing skeletons with top hats. They rolled and unrolled wills like malfunctioning window shades.
There were seven cases on the call, all set for 10:00 AM. He had no idea how he would finish before noon, which was the unofficial ending time for all morning court calls.
Even Judge Wizard couldn’t tell him how much time should be spent on a matter. With a smile, she reassured him that he would do just fine and to take whatever time he needed. He calculated that he could spend about seventeen minutes on a matter and still finish all of them by noon. He had a stopwatch with him, just in case.
Laslo’s plan was to compare the probate forms the lawyers prepared with his checklists. He hoped for no complications that day. No advance copies were filed much to his disappointment.
Although he changed his suit twice, his shirt three times and his tie eight times, he was at his Daley Center off
ice by 7 AM.
For the first hour, he debated whether or not to bring his gavel into the courtroom. Sophie found one for him at a rummage sale. His hands were so wet that he was afraid that it would slip out of his hand and fly through the air and hit some innocent nun on the head. Besides he didn’t know if gavels were necessary in a real courtroom.
On television and in old movies, they were used to quell the disruptive voices caused by some smoking gun testimony. From what he understood at the Daley Center, the sheriff announced that court was in session, like a human gavel. Court was over when the judge left.
He waited in his office as the time approached, pacing, removing and replacing his robes until 9:57 AM, when he opened his office door, a sheriff materialized. Was that so that he would go to the right courtroom or to prevent him from running away?
At the door of the courtroom, the sheriff stopped and checked his watch. They waited until 9:59, when the sheriff looked at his watch again, and Laslo nodded. Laslo forgot his watch that day.
Everyone looked up as he walked into the room and the sheriff declared that court was in session, the Honorable Laslo King presiding.
His heart skipped a beat. This was it! For a split second, he was blinded by the magnificence of the moment and almost tripped going up the three steps to his chair.
The room seemed crowded considering only seven cases were scheduled. For some reason he expected seven lawyers. Did they bring assistants to court? Clients? Did this mean things were very complicated?
The clerk looked at Laslo in anticipation and after Laslo nodded, the first case was called.
“Estate of D-h-u-m-e,” his clerk called out.
Laslo was certain he misunderstood the name of the case.
One lawyer casually rose from the table and buttoned his jacket.
He walked forward with the impudence of a cat whose owner had been on vacation for a week and was now offering a toy in apology.
Laslo slipped his checklists from the file folder he had sequestered to the bottom of the judicial blotter with duct tape early that morning. A second copy was inside his lucky copy of the probate code, the one scented with eau de Judge Dorothy. For backup, he carried his unscented copy of the probate code in case anyone else asked to look at it.
Laslo took the file and hoped the clerk wouldn’t notice that his hands were shaking. There were a lot of different papers just to get the estate opened and an executor or administrator appointed.
He thumbed through the documents looking for the dreaded affidavit of heirship. It was only one page long, this was good. This was very good. He read the document; there was a surviving spouse as the sole heir at law.
“The affidavit of heirship states that a spouse survived the decedent and that there were no children, correct?” Laslo asked.
“I guess so judge.”
Laslo signed the order declaring heirship, annoyed with the attorney’s casual attitude and use of the word ‘guess’ in his court of law.
He looked at the will and found it unusually interesting. In fact, he got lost in the archaic language. He realized he was burning daylight and he forgot to start his stopwatch.
Laslo reviewed his checklist and started from the top with the main petition to admit the will and appoint a representative. The attorney broke his concentration when he twisted around to look behind him at the seating area. What was he doing?
He didn’t know how much time had passed, the clock on the wall of the court room had only one hand. His watch was probably on the kitchen table.
Things looked okay generally in the petition to admit the will and appoint an executor. In the stack of papers he found the ‘bond no surety’ form. His notes said “language must match will.” Something rang a bell with his memory, but he didn’t remember the precise rule.
Returning to the will, Laslo scanned it looking, without luck for the section about the executor and the bond. Where was it?
After his third scanning of the will he asked, “Counsel, what page of the will covers the nomination of the executor?”
There was no immediate response from the attorney who now seemed to be engrossed in a study of his cuticles.
Had he spoken too softly? Then he remembered that he was Judge Laslo King and he was in charge.
“Counsel?” He barked just a little too loud.
After a long pause, the attorney answered in a soft voice. “The will doesn’t nominate an executor but we corrected it on the bond and the consent form, judge.”
Laslo caught a hint of something in the way the word ‘judge’ was pronounced. The tone suggested he was talking to a child, a brainless child in a remedial class. The bond form the attorney prepared had many parts unceremoniously scratched out.
