Accidental Lawyer: A humorous peak into Baltimore's legal community, with a thread of mystery

by Kim Hamilton

  I had to be careful here. We all knew that I was hired as a prop for the firm’s advertising. Until I could prove that I was a capable attorney and able to bring in clients and generate loads of money on my own, I was pretty much at his mercy. I couldn’t refuse to do the commercial. But I didn’t have to be enthusiastic about it, either. Maybe I could talk him out of it.

  “Commercials are so expensive. We’ve got plenty of business coming in. Have you seen the stack of files on my desk? And Kari took two more accident claims this morning. Why bother with a commercial when we have steady business?”

  “Because, Jessica, this is how the game is played. More clients, more money. I ran into Stuart Milligan last week, and he told me he bought a place in Hilton Head, right on the water—five master suites and a Koi pond.”

  Stuart Milligan’s office was located across the street. He was a personal injury attorney who saturated the airwaves with TV and radio advertising. He was a little more high-profile than Dawson Garner & Associates, but no more reputable. Dawson always measured his success against Stuart Milligan’s.

  “You already have a place in Hilton Head,” I said.

  “That’s the point. Now I need a bigger place in Hilton Head—six master suites and a shark tank.”

  Good grief.

  Sal nodded. I guessed he was mentally tallying his production fee, which would include a week at Dawson’s new place in Hilton Head.

  “Are you sure you want to spend all that money on commercial advertising for the purpose of one-upping a weeny like Stuart Milligan? Besides, you got the better of him when Jolynn Wright left him and brought her medical malpractice case to you.”

  Jolynn Wright was the victim of a botched boob job that left her breasts misshapen and lumpy. They were later repaired to a spectacular double D cup. Jolynn claimed she couldn’t have Stuart represent her any longer because his sexual advances toward her had become tiresome. She trucked her double Ds and her file across the street to our offices, where Dawson paid her the utmost respect and almost never looked at her boobs. He settled last week for six figures.

  “That’s a huge settlement you ripped from Stuart’s greedy paws. Wave that in his face if you want to be on top of the scoreboard.”

  “Yeah, he was pretty pissed off about that. He’d counted on that fee to buy another Mercedes to add to his collection. Still, I’d like to stick it to him. We’re doing the commercial.”

  He stood and Sal rose, too. I took it as a sign that I was dismissed.

  I stopped at Kari’s desk to use her lint roller to get Bailiff’s long, orange fur off my suit. Kari looked at me, bright-eyed and expectant. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I asked. She grabbed the lint roller from me and motioned for me to turn so she could do my back.

  “You’re gonna be on TV, girl!”

  She always eavesdropped.

  “I don’t want to be on TV.”

  “Why not? That would be so cool. How many people get to have their face on the TV? You’d be a local celebrity. And that would make me a local celebrity by association.”

  “That kind of advertising demeans the profession. It seems desperate.”

  “Well, if we don’t advertise, how will clients find us? They’ll end up with someone like Stuart Milligan.” She turned me around by my shoulders, put her face close to mine, and looked me in the eye. “Dawson will go broke, the firm will shut down, and we’ll all be sleeping on the streets.” She tossed the roller onto her desk and bobbed her head at me. Pursing her lips, she said, “Is that what you want?”

  Her performance was a bit over the top, but she had an interesting perspective that I hadn’t considered. If we didn’t represent these people, some other attorney would.

  “I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to be famous is all.”

  #

  I settled in behind my desk to make the easy money. Shifting into negotiating mode, I rummaged through my snack drawer and pulled out a bag of Sun Chips.

  Here’s how the negotiation dance goes. Let’s say I had a routine soft-tissue injury claim, and let’s say I thought it was worth about $15,000 to settle it. I call the adjuster, make a ridiculous demand of $20,000, and artfully state my rationale for why my client deserves this sum, what with all the pain and suffering, inconvenience, and emotional trauma caused by the irrefutable negligence of the insured driver. In a perfect world, the adjuster would acknowledge my savvy appraisal of the claim, thank me for being so reasonable, and write me a $20,000 check. Sadly, this never happens. What the adjuster does is point out the minimal nature of any injury, the excessive amount of treatment, and the overall crappiness of the claim, blah, blah, blah. They usually offer something closer to $10,000. After a few phone calls back and forth and more posturing by both of us, we wind up agreeing to something around $15,000, which is where we both knew it should be in the first place. It’s a colossal waste of time, but the meaningless volley makes us both feel victorious.

