My Jerry Springer story

Photo by David Shankbone via Wikipedia

The passing of Jerry Springer this week reminds me of the time someone called and asked me to sue him.

This is how the phone call began: I said, "Jack Leyhane," and the caller said, "I want to sue Jerry Springer."

Even with this very limited vocal sample, I could definitely detect that the caller had a distinctive accent.

If you guessed that the caller's accent was Received Pronunciation, you are both very funny and completely wrong.

Although I do remember exactly how the call began, I don't recall exactly when it happened. I apparently did not note the call on my time sheets.

But the Internet tells us that the Jerry Springer Show was based in Chicago between 1991 and 2009; I was very much on my own when I fielded this call, so we can narrow it down to somewhere between 2004 and 2009. Because I did not take contemporary notes, the quotation marks used hereafter are taken from my best recollection, and not meant as an assertion that I recall the exact words used. Marilu Henner, I am not.

Now, if I had been blessed with even a modicum of common sense, I would have immediately responded with something like, "Oh, gee, that's too bad. I'm sorry, but I'm conflicted out -- I'm Jerry Springer's agent." But, obviously, I was not Jerry Springer's agent; I never met the man. Also, I never could come up with a snappy comeback when I got blindsided by something totally unexpected. And who would have expected this?

So, instead, I asked something like, "How did you find me?"

"On line," he said. Or, "on the computer."

At various times during the Aughts, when I still harbored dreams of building an actual firm with real-life associates, I dabbled in promotional websites with Martindale Hubbell and West. For a time, I may have had both. But, if this was the kind of inquiry generated by these efforts, I was clearly doing something wrong.

I plunged on.

Not because I had to, obviously. But, from time to time, I have been afflicted with a morbid curiousity. This was one of those occasions: "Why do you want to sue Jerry Springer?"

The story came tumbling out. It seems that Mr. Springer was doing a show on men who were cheating on their wives with one of their wife's relations. My caller, it seems, was carrying on with his wife's cousin. The producers flew them all up to Chicago -- himself, his wife, and his wife's cousin (I didn't ask if the caller took the center seat on the flight up, but I wanted to). The producers picked them up in a limo, then put the whole bunch up in a hotel downtown (no, I didn't ask how many rooms they booked either), and brought them down to the studio for the show. But they didn't get on TV.

As I sit here now I can't remember if he told me that the problem was the show ran long or whether the producers just decided to use one or more different threesomes. But my caller was plainly upset at not getting his 15 Minutes of Fame.

Seriously.

I asked some clarifying questions. "Did anyone promise that you'd be on TV?" I asked.

Well, no, he said.

"What did they promise you?"

"Well, they promised to fly us to Chicago and back again."

"And they flew you up just like they said?"

"Well, yeah."

"And they're going to fly you back, too?"

"Yeah. Limo is coming in an hour."

"OK. And they promised to put you up in the hotel? And they did that, too, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"They feed you and all?"

"Room service and everything. Very nice -- but they didn't put us on TV!"

"Well, sir," I said (I had never asked his name), "maybe someone else might figure it differently, but here's the way I see it: They did everything they promised to do. They didn't put you on the show, but they didn't promise to do that. I don't think there'd be much chance of winning if you were to sue. I admit that free advice is worth every cent you pay for it, but that's my opinion anyway."

My caller wasn't satisfied, but he could see he wasn't getting anywhere with me. Besides, he had a limo to catch.

I hadn't thought about that incident for a long time. But remembering that I had to field calls like that every so often makes my not-entirely-voluntary retirement just that much easier to bear.

I wonder now if the fellow got the center seat on the flight home?

Winning isn't everything; sometimes it's not even winning

According to Wikipedia, Vince Lombardi did not coin the phrase, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." Wikipedia says Coach Lombardi borrowed it from a former UCLA football coach, Henry Russell ("Red") Sanders.

Regardless, Lombardi did use the saying, and several similar ones like, "If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" or "Winners never quit and quitters never win."

