Текст книги "Gray Mountain"

Автор книги: John Grisham

Соавторы: John Grisham
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

7

The two gentlemen to her right were slugging whiskeys and feverishly discussing ways to save Fannie Mae. The three to her left apparently worked at Treasury, which seemed to be the epicenter of the collapse. They were knocking back martinis, courtesy of the taxpayers. Up and down the bar of Bistro Venezia the talk was of nothing but the end of time. A windbag behind her was recounting at full volume his conversation that very afternoon with a senior advisor to the McCain/Palin campaign. He had unloaded a wave of solid advice, all of which was being ignored, he feared. Two bartenders were lamenting the crash of the stock market, as if they were losing millions. Someone argued that the Fed might do this, or it might do that. Bush was getting bad advice. Obama was surging in the polls. Goldman needed cash. Factory orders in China had dipped dramatically.

In the midst of the storm, Samantha sipped a diet soda and waited for her father, who was running late. It occurred to her that no one in Brady had seemed even remotely aware that the world was teetering on the brink of a catastrophic depression. Perhaps the mountains kept the place isolated and secure. Or perhaps life there had been depressed for so long another crash wouldn’t matter. Her phone vibrated and she took it out of her pocket. It was Mattie Wyatt. “Samantha, how was your drive?” she asked.

“Fine, Mattie. I’m in D.C. now.”

“Good. Look, the board just met and voted unanimously to offer you the internship. I interviewed the other applicant this afternoon, a rather nervous young fellow, actually from your law firm, and he doesn’t interest us. I got the impression he was just passing through, probably got in his car and kept driving to some place far away from New York. Not sure how stable he is. Anyway, Donovan and I didn’t see much potential there and we nixed him on the spot. When can you start?”

“Did he meet Romey?”

Mattie cackled on the other end and said, “I don’t think so.”

“I need to go to New York and get some things. I’ll be there Monday.”

“Excellent. Call me in a day or so.”

“Thanks Mattie. I’m looking forward to it.”

She saw her father across the way and left the bar. A hostess led them to a table in a corner and hurriedly whipped out menus. The restaurant was packed and a nervous chatter roared from all directions. A minute later, a manager in a tuxedo appeared and announced gravely, “I’m so sorry, but we need this table.”

Marshall replied rudely, “I beg your pardon.”

“Please sir, we have another table for you.”

At that moment, a caravan of black SUVs wheeled to a stop on N Street outside the restaurant. Doors flew open and an army of agents spilled onto the sidewalk. Samantha and Marshall eased away from the table, watching, with everyone else, the circus outside. Such shows were commonplace in D.C., and at that moment everyone was guessing. Could it be the President? Dick Cheney? Which big shot can we say we had dinner with? The VIP eventually emerged and was escorted inside, where the crowd, suddenly frozen, gawked and waited.

“Who the hell is that?” someone asked.

“Never seen him before.”

“Oh, I think he’s that Israeli guy, the ambassador.”

A noticeable rush of air left the restaurant as the diners realized that the fuss was over some lower-ranking celebrity. Though thoroughly unrecognizable, the VIP was evidently a marked man. His table—the Kofers’ old table—was pushed into a corner and shielded by partitions that materialized from nowhere. Every serious D.C. restaurant keeps lead partitions at the ready, right? The VIP sat with his female partner and tried to look normal, like an average guy out for a quick bite. Meanwhile, his gun thugs patrolled the sidewalk and watched N Street for suicide bombers.

Marshall cursed the manager and said to Samantha, “Let’s get out of here. Sometimes I hate this city.” They walked three blocks along Wisconsin Avenue and found a pub that was being neglected by jihadists. Samantha ordered another diet soda as Marshall went for a double vodka. “What happened down there?” he asked. He had grilled her on the phone but she wanted to save the stories for a real conversation.

She smiled and started with Romey. Halfway through the tale she realized how much she was enjoying the adventure. Marshall was incredulous and wanted to sue someone, but settled down after a few pulls on the vodka. They ordered a pizza and she described the dinner with Mattie and Chester.

“You’re not serious about working down there, are you?” he asked.

“I got the job. I’ll try it for a few months. If I get bored I’ll go back to New York and get a job at Barneys selling shoes.”

“You don’t have to sell shoes and you don’t have to work in legal aid. How much money do you have in the bank?”

