The only good Lawyer

But we wouldn’t have had to climb that goddamn cliff and take more than fifty percent casualties doing it. We were... let down by our own people, John. And that’s a pill too bitter to swallow.”
    I thought of Saigon during the Tet Offensive. “I know.”
    Neely suddenly leaned back. “Sorry. You’ve probably got your own memories like that.”
    My face may have shown him something. He said, “After we first spoke this afternoon, I made a few phone calls. You were Military Police in Vietnam .”
    “For a while.”
    Neely sipped some more of his scotch. “I learned one thing that day at Pointe-du-Hoc, John. You lose your innocence when somebody your own age dies in front of you.”
    That was the first thing Neely had said that sounded practiced, a line rolling a little too smoothly off the tongue.
    He set his drink down again. “And I’ve learned maybe one thing since. Old age has no purpose, except to remind you of being young and to punish you for having pissed it away.”
    I gestured with my own glass. “I wouldn’t exactly say all this came from ‘pissing it away.’ ”
    “No.” Neely grinned sheepishly. “No, ‘all this’ is the product of a lot of hard work. When I first got started in practice, clients came to you because they trusted you, like the family doctor. And they took your advice, so you and the other lawyers could run the system, keep everything going for everybody. You decided to form a partnership, it was just a handshake among honorable men. And documents were typed up by secretaries you worked with forever; Now, nobody trusts lawyers, and the clients have taken over the system. Getting a big case is like a beauty contest, where you have to show up in a corporation’s conference room and actually ‘bid’ on representing the company in a lawsuit. Attorneys spend more time in front of a computer ‘online’ than they do in a courtroom ‘on-trial,’ and with so many younger ones out there, the competition for even the smaller cases is fierce. Clericals of both genders are suing their firms for sexual harassment, and nobody’s civil to anybody anymore. It’s all cutthroat, John, just another business instead of an honored profession. Things have gotten to the point that lawyers are even hiring themselves out as temps.”
    “Is that what you’ll do?”
    Neely seemed thrown by the question. “What?”
    “Is that how you’ll deal with the loss of Woodrow Gant, bring in some temporary attorneys to replace him?”
    “No. No, for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t believe in hiring attorneys except for the long haul.”
    “As opposed to clerical staff?”
    Neely picked up his glass, tilting it toward me. “ Touché , if that doesn’t date me even more than the war stories. You’re right, we hire temps for support purposes because it’s cost effective. But the kind of practice Woodrow had, the clients are hiring the lawyer^ not the firm. I couldn’t just bring in a ‘substitute teacher’ to cover his divorce cases, even if I wanted to. And it’ll take a while to find someone who’s good enough to join us. You see, Woodrow had a way about him that inspired confidence, and we’ll just have to let his clients find other counsel. With our help, if needed.”
    “Which means you’ll lose the fees from those cases.”
    “The unearned portions. But Imogene is going through the files and billing records, and we’ll resolve that.” Neely looked over at me. “I will have to replace Woodrow with someone soon, though, and so I’m going to ask you one question that I’d like a straight answer to.”
    I set down my drink. “Go ahead.”
    “A little while ago, I said there was no real purpose to getting old. But it does help with reading people. I’m reading you now, and I don’t think you’re just going through the motions.”
    “Regarding Alan Spaeth, you mean?”
    “That’s what I mean.”
    “You said as much in your office earlier.”
    Neely fixed me with the same look he used down there. “I know I did, John, but I have a firm to run here.”
    “I don’t think I’ve heard your ‘one question’ yet.” Neely eased off the look. “It’s because I need the answer but don’t really want to hear it.” His eyes moved to the scotch, then back to me. “Did you find out anything from us that suggests your client didn’t kill Woodrow?”
    The man had been straight with me, allowing me access he didn’t have to, and I wanted to be straight with him.