A Christmas Client – A please, I beg you, please settle this tale
By Curtis J. Romanowski, Esq., with apologies to Charles Dickens, Esq. (in pertinent part, emphasis added)
At this the client raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that the fair divorce lawyer held on tight to her chair, to save herself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was her horror, when the client taking off the bandage round her broken heart, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, her lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
The fair lawyer fell upon her knees, and clasped her hands before her face.
“Mercy!” she said. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?”
“Divorce lawyer of the worldly mind!” replied the client, “do you believe in me or not?”
“I do,” said the fair divorce lawyer. “I must.” (See Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1). But why do clients walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”
“It is required of every lawyer,” the Ghost returned, ”that the spirit within her should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world – oh, woe is me! – and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
Again the client raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.
“You are fettered," said the lawyer, trembling. “Tell me why?”
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the client. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
The lawyer trembled more and more.
“Or would you know,” pursued the client, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
The lawyer glanced about herself on the floor, in the expectation of finding herself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but she could see nothing.
“Dear client,” she said, imploringly. Fair unsettled client, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, dear client!”
“I have none to give,” the client replied. “It comes from other regions, devout lawyer, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men (particularly those who have screwed me over and violated my marriage vows countless times). Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house – mark me! – in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me! (including modification applications and COLA adjustments).
It was a habit with the dear fair lawyer, whenever she became thoughtful (as to her massively growing accounts receivable, history of fee arbitrations and fee suits countered with unfounded, yet costly malpractice claims, likely to increase professional negligence insurance premiums, etc.), to put her hands in her breeches pockets. Pondering on what the client had said, she did so now, but without lifting up her eyes, or getting off her knees.
“You must have been very slow about it, fair client,” the lawyer observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.
“Slow!” the client repeated.
“Seven rounds of motion practice dead,” mused the lawyer. “And travelling all the time (as you are in an extremely remote and otherwise undesirable vicinage)!”
“The whole time,” said the client. “No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.”
“You travel fast?” said the lawyer.
“On the wings of the wind,” replied the client.
“You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven rounds of motion practice,” said the lawyer.
The client, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the County Prosecutor would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the client, “not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused (resulting perhaps in various forms of permitted alimony running quite concurrently, or one leg at a time, likened to concurrent sentences or the putting on of leggings)! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”
“But you seemed to be a reasonable client at our initial consultation, even some time beyond, fair client,” faltered the family lawyer, who now began to apply this to herself.
“Business!” cried the client, wringing her hands again. “Mankind was my business (until the jerk left me for his receptionist after I damn near put him through medical school (See Mahoney v. Mahoney, 91 N.J. 488 (1982)). The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! (citations omitted)”
It held up its chain at arm’s length (once again, citations omitted), as if that were the cause (of action) of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
“At this time of the rolling year (closely held business with fiscal vs. calendar year considerations),” the client said “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down (I was the LAST to know), and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode (We were living BELOW OUR MEANS, IF YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT, so that HE could have a better standard of living for his teen bride, brainless mistress. What about my stretch marks? He promised me he’d pay to have these fixed. They should both choke on their own spit and I must have a tummy tuck, in accordance that which he always promised me! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me (that’s what he would have wanted, the godless bastard)!”
The lawyer was very much dismayed to hear the client going on at this rate (particularly since the case was over a year old), and began to quake exceedingly.
“Hear me! cried the client. “My time is nearly gone. I gave him the best years of my life!”
“I will,” said the divorce lawyer. “But don’t be hard upon me (please don’t sue me or declare bankruptcy to discharge your outstanding account balance, as I too have a family to support)! Don’t be flowery, fair client! Pray!”
“How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day (I could have sworn that I have told you and your staff this and that, but really never have. In fact, I may have been dreaming half of this stuff, and thought I told you but really didn’t).”
It was not an agreeable idea (who knew?). The lawyer shivered, and wiped the perspiration from her brow.
“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the client. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate (use your imagination). A chance and hope of my procuring, dear lawyer.”
“You were always a good friend to me,” said the lawyer. “Thank `ee!”
“You will be haunted,” resumed the client, “by Three Spirits.”
The lawyer’s countenance fell almost as low as the client’s had done.
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Curtis Romanowski Esq.
Senior Attorney - Proprietor
Metuchen NJ
(732)603-8585
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