Jerry

After that prior blog about “Better Call Saul” (season 2 starts on 2/15!  Don’t miss it!) I thought it was about time to address a real life attorney, who I’ll call Jerry, for whom I had the pleasure of working from 1992 to 1998, immediately out of law school.  

“Vexation”.   Iron Butterfly, one of these late 60s-early 70s bands, had little nice to say about fellow travelers Blue Cheer, stating that they consider BC “more vexation than inspiration”.  I might say that about Jerry, because he was TOO brilliant.  Either you have his natural talent or you don’t:  no amount of hard work and study will ever come close to him; you have to work and prepare and train just to be competent.  Forget about reaching his level in your lifetime.  Anyhow.

In the beginning.   Jerry is from Philadelphia, went to UPenn for undergrad, USC for law school, and immediately passed the California bar and joined a megafirm in L.A.  Starting salary was $80,000 (back in 1990) for an 80 hour week, which was essentially two 40 hour $40k jobs stacked on top of each other, working for ruthless attorneys who would fire you for any reason.  An excellent recipe for a heart attack at age 25. 

So he moved east and worked for the NRA (back when their headquarters was in DC) until that job was reorganized out of existence and he was abruptly laid off.  A friend of his suggested he set up his own firm, and he did so: working out of his rented house on Route 50 in Arlington, with his dog on his lap. 

This is where I come in.  In fall 1992 I was on my third (and final) year of law school, but not too happy.  I managed zero summer associate positions and was putting books back on the shelf at the law school library for $5.50/hr, 10 hours per week.   Jerry used the same library for research (back in the days before everything was easily accessible on the Internet, which we didn’t have back then) and told the librarian he needed a replacement for his prior law clerk, who had left to join a major firm.  I got the job, working 20 hours a week at $10/hour for a real attorney, with real clients and real cases.   I could finally purchase a new car (1992 Pontiac Firebird) and my life was much better.

We moved from his house, to an office inside a moving company (January 1993) (pretty much the same as Jimmy McGill tucked away inside a nail salon), to the accountants’ suite next door (sometime later in 1993), and then into a suite in Falls Church in March 1995.  During this time I passed the Maryland and Virginia bars and became an associate instead of a law clerk.   However, by 1998 Jerry managed to snag a job at a top local firm which did nothing but contested divorces, and closed up his own practice, putting me out of a job.  I bounced around from firm to firm from 1998-2002 until finally winding up where I am now, with a solo practice in Falls Church.

Back to Jerry.  Certain major cases are worth nothing on his part.

Jury Trial.   Back in 1993 he took a big case:  a drug dealer had been beaten by two Montgomery County narc officers and a Greenbelt police officer.  He sued them all in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, in Baltimore.  Jerry got onto the case pro hac vice (out-of-state attorney allowed to handle specific case under narrow circumstances) so we did it.  This was a three day jury trial, and the defendant – by this time, only the Greenbelt cop – was represented by the senior partner at defense firm, some 60 year old veteran.  Talk about David vs. Goliath.  In addition to being a dope dealer, our client was too stupid to even be sympathetic, so we lost.  The genius of this is that Jerry got just as much experience doing this loser case he was probably going to lose anyway as he would have from a better case which might have been winnable.  Never, in a million years, would I have done that.  Amazing.

Custody Battle.  I’ll bookend this with the 1998 case which got Jerry hired by the firm.  Yet again, he was up against a big firm, all by himself, though the firm sent an associate instead of their top lawyer, mainly because it looked like a slam dunk for them.  Our client, who I’ll call Mrs Angry, had lost custody of her two kids to her sleazy ex-husband, Mr. Angry.  She was petulant, abrasive, and never in a good mood.  However, she had good reason to be upset given the circumstances.  She was fighting to regain custody, but the ex-husband’s expert witness, a behavioral psychologist ("Dr Expert") wrote a scathing report which crucified Mrs Angry and made her look psychotic.  She had no expert of her own. 

With help from his mother, who was a psychiatrist back up in Philadelphia, Jerry crafted a stunning cross examination of Dr. Expert, in which, item by item, he retracted his negative assessments and Mrs. Angry was rehabilitated and vindicated.  Result?  Victory plucked from the jaws of defeat, such a stunning victory that the divorce lawyers in Fairfax County were all talking about it – and so Jerry got a much better job.

Expert Trial.  As I said earlier, much of Jerry’s success is not emulatable, as it comes from an immense reserve of natural talent which cannot be taught:  either you have it or you don’t.  However, I did try to learn from him as much as I could, and one more recent case, in Maryland, is an example of this.

I represented a restaurant owner sued by a general contractor who was supposed to build up a Japanese steakhouse.  The contract fell through because a Chinese restaurant in the same complex successfully enjoined the opening thanks to a restrictive covenant in its lease with the complex’ landlord.  The overall contract was for $250,000, the contractor claimed he was entitled to 75% of that, minus amounts paid already.  The contractor had an expert willing to back up his claims, whereas my guy was too cheap to hire his own.  However, I did persuade him to pay for an expert to help me prepare for trial. 

Our own expert reviewed his opponent’s “qualifications” and his report, and explained why both were 100% bogus.  When it came to trial – a bench trial in Annapolis – I shredded their expert on cross examination.  Finally the judge ruled in our favor, citing that he had zero faith in the plaintiff’s expert’s testimony. 

Fun & Guns.  Working with Jerry wasn’t always court and business.  He loved guns, and infected me with his passion.  One day we took off to Alexandria to visit Old Town Armory, his favorite gun store.  I asked him if we had any business at the courts in Alexandria, and he quickly answered, “NOPE!”  Range time was part of the job, though we did represent quite a few clients petitioning for concealed weapon permits before Virginia switched to a “shall issue” law, which meant I’d drive down to Richmond to drop off appeal documents at the Court of Appeals, then jump back in the car and drive back. 

We also had nonverbal codes for certain clients.  We’d get another call, Jerry would be on the phone with another client, and he’d mouth “WHO IS IT?”  My response?  Seductive hand on the hip = his wife.  Sad guy looking through prison bars = same poor guy in prison who called collect nonstop.  Petulant fit = Mrs Angry. 

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Nowadays Jerry runs his own firm, located in Fairfax County, which does nothing but contested divorces.  Anyone needing a top notch divorce attorney in northern Virginia would be well advised to hire him – if your spouse hasn’t already done so.  I’m glad to have worked for him for those 5 years, which gave me the starting experience I needed, at least in traffic, criminal, and divorce matters.  Thanks, Jerry.