“Enough to survive. How much do you have in the bank?”

He frowned and took another drink. She continued, “A lot, right? Mom’s convinced you buried a ton offshore and gave her the shaft in the divorce. Is that true?”

“No, it’s not true, but if it was do you think I’d admit it to you?”

“No, never. Deny, deny, deny—isn’t that the first rule for a criminal defense lawyer?”

“I wouldn’t know. And by the way, I admitted to my crimes and pled guilty. What do you know about criminal law?”

“Nothing, but I’m learning. I have now been arrested, for starters.”

“Well, so have I and I wouldn’t recommend it. At least you avoided the handcuffs. What else does your mother say about me?”

“Nothing good. Somewhere in the back of my overworked brain I’ve had this fantasy of the three of us sitting down to a nice dinner in a lovely restaurant, not as a family, heaven forbid, but as three adults who might just have a few things in common.”

“I’m in.”

“Yeah, but she’s not. Too many issues.”

“How did we get off on this subject?”

“I don’t know. Sorry. Did you ever sue a coal company?”

Marshall rattled his ice cubes and thought for a second. He had sued so many wayward corporations. Sadly, he said, “No, don’t think so. My specialty was plane crashes, but Frank, one of my partners, was once involved in some type of coal case. An environmental mess involving this gunk they keep in lakes. He doesn’t talk about it much, so that probably means he lost the case.”

“It’s called sludge, or slurry, take your pick. It’s toxic waste that’s a by-product of washing coal. The companies store it behind earthen dams where it rots for years as it seeps into the ground and contaminates the drinking water.”

“My, my, aren’t you the smart one now?”

“Oh, I’ve learned a lot in the past twenty-four hours. Did you know that some of the counties in the coalfields have the highest rates of cancer in the country?”

“Sounds like a lawsuit.”

“Lawsuits are hard to win down there because coal is king and a lot of jurors are sympathetic to the companies.”

“This is wonderful, Samantha. We’re talking about real law now, not building skyscrapers. I’m proud of you. Let’s sue somebody.”

The pizza arrived and they ate it from the stone. A shapely brunette sauntered by in a short skirt and Marshall instinctively gawked and stopped chewing for a second, then caught himself and tried to act as though he hadn’t seen the woman. “What kind of work will you be doing down there?” he asked awkwardly, one eye still on the skirt.

“You’re sixty years old and she’s about my age. When will you ever stop looking?”

“Never. What’s wrong with looking?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s the first step.”

“You just don’t understand men, Samantha. Looking is automatic and it’s harmless. We all look. Come on.”

“So you can’t help it?”

“No. And why are we talking about this? I’d rather talk about suing coal companies.”

“I got nothing else. I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Will you be suing them?”

“I doubt it. But I met a guy who takes nothing but coal cases. His family was destroyed by a strip mine when he was a kid and he’s on a vendetta. He carries a gun. I saw it.”

“A guy? Did you like him?”

“He’s married.”

“Good. I’d rather you not fall in love with a hillbilly. Why does he carry a gun?”

“I think a lot of them do down there. He says the coal companies don’t like him and there’s a long history of violence in the business.”

Marshall wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and took a sip of water. “Allow me to summarize what I’ve heard. This is a place where the mentally ill are allowed to wear uniforms, call themselves constables, drive cars with flashing lights, stop out-of-state drivers, and sometimes even haul them to jail. Others, who are evidently not mentally ill, go about the practice of law with guns in their briefcases. Still others offer temporary jobs to laid-off lawyers and don’t pay them anything.”

“That’s a pretty fair analysis.”

“And you’re starting Monday morning?”

“You got it.”

Marshall shook his head as he selected another slice of pizza. “I guess it beats Big Law on Wall Street.”

“We’ll see.”

Blythe was able to escape her firm for a quick lunch. They met in a crowded deli not far from her office and over salads managed to reach an agreement. Samantha would pay her share of the rent for the three months left on the lease, but beyond that she could not commit. Blythe was clinging to her job and slightly optimistic about not losing it. She wanted to keep the apartment but could not handle the full rent. Samantha assured her there was an excellent chance she would be back in the city in short order, doing something.