  The file at the top of the stack was Tyler Martin. Tyler was one of our regular clients. Litigious and loyal. I liked him because he had a steady job at Walmart. He was bright and respectful, easy to work with. Tyler never hounded me about moving his case faster. I’d already reviewed his file and knew this was another typical rear end, soft-tissue case worth about $5,000. I picked up the phone and called Brenda Ballister, or Brenda Ballbreaker as Dawson calls her.

  I got her voicemail. “Hi Brenda, it’s Jess at Dawson Garner calling on Tyler Martin, case number 3475ASDF2898474-2012. I’m hoping we can settle this one. Give me a call, 555-926-6278.”

  I hung up and moved onto the next one—Sharlyn Monroe. This one had some meat on it. Sharlyn held a soft spot in my heart. She was a young woman without guidance, trapped in the dead-end world of her drug-dealing boyfriend, Darnell Black. I could tell she was smart and I knew she could improve her circumstances. She was off to a solid start. Dawson had lined up a job for her around the corner at Hal’s Bar and Grill. She was a prep cook. Hal said she had mad skills.

  Sharlyn had the misfortune of being a passenger in Darnell’s car when he made the ill-fated decision to text a customer and arrange for a delivery of whatever street drug he was dealing at the time. While texting, he failed to maintain control of his vehicle, causing it to cross over the center line into an oncoming minivan. Fortunately, the sole occupant of the minivan was its driver, who turned hard to the right to avoid a direct impact and instead took a hit to his passenger side. Sharlyn was not so lucky. Darnell also turned hard to the right, causing a direct impact to Sharlyn. She was left with a concussion, a broken arm, several lacerations, and multiple soft-tissue injuries. She recovered after a few months of treatment and was back to work at Hal’s. Meanwhile, she was still living with Darnell, who was anxious to get his hands on her cash. Darnell had called me every day the past week.

  I’d begun negotiations with the adjuster on her claim, Art Miller, to the tune of five actual phone conversations, thirteen voicemail messages back and forth, and three unanswered emails. I don’t like negotiating via email. It’s cowardly. I dialed Art’s number, expecting to leave another voicemail message. He surprised me by answering the phone on the third ring. “Jess,” he said after the perfunctory niceties, “I got you more money on this one and hope we can settle it. I’ve got $28,000. See if you can sell that to your client.”

  Wow. I would have taken $25,000. “Come on, Art, get me $30,000 and we can close this up. She broke her right arm for Christ’s sake, and your insured does not make a sympathetic defendant. He’s was texting, Art—texting.”

  “All right, Jess, calm down. Let me talk to my manager, see if I can get some movement on this. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

  I thanked him and hung up, marking my calendar to call him in two days. I confess that a huge part of me, like 49 percent of me, wanted to take the $28,000 so I could get the file off my desk. But the other 51 percent knew that it was my job to get as much for my client as I could, regardless
of how many dance steps I had to perform. I was bothered by the fact that Darnell was so anxious to get his hands on Sharlyn’s money. I knew Sharlyn could do better than a drug-dealing loser and I was determined to help her continue down a better path. The job at Hal’s was a good start.

  I continued going through my stack of files, making phone calls, playing the negotiation game. In about two hours, I was able to call on all seventeen files and managed to settle three. Just another day at the mill.

  I was about to move on to my other pile of claims for review when Kari put a call into me. It was Brenda Ballister.

  “Hi Brenda, thanks for calling back. Did you get my demand package?” The demand package consists of copies of all the medical records and bills, as well as any claim for lost wages. Rarely do I send an actual “demand.”

  “Yeah, I got it,” she said with a slight chuckle. The chuckle worried me. I’d said nothing funny. “He’s racked up $1,800 in meds and claims $400 in lost wages. Is that right?”