Vince Lombardi was a great football coach... but he might not have been nearly as successful as a litigator.

Lawyers don't necessarily think of our role in litigation in such stark, 1-0 terms. We think that our job is to provide quality representation, providing the best possible presentation of the client's case. This may involve a knowledgeable exposition of the applicable law; it may involve identifying the most persuasive way of presenting testimony and exhibits -- and it probably will involve both. Lawyers are famous, or infamous, for telling clients that we cannot "guarantee" results. What we mean by this is that, though we may do our job, as we understand it, in the best way possible, we can still lose.

Clients, however, are drawn to the Vince Lombardi model. Attorneys are engaged to win, not to lose. If we win, we've done an adequate job; if we lose, we're bums.

At least half the lawyers you see coming out of the Daley Center on any given day are, therefore, just a bunch of bums.

Fortunately, there is some positive correlation between providing quality representation and success in any case. Especially when the client has realistic expectations of what constitutes a "win."

Sophisticated clients, such as many large corporations and insurance companies, realize that, no matter what resources are devoted to any case, and no matter how knowledgeable their lawyers are or how capably their lawyers perform, their lawyers can not achieve a verdict in every case. But the sophisticated client still might "win."

And this is where Coach Lombardi might have come down with a migraine: In a given case a "win" might mean holding damages down below a certain threshold, for example, or simply minimizing bad publicity. For individual litigants, a "win" may be keeping the house (or gaining enough time to sell the house, getting time to pay off a debt, or avoiding the loss of joint custody). In criminal cases, a "win" may involve getting probation instead of jail time or getting a reduced sentence.

But understanding that clients are less concerned about the quality of our efforts and the logic of our arguments than about "winning" gives us lawyers the opportunity to eliminate misunderstandings at an early stage of a representation: What can a win look like in this case? Is a judgment in the client's favor likely? Or should a "win" in this case be seen as something different?

Compromise which prevents further disputes down the road may be far more in the client's interests than a "win" in a given case. Illinois lawyers are licensed to practice as attorneys and counselors at law.

Clients, when your lawyer tries to explain alternatives to trial, or recommends settlement, or explains to you the weaknesses of your case, or recommends a less-than-scorched-earth strategy, your lawyer is not necessarily "appeasing" your adversary or failing to 'represent or support' you.

Yes, clients, there are some hyper-aggressive lawyers out there who will drain your wallet and then suddenly turn pacifist. There are those who will talk a good fight and then 'roll over' at the first sign of resistance. There are also some who will pursue every motion, every remedy, and every argument, some who equate compromise with capitulation, some who will shout from the rooftops, "millions for defense, not one penny for tribute!" -- until your millions, or thousands, more likely, are gone. Then they slink away -- and withdraw from your case. What good has that done you?

There has to be a degree of trust between lawyer and client. The lawyer must be worthy of your trust. And you, client, must not be too quick to waver. But be clear in what you expect: If you want every weapon launched and no argument left unargued, don't beef about the bill. Conversely, after you've cried poor-mouth, and sent your fee payments in on tear-stained checks or, worse, fallen behind in your account, don't get upset when your lawyer starts suggesting compromises and stops being quite so aggressive.

Creating real confidence in the legal system begins with admitting its limitations

We urge our clients to have confidence in the legal system.

But do we lawyers share that confidence?

I don't pretend to speak for all lawyers, or even any group. But I can say that my most honest answer is yes... and no.

First, the 'yes' part.

I was already practicing law when Operation Greylord exploded into the headlines in the mid-1980s. For those too young to remember, 15 Cook County judges were convicted as a result of this extensive FBI undercover investigation. Greylord trials showed that cases were 'fixed' by willing judges, aided by court personnel, including clerks and deputy sheriffs as 'bagmen,' taking payoffs from corrupt lawyers.