Later in the afternoon, she met Izabelle for coffee and gossip. Izabelle’s bags were packed and she was on her way home, to Wilmington, to live with a sister who had a spare room in the basement. She would intern with a child advocacy group and scramble for real work. She was depressed and bitter and uncertain about her survival. When they hugged good-bye, both knew it would be a long time before they met again.

Common sense told Samantha to lease a vehicle in the New York metropolitan area, load it up, and then head south. However, as she soon discovered while working the phone, any leased car would have New York license plates. She could probably find one in New Jersey, or maybe in Connecticut, but all three would be a red flag in Brady. She couldn’t get Romey off her mind. He was, after all, still at large, making his mischief.

Instead, she loaded two suitcases and a large canvas bag with everything she deemed appropriate for where she was headed. A cab unloaded her at Penn Station. Five hours later, another cab collected her at Union Station in D.C. She and Karen ate carryout sushi in their pajamas and watched an old movie. Marshall was never mentioned.

The Web site for Gasko Leasing over in Falls Church promised a wide selection of great used vehicles, convenient terms, paperwork that was virtually hassle-free, easy-to-buy insurance, complete customer satisfaction. Her knowledge of automobiles was limited, but something told her a domestic model might have less potential for causing trouble than something from, say, Japan. Browsing online, she saw a midsized 2004 Ford hatchback that looked suitable. On the phone, the salesman said it was still available, and, more important, he guaranteed her it would have Virginia tags. “Yes ma’am, front and back.” She took a cab to Falls Church, and met with Ernie, the salesman. Ernie was a flirt who talked far too much and observed very little. Had he been more astute, he would have realized how terrified Samantha was of the process of leasing a used car for twelve months.

In fact, she had thought about calling her father for help, but let it pass. She convinced herself she was tough enough for this relatively unimportant task. After two long hours with Ernie, she finally drove away in a thoroughly unnoticeable Ford, one obviously owned by someone living in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

8

Orientation consisted of an 8:00 a.m. meeting with a new client. Fortunately for Samantha, who had no idea how to conduct such a meeting, Mattie assumed control. She whispered, “Just take notes, frown a lot, and try to look intelligent.” No problem—that was exactly how she had survived the first two years at Scully & Pershing.

The client was Lady Purvis, a fortyish mother of three teenagers whose husband, Stocky, was currently in jail next door in Hopper County. Mattie did not ask if Lady was her real name; if important, that detail would emerge later. But, given her rustic appearance and salty language, it was difficult to imagine her parents officially naming her Lady. She had the look of a hard life earned somewhere deep in the hollows, and she became irritated when Mattie said she could not smoke in the office. Samantha, frowning, scribbled furiously and didn’t say a word. From the first sentence there was nothing but hard luck and misery. The family was living in a trailer, one with a mortgage, and they were behind on the payments; they were behind on everything. Her two oldest teenagers had dropped out of school to look for jobs that did not exist, not in Noland, Hopper, and Curry Counties. They were threatening to run away, somewhere out west where they could maybe find a paycheck picking oranges. Lady worked here and there, cleaning houses on the weekends, babysitting for five bucks an hour—anything, really, to make a dollar.

Stocky’s crime: speeding. Which then led to an examination by the deputy of his driver’s license, which had expired two days earlier. His total fines and court costs were $175, money he did not have. Hopper County had contracted with a private outfit to strong-arm the money out of Stocky and other poor people unlucky enough to commit petty crimes and traffic offenses. If Stocky could have written the check, he would have done so and gone home. But because he was poor and broke, his case was handled differently. The judge ordered it to be administered by the crooks at Judicial Response Associates. Lady and Stocky met with a JRA operative the day they went to court, and he explained how the payment plan would work. His company tacked on fees—one called the Primary Fee at $75, one called the Monthly Service Fee at $35 per, and one at the end, assuming they ever got there, called the Termination Fee, a bargain at only $25. Court costs and a few other vague add-ons brought their total to $400. They figured they might be able to pay $50 a month, the minimum allowed by JRA; however, they soon realized that $35 of the $50 was gobbled up with the Monthly Service Fee. They tried to renegotiate, but JRA wouldn’t budge. After two payments, Stocky quit and that was when the serious trouble started. Two deputies came to their trailer after midnight and arrested Stocky. Lady protested, as did their oldest son, and the deputies threatened to zap them with their brand-new Tasers. When Stocky was dragged before the judge again, more fines and fees were added. The new total was $550. Stocky explained that he was broke and out of work, and the judge sent him back to jail. He’d been there for two months. Meanwhile, JRA was still tacking on its beloved monthly service charge, which for some mysterious reason had been increased to $45 per.