  Her tone riled me. She had me on the defensive and I needed to play offense. “Right, the medical records indicate he had swelling and muscle spasms in the neck and back. He was in a great deal of pain initially and had to miss three days of work. I’d like to settle for $8,000.”

  I heard snickering again from her end. “Jess, this guy’s claim is a joke. Your client has had five accident claims in the last five consecutive years. There was no damage to his car and minimal damage to my insured’s vehicle. The medical expenses of $1,800 are excessive, and the lost wage claim of $400 is laughable.”

  She pissed me off. It’s a known fact that injuries can be sustained even with minor damage to a vehicle. Our practice practically depended on this. “Look Brenda, my guy has documentable, objective injuries. You and I have settled dozens of similar claims reasonably and amicably. What’s with the attitude today?”

  “Tyler’s a phony, Jess. With all his priors, we put an investigator on him...”

  Oh, shit, this can’t be good. I hate this job.

  “... and we discovered that while Tyler was supposed to be home resting, he found his way with some friends to the laser tag park, where he played two successful forty-minute games, running, ducking, and hiding with his painful neck and back injury.”

  “You’re wrong. It must have been someone else. Do you have photos? Send me photos.” This was a lost cause, and I knew it, but I couldn’t give up. I was an advocate after all. “It’s possible that your investigator followed the wrong guy into the laser tag park. Or even if it was Tyler who walked into the park, it’s so dark in those places. How could your investigator know it was Tyler actually playing? He might have been hanging out in the lounge area playing pinball or texting his girlfriend...” I couldn’t believe the BS coming out of my mouth.

  “I’ll stop you there before you further embarrass yourself. Yes, I have photos and I’ll send them to you. Meanwhile, to get this piece of crap claim off my desk, I’ll give you $1,500 to make it go away.”

  “It’s worth $5,000 until I see the photos.”

  “I’ll email them to you. Goodbye, Jess.” She hung up.

  I was going to strangle Tyler.

  I went to tell Kari about the incriminating photos and found her with a death grip on the office phone. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “Jesus, Mary, and Joe. You’re sure?” Kari said into the phone.

  Apparently, the caller answered in the affirmative. Her jaw dropped. She disconnected without a goodbye and stared up at me. Her mouth started to form words, but she remained silent as the color drained from her face.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Something awful happened.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Harvey Metzger. They found him...”

  “I didn’t know he was missing.”

  “No, you don’t understand. They found him… dead.”

  Harvey Metzger was an independent financial advisor. His office was two doors down from ours, but he wasn’t there much. I didn’t know Harvey personally, but I knew he and Dawson were buddies. Dawson had invested some money with him.

  “What happened? How’d he die?”

  “All I know is they found him dead at home, and it was no accident. Li’l Ham told me they called in the homicide unit.” Li’l Ham was Kari’s industrious cousin. He stopped by on occasion to sell knock-off handbags and watches from the trunk of his Cadillac sedan.

  Kari’s eyes were still on me. “You’ve gotta tell Dawson.”

  “Tell me what?” Dawson said, looking confident and robust as he emerged from his power meeting with Sal. Sal walked right passed us staring at the screen on his iPhone. Dawson must have noticed the distressed look on our faces. “Oh no, this can’t be good. Jess? What is it? Did we lose another client to Stuart?”

  I stood with my mouth hanging open, trying to find the words. Kari spoke them for me.

  “It’s Harvey. He’s dead.”

  “What do you mean he’s dead? He can’t be dead. I saw him last night.”

  “Oh, he’s dead all right,” said Kari. “Word is he was shot in the head and died in his desk chair.”

  Dawson put one hand on Kari’s desk and stared down at the floor. I couldn’t read his expression.

  “Who would want to kill Harvey?” I asked.

  “A lot of people.” Dawson turned and, with a rigid gait, reentered his office and closed the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kari and I stood, wide-eyed, mouths gaping. After a few beats, she walked to Dawson’s door and tried the handle. “It’s locked. He never locks the door.”