To be honest, I miss the days when lawyers could more or less freely wander the corridors behind the courtrooms, visiting chambers, schmoozing. I really didn't know any judges then; most of my acquaintances were law clerks -- you know, kids my age. But just in visiting with the clerks I could learn a little law and, I suppose, feel more a part of the greater legal system.

Now, of course, chambers are mini-fortresses, the back corridors more moats now than highways. With limited exceptions---usually scheduled---a lawyer's penetration of the inner sanctum these days is typically viewed with suspicion, if not alarm, and generally supervised.

But the trade-off is that our judges today are above reproach. Greylord could have shattered confidence in our judicial system; instead, it had a cleansing effect. We lament the lack of wider public participation in the judicial election process, but there is indisputably more public scrutiny of judicial hopefuls now than there was a generation ago. There is also greater involvement and attention from the bar generally. The Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening did not exist during Greylord; it is an integral part of the judicial selection process now (if still sometimes observed more in the breach). It is both right and reasonable to believe wholeheartedly in the personal integrity and honesty of the members of our judiciary.

But... and herewith we start on the 'no' part... not all judges are equally gifted. Some are more learned in the law, some are more practical, some are more diligent than others. Some have many of these gifts; others seem to have very few. And not all cases are created equally. That makes a difference: The scholarly judge may be less able to accurately determine which witness is lying and which is telling the truth. The judge who adheres strictly to the rules might be manipulated by a lawyer intent on abusing discovery. The absence of personal corruption is by no means a guarantee that a judge will achieve an appropriate result in any given case.

Judges are human, too, you know, and therefore prone to err.

So when we urge clients to have faith in the system, we must also not over-promise what the system can do.

We can safely promise an honest result in a given case; we can not promise that the result will be appropriate.

So we have confidence in the system -- but we know results are unpredictable.

We have confidence in the system -- but we caution that litigation is often cripplingly expensive, even for the eventual 'winner.'

We have confidence in the system -- but not so much confidence that we do not encourage settlement. Or ADR.

I know many non-lawyers find this difficult to understand. Clients sometimes accuse us of not having the courage of our convictions. If we believe in the system, why would we recommend compromise? Are we being inconsistent? Are we trying to have things both ways?

Contrary to the suspicions of some, this is not post-modern, relativistic angst. In the middle of the 19th Century, a prominent Downstate lawyer had this advice for his colleagues:

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser -- in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

The Downstate lawyer offering that advice? Abraham Lincoln.

Of course, there are some lawyers who think that the question of settlement should be reserved until the last tenth of a billable hour has been wrung from the case. That's incredibly wrong -- but that's a story for a different day.

In which the lawyer-blogger tries, and so far fails, to get rid of his fax line

I remember when fax machines were the new, bleeding-edge, must-have technology for law offices.

Well... maybe not so new in the 1980s... something like a fax machine, a wirephoto machine, figures prominently in the plot of the 1948 Jimmy Stewart classic, Call Northside 777 (filmed in Chicago, and based on a real-life wrongful conviction case).

But, whether the concept had been around for awhile or not, it wasn't until sometime in the mid-1980s that actual fax machines became ubiquitous in office settings.

The firm I worked for in those days resisted acquiring a fax machine for as long as possible. The senior partners there were wise enough to know that the very ability to pose questions instantaneously creates expectations that those questions will be answered just as quickly. With a fax machine, a client's question about a document could not be fended off by saying, well, I'll have to take a look at the document in order to see if it means what you think it means... you know, building in some time for reasoned consideration, evaluation, maybe even some research... oh no, just *ring, ring*, *whir, whir*, and the document was there, demanding instant interpretation.

And no fax machine ever went off on Friday after 4:30 p.m. with good news.

So I've never liked fax machines. And I haven't shed a single tear as fax machines gradually became yesterday's news, joining floppy disks and pocket pagers in the Office Technology Graveyard.