“The longer he stays there the deeper we get,” Lady said, thoroughly defeated. In a small paper sack she had her paperwork, and Mattie began sorting through it. There were angry letters from the maker of the trailer who was also financing its purchase, and foreclosure notices, past-due utility bills, tax notices, court documents, and a stack of various papers from JRA. Mattie read them and handed them over to Samantha, who had no idea what to do except to make a list of all the misery.

Lady finally broke and said, “I gotta smoke. Gimme five minutes.” Her hands were trembling.

“Sure,” Mattie said. “Just step outside.”

“Thanks.”

“How many packs a day?”

“Just two.”

“What’s your brand?”

“Charlie’s. I know I ought to quit, and I’ve tried, but it’s the only thing that settles my nerves.” She grabbed her purse and left the room. Mattie said, “Charlie’s is a favorite in Appalachia, a cheaper brand, though it’s still $4 a pack. That’s eight bucks a day, two-fifty a month, and I’ll bet Stocky smokes just as much. They’re probably spending $500 a month on cigarettes and who knows how much on beer. If there’s ever a spare dollar, they probably buy lottery tickets.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Samantha said, relieved to finally say something. “Why? They could pay off his fines in one month and he’s out of jail.”

“They don’t think that way. Smoking is an addiction, something they can’t simply walk away from.”

“Okay, can I ask a question?”

“Sure. I’ll bet you want to know how a person like Stocky can be thrown into a debtors’ prison, something this country outlawed about two hundred years ago. Right?”

Samantha slowly nodded. Mattie continued, “More than likely, you’re also certain that throwing someone in jail because he cannot pay a fine or a fee violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And, you are no doubt familiar with the 1983 Supreme Court decision, the name escapes me right now, in which the Court ruled that before a person can be thrown in jail for not paying a fine it must be proven that he or she was willfully not paying. In other words, he could pay but he refused. All this and more, right?”

“That’s a nice summary.”

“It’s happening everywhere. JRA hustles the misdemeanor courts in a dozen southern states. On the average, local governments collect about 30 percent of their fine monies. JRA rolls in and promises 70 percent, at no taxpayer expense. They claim it’s all funded by the folks like Stocky who get sucked into the scam. Every city and county needs money, so they sign up with JRA and the courts hand over the cases. The victims are placed on probation and when they can’t pay, they get thrown in jail, where of course the taxpayers start picking up the expenses again. They’re spending $30 a day to feed and house Stocky.”

“This can’t be legal.”

“It’s legal because it’s not specifically illegal. They are poor people, Samantha, at the bottom of the pile, and down here the laws are different. That’s why we’re in business, so to speak.”

“This is awful.”

“It is, and it can get worse. As a delinquent probationer, Stocky might be excluded from food stamps, housing assistance, a driver’s license, hell, in some states they might take away his right to vote, assuming he’s ever bothered to register.”

Lady was back, reeking of tobacco smoke and still just as jumpy. They plowed through the rest of her unpaid bills. “Is there any way you can help me?” she said, her eyes moist.

“Of course,” Mattie said with far too much optimism. “I’ve had some success negotiating with JRA. They’re not accustomed to lawyers getting involved, and for such tough guys, they’re easy to bully. They know they’re wrong and they’re afraid someone might bust them. I know the judge over there and by now they’re tired of feeding Stocky. We can get him out and get him back to work. Then we’ll probably consider a bankruptcy to save the home and wipe out some of these bills. I’ll haggle with the utility companies.” She clicked off these bold moves as if they had already been accomplished, and Samantha suddenly felt better. Lady managed a smile, the first and only.

Mattie said, “Give us a couple of days and we’ll put together a plan. Feel free to call Samantha here if you have any questions. She’ll know everything about your case.” The intern’s heart skipped a beat as she heard her name mentioned. At the moment, she felt as though she knew nothing about anything.

“So we have two lawyers?” Lady asked.

“You certainly do.”

“And you are, uh, free?”

“That’s right, Lady. We are legal aid. We do not charge for our services.”

