"Serves him right," Reardon said, as he tossed the legal journal to his desk. He smiled some, and sighed. Another lawyer in trouble with the grievance committee. Reprimanded for not dotting the i’s or crossing the t’s.
He was no blue nose about professional ethics. It just thrilled him when someone else’s ship foundered. Why? He couldn’t say. It didn’t put money in his pocket, and there were so many lawyers in the state that if every fifth one were disbarred, he would most likely not be any busier.
It was just plain spite. As in: "I see London; I see France. Now I see your underpants." It felt good as a kid. It felt even better now, although he kept the sentiments to himself. He had a mean streak, all right, and it wearied him. Some days the dogs growling in the back of his mind found other fields in which to romp. He liked those days. The sun shined brighter then, and he could see the warmth in a stranger’s eyes. But the growl, that was familiar music. Snarling and yapping all the way to the bank.
The chip Jonathan Reardon carried on his shoulder didn’t weigh all that much most days. Indeed, there were days he was not aware of it at all, good days when a screen of fear and resentment didn’t color everything he saw and touched. But the chip was almost always there.
He was the first in his family to attend college. When he was accepted to law school his family seemed in awe of him. Even his father, a bricklayer with hands of stone who moved through his days quiet and withdrawn to the point of catatonia, had tears in his eyes. Never mind that Reardon had only been accepted to the University of Connecticut. He’d sent a mid-court shot of an application to the Yale Law School, and received a perfunctory rejection on expensive looking paper. Reardon was the family’s superstar; among lawyers, he was just another briefcase and suit.
There is a Great Chain of Being among lawyers; a vast pecking order in terms of status and prestige. It goes something like this: Those closest to God graduate from Harvard or Yale, maybe even Stanford if the accident of birth throws one far from what remains of New England’s Puritan enclaves. Everyone knows about the New England mystique. People are from "back" East, as through there were some sort of temporal or spiritual priority to mere geography.
The anointed work as students on legal publications called law reviews. These are student-run magazines in which professors must publish arcane and sometimes witty essays lest they perish on the academic vine. After law school, the elect work as clerks for a Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Then perhaps a year or two parked in a mega-firm law office before returning to the academic womb to become professors. There they write law review articles, and maybe books. The chosen rarely appear in court, but are more often to be seen on television talk shows.
Close to the top, but an arm’s length removed from grace, are those from schools such as University of Michigan or University of Virginia. They also worked on law reviews, but typically clerk for appellate court judges in the federal system. Most become academics; some actually practice in big firms, or become federal prosecutors. These, too, rarely go to court.
Two steps removed are top graduates of state schools. They may clerk for a trial court judge in the federal system or for a justice of their state Supreme Court. Then on to lucrative careers in local firms catering to the well-heeled.
On the lower rungs are those graduating from diploma mills or in the middling to bottom ranks of state schools. Typically they have neither law review experience nor time served as a judicial clerk. These lawyers go to small firms and learn to draft wills, counsel people in peril and argue the flotsam and jetsam of motions and pleadings before judges. Most scramble to make a living for a decade or so until the combined forces of inertia and attrition among their peers make them locally prominent for a decade or so. Jonathan Reardon sprang from these ranks. Hence, the chip. He carried it as a lawyer for two decades; he hoped he’d lose it as a judge.
________
"All rise. The Superior Court for the Judicial District of Belle Grove is now in session. All ye who have been bound or summoned to appear here, give your attention according to law. The Honorable Jonathan P. Reardon presiding," a crusty old marshal belted it out as though auditioning for part in an off Broadway play.
"Good morning, everyone. Please be seated," Reardon said. Was his voice too loud? Was that the faux baritone of one struggling to wear the mantle of authority? The sound of his own voice had not filled him with such anxiety since he had adjusted to the perils of puberty. His knees were shaking. Nerves again. Diarrhea. It was almost as bad as the night before his first jury trial. He felt damp and clammy, and his heart pounded just loud enough to interfere with his thoughts. It was his first day on the bench.
"We are here on a calendar call for trial ready civil cases exposed for trial this week. When I call the case, counsel indicate their presence and whether their clients are here. Once the calendar has been called, I will meet with lawyers in each case for a brief pre-trial. Pursuant to the rules of the court, each case is exposed for trial from today, Tuesday, until Friday at noon," Reardon said, hands shaking before him on the dais.
Counsel indicate their presence? Pursuant to the rules of this court? Lord, he’d been on the bench as a judge for all of about a minute and he was already talking as though English were a third or fourth language. A vagrant thought crossed his mind. A quick call to his wife: "Mildred indicate your presence by saying `Hello.’ Pursuant to our tacit contract, I am informing you I’ll be late for dinner."
Nineteen cases were on the calendar that week. There were five judges available to try civil cases. The presiding judge in Belle Grande gave Reardon the task of trying to settle them. The calendar call was just a means of getting the lawyers involved to sit down and talk, both to one another and to their clients.
Reardon didn’t much like civil trial work when he practiced. Rule Number One about civil practice: All clients are angry, and their degree of anger is inversely proportional to the merits of their case. Oh, sure, there are exceptions to the rule. That is one of the first things a lawyer learns in law school, for every rule there are at least six distinctions. But in general, as a vortex reflecting discernable forces, this rule held: The less legal merit a case reflected, the more angry the client. Anger is, after all, the mother lode of civil litigation.
This anger wearied him and drove him from the practice of law. Today, his first day as a judge, he sat looking at the cocky lawyers in the well of the court. Behind the lawyers sat clients, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Suddenly he feared he was now double the hostage. Angry clients march their frightened lawyers into court. Once there, the lawyers were forced to act lest they be swallowed whole by their client’s rage. Nothing in law school prepared a lawyer for the woe and mayhem walking daily into their offices. "We profit mining the anger and despair in our midst," he’d told his wife more than once.
Reardon searched for calm now as he looked at the litigants and their lawyers. If he didn’t quite feel free, he felt at least removed. No one would buttonhole him in the hallway and scream at him for not getting enough money, or for failing to bring someone to ruin. But still, he sat, wondering now in earnest whether he would ever be free from it all. The lawyers before him were propelled by the darker visions of their clients; they matched legal doctrine to their clients’ wounds. And what, exactly, was Reardon to do about it? Justice? It seemed so simple in law school. For a moment he went cold and wondered whether his decision to become a judge had taken him far enough away from the anger of strangers.