And yet, for years now, largely because of inertia if nothing else, I've maintained a fax machine and a dedicated phone line for said fax machine. Even though the faxes I receive on said machine look mostly like this one:

You know, once I remembered that I am a solo practitioner, I was able to figure out fairly quickly -- within a day or two, certainly -- that I probably didn't have an H.R. Department.

Hey, what's a little extra overhead among friends, right?

But AT&T finally motivated me to act.

For several years now, every single year -- long about this time -- AT&T would send me an office phone bill for roughly twice the amount I had been paying.

Technically, of course, the fault was mine. In 21st Century Corporate America, the customer is always wrong, whatever that old fool Marshall Field may have said: AT&T would send me letters or leave me messages asking me to sign up for a new plan -- these being different from the usual batch of letters that AT&T sends, or the voice mails that AT&T leaves, asking me to sign up for this or that, because these said my current plan would expire and I would lose my special business rate if I failed to act.

It took me a couple of years to realize that some of AT&T's junk letters and messages were just junk, but others were traps. And in the course of the passing seasons, and the press of business, I would forget the bitter lesson learned. And the double-whammy phone bill would arrive in predictable course, like the swallows at Capistrano.

But not last year. Last year, I wrote about my frustrations -- and I resolved to prevent this from ever happening again.

I would cut the cord.

A colleague had shown me the way: She kept her landline office number but 'ported' it to a cell phone. That way she could work from home, or from the hospital, just as if she were in the office (she was caring for a sick relative when she had her epiphany). And she already had a cell phone, so adding one line was quite a bit cheaper than the cheapest landline.

I had hoped to wait until March, the better to tie in with the annual expiration of my annual AT&T "business rate," but the catastrophic failure of my youngest son's cellphone at the end of January necessitated that I advance my plans. And Costco had a deal. And, after numerous calls and web visits while I stood around looking dumber than usual, the sales clerk said he'd started the process by which my office number would be successfully ported.

He said.

A week went by.

And my office number was still active as a landline.

I steeled myself for the ordeal, like Hercules undertaking his descent into Hades, and plunged into AT&T Phone Hell. After fending off all the computer guardians set to block my access to a real human, I finally spoke with a young lady and asked her why my account was still active.

It's scheduled to be disconnected, she assured me. All three lines? I asked (I had a rollover line in addition to the fax line; this was another holdover from the days when conference calling was pretty spiffy stuff). I'm closing out this account, I told her, and she asked why. I told her.

And, lo and behold, within a few more days, the main number was disconnected. My cellphone office number was up and running.

I disconnected my landline phone. I wanted to pull out the fax machine, too, but, alas, when I pressed "Hook" on the console, I still got a dial tone. I got the fax shown here after I asked for the disconnection of my AT&T service. It has since been joined by a sheaf of brother and sister junk faxes.

Meanwhile, I got another bill from AT&T. Now my old rollover number was the account number -- but, admittedly, there was a price decrease reflecting the change from three lines to two. Except that I had requested -- you'll recall -- to go from three lines to none.

I paid the bill. I marked it "Final" and "Under Protest" and put both account numbers on it -- all the things that we learned, way back in law school, that were supposed to be helpful in preserving rights but which we now know, in reality, to be a complete waste of ink.

So I girded my loins for another descent into Phone Hades.

Why did I get a bill? I asked, when I finally made it through the multiple menus and "all of our service representatives are still assisting other customers" announcements.

The new young lady looked up my account. Never mind that I'd given my new account number, my old account number, my shoe size, and my high school transcript to various computer guardians en route to speak with her. You are scheduled to be disconnected, she told me, eventually.

I am?

That's what it says here.

Can you tell me why I haven't been disconnected yet?

I can't tell from this screen, she told me (and I was not at all surprised), but you are scheduled.

When?

I can't say for certain. Soon.

I let it go at that.

What a dope I am.

The double-whammy bill has since arrived. And I'm still getting faxes from my "H.R. Department."