He returned to his notes under the bond topic. Had he made a terrible error?
“You are saying that the will fails to nominate an executor?”
“Right but we fixed it.”
“You mean you nominated an administrator,” Laslo corrected him.
“Judge, this is a simple estate, and the spouse is the only heir. She’s a very nice lady who volunteers at her church. We did this to save money.”
That triggered Laslo’s memory. Who had talked about the bond requirement? His vision was a little blurry and he couldn’t read his notes. He tried to take it a step at a time.
In his peripheral vision, Laslo thought he saw smirks from the other attorneys waiting for their turn. The attorney before him continued to bob his head in agreement or maybe it was to distract Laslo.
“Would you agree only the testator can amend his will?”
“Yes. Judge to be technically correct, you can call her an administrator.”
Laslo caught a light bulb moment, “So you agree that your representative is technically an administrator since she is not nominated under the will?”
“Yes.”
“And a bond is required for an administrator,” Laslo finished his analysis.
“Yes, but my client,” the now not very confident lawyer stopped arguing when he saw the confidence in Laslo’s eyes, emphasized by arched eyebrows.
The bond is a big deal. Laslo had this in his notes in exactly those words. If the will doesn’t waive the bond, an insurance policy must be purchased to underwrite or safeguard the performance of the executor or administrator.
Laslo delivered his punch line, “Sir, you have not followed the law.”
The silence that followed was like the bell ringing announcing the winner. Laslo King won this round. Ding ding ding ding.
He heard a hissing, as if a balloon was leaking. Or maybe the attorney said ‘yes.’
“I will hold the file and review it if you can show me the authority for your position, I will consider that.” He thought this was a rather good approach for his first case.
He glanced at his clerk, who silently handed the judge his watch out of sight of everyone else. It was ten thirty.
The lawyer wasn’t smiling anymore.
Since the lawyer continued to stand in front of the court, Laslo shook his head again in a judicial ‘no’ and asked his clerk to call the next case.
“The estate of Dena S-t-r-u-c-t-i-o-n.”
Laslo turned his full attention to the next case, briefly wondering if he would be reported for misconduct on his first day on the bench.
“Put that file in my office,” he said in a voice only his clerk and dogs could hear.
The courtroom was very quiet now, with only the occasional cough or creak of the wooden benches breaking the silence.
The next case was less nerve wracking since Laslo followed his checklists in order. After he finished, he went through them a second time. Everything seemed in order and that is exactly what he said. He signed the orders, nodded to the lawyer and asked for the next case.
“Estate of Ralph L-e-w-a-n-d-o-w-s-k-i.”
“Good morning judge. Samuel Cales for the petitioner.”
“I have a petition to admit the will and appoin
t an executor.”
“Yes judge.”
“And a bond.”
“Yes.”
“Where is the affidavit of heirship?”
“We’ll take care of that in due course.”
Laslo decided not to pursue the point of doing all the opening petitions in one court hearing.
At 1:00 he finished the call and felt like a flood of malevolence forced him all the way back into his office. He was out of breath.
His clerk, Alan, oddly, did not seem alarmed. He had a judicious demeanor that Laslo decided to pattern himself after.
Although courts don’t have a scoreboard, like Wrigley Field, the tally for the morning was as follows: two rejected cases, (strikes) three partial cases, (balls) and two successfully opened new cases (home runs).
In the relative safety of his office, he removed his robes, shoes and tie. He breathed into a paper bag for a little while. Then he remembered to lock the door. The windows on the eighteenth floor didn’t open or he would have stuck his head out. For the air.
Judges were allowed to make mistakes. He had tried very hard. He paced until he snagged his judicial sock on a loose staple embedded in the carpet.
Alan knocked once and walked in, placing documents on his desk. Apparently he had a key and didn’t hesitate to use it.
“These are the copies you asked for judge,” he left soundlessly.
Laslo hadn’t asked for copies, but the file. He felt like the clerk was running his courtroom, and had to admit he was more qualified.
He put on his robes and then removed them. He could do better, he was Judge Laslo King!
He reviewed his notes, and then copied them over again. He spent the next few hours reviewing each conclusion on his checklists, starting with the issue of the bond. He compared Circuit Court rules and Supreme Court rules.
He compared his notes to the file. He went over them again, and copied his notes again. He couldn’t find errors in his checklists, just anguish struggling to find his confidence. The forms were in front of him, not helping to settle the issues.
A light, double tap at his door called his attention to the time, it was 4:00 PM.