  Sal still lingered in the corner of the reception area thumbing his iPhone, seemingly oblivious to what had just transpired. He put the phone in his breast pocket, picked up his briefcase, and walked out the front door as Marty walked in. They exchanged brief greetings as they passed each other.

  “What was Sal doing here?” Marty asked. He carried his gray suit jacket in his hand, exposing a short sleeve, collared shirt that was partially untucked. The maroon tie he wore was pulled loose at the neck and hung at an awkward angle. His brown hair fell in disheveled strands across his face. This look was common for Marty. I called it ‘post-mugging.’

  “Dawson’s having him produce a TV commercial,” Kari said. “And he wants Jess to be the star.” She beamed at me like a proud mother.

  Marty shrugged, unimpressed. “That’s what we hired her for.”

  Ouch. Marty didn’t like me. Or maybe he was having a hard time warming up to me. Kari said he and Dawson had interviewed a lot of young lawyers, and I didn’t even make Marty’s top five. He wanted someone older with more experience, and maybe a penis, Kari said. He may not look all put together, but the truth was, as a lawyer, Marty was sharp, cunning, and tenacious. I could have learned a lot from him, but he showed no interest in teaching me.

  I changed the subject. “Did you hear Harvey Metzger was killed?”

  He looked up at Kari for verification. “It’s true, but we don’t have any details. Li’l Ham heard it from the guy who cleans Metzger’s pool. All we know is that he was found dead in his house.”

  “Dawson locked himself in his office when he found out,” I added.

  Marty walked over to Dawson’s door and gave it a two-knuckle rap. “Dawson, it’s Marty. Can I come in?” There was no response. Marty waited a few seconds then spoke to the door again. “Why don’t I pick us up some lunch?”

  Silence.

  He tried again, “How about a cheesesteak sub from Uncle Mo’s?”

  “With peppers and onions,” Dawson yelled through the door. “And a Coke.”

  Within fifteen minutes, we had lunch in hand. Marty rapped on Dawson’s door again. Dawson flung the door open and marched past us toward the kitchen. He held a manila folder in one hand. We followed in silence.

  The four of us took seats around the kitchen table and Kari distributed the sandwiches. I dug out the napkins and stuck straws in everyone’s drinks. Th
ere’d never been this much dead air among the four of us for this long. Kari broke the silence. “Why have you been hiding in your office?”

  “I wasn’t hiding. You knew where I was.” Dawson hinged his mouth open and took a giant bite out of his sub. This kept him from speaking for a bit, which I suspect was his intention.

  I tried another approach. “It’s sad news about Harvey...”

  “Harvey Metzger can rot in hell,” Dawson said and took another bite of his sub. While he chewed, he opened the folder he had carried into the kitchen and spread the papers across the center of the desk.

  Marty, Kari, and I examined them. The document’s letterhead read Harvey Metzger Financial Services. They looked like financial statements. The account was in Dawson’s name and had several hundred thousand dollars in it, distributed among fifteen or twenty different stocks.

  Marty put his reading glasses on to get a better look. “Looks like a lot of money. Harvey made you a nice little profit last quarter.”

  “No, there’s nothing there. Those are phony figures. I saw him last night. He lost it all. It was a Ponzi scheme.” Dawson took another bite.

  I was stunned by Dawson’s nonchalance as he delivered this news. Perhaps he was still in denial. Perhaps he’s tougher than his slender frame would suggest.

  “You saw Harvey last night?” Marty asked.

  Dawson nodded, mouth full.

  “And you discovered then that he had lost all your money?”

  Dawson nodded again.

  “And this morning he was found dead?”

  Dawson started to nod again, then swallowed hard. His eyes widened. “Oh my God. I may have been the last person to see him alive.”

  “Other than the killer,” Kari clarified.

  “I’ll be a suspect. I’m a lawyer for Christ’s sake. They’ll want to hang this on me. The press will lynch me.”

  #

  I spent the rest of the day distracted by the implications of Harvey’s death. Marty ran off to a deposition and Kari tried to busy herself at her desk. Dawson shut himself back in his office but didn’t lock the door this time.