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: It took a complaint to the Illinois Commerce Commission, but I finally got AT&T to disconnect my fax line. The AT&T employees who responded instantaneously when the commerce commission complaint hit were very nice and entirely apologetic. But, seriously, should it have had to come to that?

A call from AT&T... maybe

The Caller ID read "Toll Free Calle" – I think it safe to assume the last word was supposed to be ‘Caller’ – but no other identification was provided.

Most lawyers have staff to screen calls. Even many solos still have assistants who talk to potential clients, mollify existing clients, set up depositions and hang up on sales calls. But I have largely abandoned hope of ever hiring staff, all because employees have this all-too-reasonable desire to be paid on a regular basis. I am forced to listen to my own messages.

This automated message must have begun before my voice mail greeting had ended because the recording picked up in mid-word: "...vice provider about all your service options. A delayed response may result in an increased service rate or involuntary transfer of your business service plan. Please press 1 now to be connected. Please disregard this message if your business has already consulted an AT&T Solution Provider and applied a business service solution. If not, please press 1 now or call [not the number displayed on the caller ID – not even the same area code] between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to speak to a service representative."

Now, I ask you... would you press 1? Would you call the number? Why?

This had clumsy, East-European-or-maybe-Nigerian-drain-your-bank-account scam written all over it, right?

Well, maybe not.

I ignored a number of these calls over a period of time -- and then my April office phone bill more than doubled.

Apparently, these really were calls from AT&T. Or at least some of them.

Now I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune of having to call AT&T. Most lawyers in firms have been spared this because they have office managers who are paid, in part, to bear this enormous burden. So let me try and explain it this way: If anyone like Ernestine still works there, she is very well guarded. The guard is a disembodied robot voice. The recorded male voice is preternaturally chipper. "I see you are calling from" -- and then he recites the number -- "is this the number you are calling about?" This unnatural cheerfulness only serves to aggravate me more. It is particularly galling when calling to report a service outage -- no, it's not the number I'm calling from you mindless mess of microchips -- if I could call from that number I sure as heck wouldn't be calling you!

Mr. Cheerful always wants to know if I want to pay my bill. The first 17 or 18 menu options that he offers all have to do with paying the bill. I will admit that I have exhibited a certain lack of patience on occasion when waiting for these often redundant and always unhelpful options to end. It is just possible, I must concede, that I have, on more than one occasion, attempted to interrupt the machine's recitation by stabbing zero, zero, zero on the telephone keypad and roaring, "I WANT TO SPEAK WITH A HUMAN BEING! NOW!"

In later, more reflective, moments, I have been forced to consider the possibility that, when screaming and stabbing at the keypad, no sane human being would want to speak with me.

At some point, Mr. Cheerful changed tack. My button-pushing and howling have had no effect whatsoever on the cheery affect of Mr. Cheerful. "In a few short words," he gushed, "tell me about why you are calling. For example, you can say, 'I want to pay my bill,' or 'I really want to pay my bill.'"

Granted, my response was probably not as specific as the designers of the system expected. But it was heartfelt nonetheless. "AT&T is a bloated, corrupt monopoly that was justifiably destroyed by the Federal Courts," I said, "only to be allowed to reassemble, through the criminal negligence of our elected representatives and government regulators, like the mythical Hydra, into a monster more terrible than before."

There was a noticeable pause. When Mr. Microchips spoke again, a note of concern has, for the first time, infected his cheerful tone. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that." But Mr. Cheerful rallied immediately, back on script, "In a few short words," he repeated, "tell me about why you are calling. For example, you can say, 'I want to pay my bill,' or 'I really want to pay my bill.'"

I was in fact calling about my bill and I unloaded on Mr. Cheerful once more. "I am not paying my bill! I am not paying this outrageous amount!"

It is all too easy for me to spare you the agony of how I got from this point to a very wary call-taker. I simply can't recall how I made it. The red mist swam before my eyes. I thundered. I shrieked. I may have sobbed. A few non-vital blood vessels burst, I'm sure, along the way.