Lady covered her eyes with both hands and began crying.

Samantha had not recovered from the first client meeting when she was called in to her second. Annette Brevard, the “junior partner” at Mountain Legal Aid Clinic, thought it would be educational for their new intern to get a real taste of domestic violence.

Annette was a divorced mother of two who had been in Brady for ten years. She had once lived in Richmond and practiced law in a midsized firm until a bad divorce sent her packing. She escaped to Brady with her children and took a job with Mattie because there was nothing else available in the Commonwealth. She certainly had no plans to stay in Brady, but then who’s smart enough to plan the rest of their life? She lived in an old house downtown. Behind her house was a separate garage. Above the garage was a two-room apartment, Samantha’s home for the next few months. Annette decided that if the internship was free, then so was the rent. They had haggled over this, but Annette was adamant. Samantha had no other viable option and moved in with promises of free babysitting. She was even allowed to park her hatchback in the garage.

The client was a thirty-six-year-old woman named Phoebe. She was married to Randy, and they had just gone through a bad weekend. Randy was in jail about six blocks away (the same jail Samantha had narrowly avoided) and Phoebe was sitting in a lawyer’s office with a swollen left eye, a cut on her nose, and terror in her eyes. With compassion and feeling, Annette walked Phoebe through her story. Again, Samantha frowned intelligently without making a sound, took pages of notes, and wondered how many crazy people lived in those parts.

With a voice so calm it soothed even Samantha, Annette prodded Phoebe along. There were a lot of tears and emotion. Randy was a meth addict and dealer, also a drunk who’d been beating her for a year and a half. He never hit her as long as her father was alive—Randy was terrified of him—but after he died two years ago the physical abuse started. He threatened to kill her all the time. Yes, she used meth too, but she was careful and certainly not an addict. They had three kids, all under the age of ten. Her second marriage, his third. Randy was forty-two, older, and had a lot of rough friends in the meth business. She was afraid of these people. They had cash and they would arrange for his bail any moment now. Once free, Randy would almost certainly track her down. He was furious that she had finally called the police and had him arrested. But he knew the sheriff well and they wouldn’t keep him in jail. He would beat her until she dropped the assault charges. She went through a pile of tissues as she sobbed her way through the story.

Occasionally, Samantha would scribble important questions such as “Where am I?” And “What am I doing here?”

Phoebe was afraid to go back to their rented home. Her three children were being hidden by an aunt in Kentucky. She was told by a deputy that Randy was scheduled to be in court sometime on Monday. He could even be there right now getting his bond set by the judge, and once it’s set his buddies will plop down the cash and he’ll walk. “You gotta help me,” Phoebe said over and over. “He’ll kill me.”

“No he won’t,” Annette said with an odd sense of confidence. Judging from Phoebe’s tears, looks of fear, and body language, Samantha agreed with her and suspected Randy might show up any moment and start trouble. Annette, though, seemed perfectly unbothered by that possibility.

She’s been here before a hundred times, Samantha thought.

Annette said, “Samantha, go online and check the court docket.” She rattled off the Web site for Noland County’s government listings, and the intern was quick to open her laptop, start the search, and for a moment ignore Phoebe and her emotions.

“I have to get a divorce,” Phoebe was saying. “There’s no way I’ll go back there.”

“Okay, we’ll file for divorce tomorrow and get an injunction to keep him away from you.”

“What’s an injunction?”

“It’s an order from the court, and if he violates it he’ll really anger the judge, who’ll throw him back in jail.”

This made her smile, but just for a second. She said, “I gotta leave town. I can’t stay here. He’ll get stoned again and forget the injunction and the judge and come after me. They gotta keep him locked up for a while. Can they do that?”

“What’s he charged with, Samantha?” Annette asked.

“Malicious wounding,” she said just as she found the case online. “Due in court this afternoon at 1:00. No bail has been set.”

“Malicious wounding? What did he hit you with?”

The tears poured instantly and Phoebe wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “He had a gun, a pistol we keep in a drawer in the kitchen, unloaded because of the kids, but the bullets are on top of the refrigerator, just in case, you know. We were fighting and yelling and he pulled out the pistol like he was about to load it and I suppose finish me off. I tried to grab it and he hit me on the side of the head with the butt of it. Then it dropped to the floor and he slapped me around with his hands. I got out of the house, ran next door, and called the cops.”

