here dropped six hours each month, Karen, that’s twelve hundred hours that wouldn’t get billed. That’s three hundred grand we wouldn’t collect. Each month. Twelve months, that’s three-point-six million. See how it adds up? See why every hour counts? Billable hours are a law firm’s inventory, Karen, so when you don’t bill your quota, it’s like you’re working at McDonald’s and giving away hamburgers.”
Karen was looking at Scott like a freshman coed watching her first porn flick at a frat party.
“Scott, you’re telling me to pad my hours. Isn’t that cheating?”
“Every place except a law firm.”
Bobby entered the Ford Stevens lobby and was waved through by the smiling receptionist. Each time he walked into the Ford Stevens offices, he smelled something in the air. Like a funeral home, a downtown law office has its own unique smell; but instead of formaldehyde, this place smelled of money.
Bobby walked down the carpeted corridor to Scotty’s corner office. Scotty was sitting behind his desk and addressing a young woman. He noticed Bobby and waved him in.
Bobby stepped into the office. The young woman stood and when she turned to face Bobby, he was struck by her appearance: she was very attractive and from her sharp suit, a lawyer.
“Bobby, this is Karen Douglas. Karen, Bobby Herrin.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re working the Shawanda Jones case with Scott. That must be very exciting. When I was in school, I always thought I’d work in the public defender’s office.”
“But we pay better,” Scotty said. He pointed at the sofa. “Sit, Bobby, I’ll be right with you.” He picked up a thick document and turned back to Karen. “Now, Karen, you’re clear on billable hours?”
Karen sighed heavily and nodded. “I guess so.”
“Okay, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is your memo. I’ve read it and it’s great. You researched the law perfectly, you applied the facts, you did everything exactly right…except-”
“Except what, Scott?”
“Except you didn’t answer my question.”
“But you asked whether Dibrell could sue that little town over its denial of his rezoning request. The answer is no.”
Scotty was shaking his head. “Karen, I didn’t ask you whether Dibrell could sue the town, I asked you how Dibrell could sue. We’re going to sue; we’ve already decided that. It’s part of our strategy to get the town to give us the rezoning we want. And believe me, after their lawyer tells them how much the litigation will cost in fees and expenses even if they win, the town will crater. What I wanted from you is a legal position we can take to justify our lawsuit. You answered whether. I asked how.”
Karen’s face expressed that dismay unique to a new lawyer learning the ways of lawyers.
“I…I didn’t understand, Scott. I’ll try again.”
“Good girl.”
Karen departed and Scotty said, “Nice body, but she’ll never make it as a lawyer. What’s up?”
Ten minutes later, they were driving to the federal building.
“Scotty,” Bobby said, “twenty years is a good deal. I’ve had two-bit dealers go down for life.”
But Scott wasn’t thinking about what was good for his client; he was thinking about what was good for himself. Which was Shawanda’s pleading out, for twenty or thirty or forty years, he didn’t give a damn. Because if she pleaded out, he wouldn’t have to make a big decision. Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.
“ Twenty years? Mr. Fenney, Pajamae, she be twenty-nine by then, I won’t even know her. She all I got.”
Shawanda was pacing the small room, around and around, circling Scott and Bobby in their chairs.
“I understand, Shawanda, but if you’re convicted of first-degree murder, you might get the death penalty.”
“Twenty years in prison, I die anyway. Mr. Fenney, why don’t you believe me? I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill nobody!”
In civil litigation, judges routinely order the parties to mediate their disputes before going to trial. Mediation allows the lawyers to hammer their clients into settlements they don’t like, force them to pay amounts they don’t want to pay, and make them end lawsuits they don’t want to end. But there is no court-ordered mediation in criminal cases. So all Scott could do to try to convince his client to take the plea deal was stand and shout: “Shawanda, please think about this!”
She stopped short.
“I don’t gotta think no more about it, Mr. Fenney. I told you before, I ain’t coppin’ no plea!”
Ray Burns was not happy when Scott and Bobby informed him of their client’s decision to reject the plea offer.
“That bi-” Ray’s eyes met Bobby’s. “That woman is making a big mistake. And her lawyers are making an even bigger mistake if they go public with Clark’s past.”
“What about ten years?” Scott asked.
“No way. We don’t give ten-year deals to people who stick a gun to a guy’s head and blow his fucking brains out!”
Scott was back in his office, sitting behind his desk, his elbows on the top, his head in his hands, his eyes closed, and his mind a jumble of thoughts and images: Scotty Fenney, number 22, racing down the field, scoring the winning touchdown, the campus hero…two little girls, one white, one black, sleeping side by side in the big bed, their faces smooth, their hair in cornrows…Rebecca, beautiful and naked and angry…Shawanda, alone in her cell, crying for her daughter and heroin…and Dan Ford, who had replaced the father who had died when Scott was just a boy. What son wouldn’t do what his father asked? Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon. But the boy had a mother, too, and just as the image of a mother reading to her son flashed across his mind’s eye, Scott opened his eyes to find Dan Ford standing over him. And he knew what his senior partner had come for.
“She turned down the deal?”
Scott leaned back in his chair. “Word travels fast.”
“The U.S. Attorney called Mack, Mack called me.”
“And now you’re calling on me? What’s that saying, shit rolls downhill?”
“Something like that.”
Dan strolled around the office and stopped at the huge framed photograph of Scott Fenney, number 22 for the SMU Mustangs, running the ball against Texas. “One hundred ninety-three yards…unbelievable,” he said. After a moment, he broke away and sat on the sofa. Finally, he turned to Scott.
“Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Now.”
“I don’t know, Dan.”
“What’s there to know? We know what Mack wants.”
“And I know what my client wants.”
Dan chuckled. “Your client? Clients pay us fees, Scott. Ms. Jones isn’t paying us anything. She’s costing us. She’s an expense to this firm. And she’s expendable.”
“Dan, I’m her lawyer!”
Dan stood. “Scott, do you really believe she’s innocent? Do you really believe she didn’t kill Clark?”
Scott shook his head. “No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, Dan, if I don’t introduce that evidence about Clark’s past, she’s gonna die!”
A look of absolute puzzlement came over Dan’s face. He said, “And how does that affect your life?”
And that had been the guiding principle of A. Scott Fenney’s professional life since the day he joined Ford Stevens: How would it affect his life? Or, more to the point, his income. Any event-a lawyer fired, a client dumped, a case won or lost, a law enacted or repealed, a natural disaster, a stock market crash, a war, a presidential election-that affected his life and income was, by definition, important. Any event that did not affect his life or income was unimportant, irrelevant, as inconsequential to him as another gang murder in South Dallas. Now, driving home to his $3.5 million mansion in a $200,000 automobile, Scott found himself wondering: How would Shawanda Jones being sentenced to death affect his life and income?
The answer was obvious: not at all. The day after her conviction, he would be back at his desk, working to make rich clients richer and bringing home $750,000 a year. As he would the day after her execution. She would quickly become part of his past. A year from now he wouldn’t even remember her name.