The bottom line was that my "service plan" had indeed expired and I was being billed a la carte prices instead of the bundled price I had heretofore endured. The AT&T call-taker made an effort to sound sympathetic: "We don't want to change the pricing every year or so," he said, "but we are required by regulations to do this." This would be comforting, I suppose, or at least give me the opportunity to deflect my ire from AT&T to the government regulators were I not pretty well convinced that AT&T pretty much dictates those few regulations it will tolerate from a compliant government.

When one has no choice at all, one can only try and be gracious and take the punishment meted out: I would be forced to pay this ridiculously high April bill but, as a reward for calling, I could look forward to a new bundle of varied prices that somehow added up to only just a little bit more than I'd been paying previously. I knew I was supposed to be grateful for such condescension from my corporate betters. But I still had one more appeal to reason left: You know, I said, if you really wanted customers to re-configure their plans every year or two you could include a notice in the bill. The bill is the one communication from AT&T that I know is genuine. The anonymous phone calls or junk mass-mailings might or might not be for real, I explained.

Alternatively, I suggested, there's an AT&T store in the Loop. I can pay my bill there. Why can't I sign up for any required new rates there?

The AT&T call-taker waited me out, patiently, I thought. But he was dismissive. "We can't do that," he said, or, "That's not the way we do things."

And, indeed, why should AT&T change? AT&T cadged an extra $200+ from me in April -- multiply that over how many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of similarly-situated small businesses and you begin to see the enormous profitability of the scheme -- and, as long as I insist on a landline for my office phone, I have nowhere else to go.

I am actively rethinking this whole need-for-a-landline thing.

Meanwhile, for the time being, I believe I can once again use my office phone as a tool in my legal practice, secure that I am back in the good graces of AT&T.

Or am I?

A week or so after the events herein recounted, around the time I reluctantly wrote that enormous check, I received a call from an unidentified toll free number. As before, the prerecorded message began before my voice mail greeting asked for a message: "...vice provider about all your service options. A delayed response may result in an increased service rate or involuntary transfer of your business service plan. Please press 1 now to be connected. Please disregard this message if your business has already consulted an AT&T Solution Provider and applied a business service solution. If not, please press 1 now or call [not the number displayed on the caller ID – not even the same area code] between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to speak to a service representative." Yes, it was the exact same message I had previously disregarded to my subsequent (and expensive) regret. But, surely, it was just a case of AT&T being such a bloated monstrosity that this computer hadn't yet gotten the memo from the other computer that I had recently signed on for another hitch, right?

Then, a week or two ago, there was still another call from an unidentified toll-free number. Like we were taught about Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in high school, AT&T apparently likes to start its voice mails in medias res: "... AT&T business telephone service. Action is required to complete your pending service migration. AT&T recently replaced your business DSL service or installed new high-speed Uverse service at your business location as Phase One of our digital service migration. If your business utilizes two business lines or less, please press 1 now to schedule the voice segment of the service migration. AT&T will now complete Phase Two of your service migration by increasing your Internet speed up to 45 megabytes and/or add Uverse business voice service for less than your previous service cost. As an existing AT&T customer using Uverse, your business qualifies for up to a $100 Visa gift card for this service upgrade. This service will be less than your previous service cost. Please press 1 now to speak to an AT&T business solution provider about all your service upgrade options. Please press 1 now. Please disregard this message if your business has already provided an AT&T business solution provider and upgraded your Uverse service. If not, please call [a different toll-free number than the one allegedly calling] between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. to speak to a representative."

But I don't have Uverse. Well, I do, but for my suite as a whole, not for my individual business. And I have three lines. Does this even apply to me?

I promise you, Perry Mason never had to answer these kinds of questions. I've never seen the show, so I can't be sure, but I doubt that even Better Call Saul has had to bother with this stuff. But, as was said in E.T., so it may also be said here: This is reality, Greg.