Annette calmly raised a hand to stop her. “That’s the malicious part—the use of a weapon.” She looked at Phoebe and Samantha as she said this, to enlighten both of them. “In Virginia, the sentence can be from five to twenty years, depending on the circumstances—weapon, injury, etc.” Samantha was once again taking furious notes. She had heard some of this in law school, so many years ago.

Annette continued, “Now, Phoebe, we can expect your husband to say that you went for the gun first, that you hit him and so on, and he might even try to press charges against you. How would you respond to this?”

“This guy is eight inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier. No one in their right mind would believe I picked a fight with him. The cops, if they tell the truth, will say he was drunk and out of his mind. He even wrestled with them until they Tasered his big ass.”

Annette smiled, satisfied. She glanced at her watch, opened a file, and removed some paperwork. “I have to make a phone call in five minutes. Samantha, this is our divorce questionnaire. It’s pretty straightforward. Go through it with Phoebe and gather all the information you can. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Samantha took the questionnaire as if she had handled dozens of them.

An hour later, alone and safe in her own makeshift office, Samantha closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The office appeared to be a former storage room, tiny and cramped with two unbalanced chairs and a round table with a vinyl covering. Mattie and Annette had apologized and promised an upgrade at some point in the future. One wall was dominated by a large window that looked out over the rear parking lot. Samantha was thankful for the light.

As small as it was, her space in New York had not been much larger. Against her wishes, her thoughts stayed on New York, the big firm and all its promises and horrors. She smiled when she realized she was not on the clock; gone was the unrelenting pressure to bill more hours, to make more money for the big boys at the top, to impress them with the goal of one day becoming just like them. She glanced at her watch. It was 11:00 and she had not billed a single minute, nor would she. The ancient phone rattled and she had no choice but to pick it up. “There’s a call on line two,” Barb said.

“Who is it?” Samantha asked nervously, her first phone call.

“Guy named Joe Duncan. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Why does he want to speak with me?”

“He didn’t say that. Said he needs a lawyer and at the moment Mattie and Annette are tied up. He’s yours by default.”

“What kind of case?” Samantha asked, glancing at her six skyscrapers standing together on top of an army surplus file cabinet.

“Social Security. Be careful. Line two.”

Barb worked part-time and ran the front. Samantha had spoken to her for only a few seconds early that morning as she was being introduced. The clinic also had a part-time paralegal named Claudelle. An all-girls show.

She punched line two and said, “Samantha Kofer.”

Mr. Duncan said hello and quizzed her to make sure she was really a lawyer. She assured him she was but at that moment had doubts. Soon he was off and running. He was going through a rough spell and really wanted to chat about it. All manner of misfortune had hit him and his family, and based on the first ten minutes of his narrative he had enough problems to keep a small law firm busy for several months. He was unemployed—had been wrongfully terminated but that would be yet another story—but his real problem was his health. He had ruptured a lower disk and couldn’t work. He had applied for disability status under Social Security, and had been denied. Now he was losing everything.

Because Samantha had so little to offer, she was content to let him ramble. After half an hour, though, she got bored. Ending the conversation was a challenge—he was desperate and clinging—but she finally convinced him she would immediately review his case with their Social Security specialist and get back to him.

By noon, Samantha was famished and exhausted. It was not the fatigue brought on by hours of reading and poring over thick documents, or the relentless pressure to impress people, or the fear of not measuring up and being shoved off the track to partnership. It was not the exhaustion she had lived with for the past three years. She was drained from the shock and fear of looking at the emotional wreckage of real humans, desperate people with little hope and looking to her for help.

For the rest of the firm, though, it was a typical Monday morning. They met for a brown-bag lunch in the main conference room, a weekly ritual, to eat quickly while discussing cases, clients, or any other business deemed necessary. But on this Monday the main topic was the new intern. They were keen to examine her. Finally, she was encouraged to speak.

“Well, I need some help,” Samantha said. “I just got off the phone with a man whose claim for Social Security disability was denied. Whatever that means.”

This was met with a mix of laughter and amusement. The word “disability” seemed to draw a reaction from the rest of the firm. “We no longer take Social Security cases,” Barb said from the front line. She met the clients first, as they came through the front door.