don’t even remember his name now—was sitting on the hood of his Ferrari and saying, “Accident? You wanna be rich? Call me today.” I didn’t even register the “accident” or the “call me today” portions. All I saw was a giant billboard that said, “You wanna be rich ?”
At the time, I had six dollars in my checking account, and my job, which was seasonal, was ending in two weeks. The billboard spoke to me more than almost anything ever had. I quickly finished my bachelor’s degree in a night program while I waited tables during the day, and then I applied to six law schools. University of Kansas was the only one that accepted me, and I was approved for student loans to cover tuition. I loaded up on credits each semester and took summer classes, too—as many as I could. I finished law school in two years rather than three, then clerked for a nearby solo practitioner who focused on personal injury. I analyzed the markets for personal injury law and found that Utah, despite its two law schools pumping out graduates, had a low number of personal injury lawyers per capita. Only North and South Dakota had lower numbers, but I sure as hell wasn’t moving to either of those. I packed up one gym bag and took the Bar in Utah.
Olivia seemed amazed by the fact that someone could just pick up and move their entire life at the drop of a hat. She’d never lived anywhere except the house she had been born in and one summer in California.
Her experience of law school was a lot different than mine, too: she aced every class, was on the staff of every prestigious journal, and didn’t even seem to need to study. She said she would just glance at the assigned reading and know what the professors were looking for. For me, law school consisted of two years of pain and frustration. For her, it was a time to relax and get to know her fellow students.
I didn’t remember I was supposed to meet Marty and Raimi until I was home in bed.
I woke up the next morning and didn’t have a hangover. I even went for a quick jog before coming home to make coffee and have a croissant. When enough time had passed, I called Rebecca.
“How is he?” I asked.
“He’s awake now. We’re just watching television. They think he can go back to ICU this afternoon.”
“Rebecca, I need to talk to you about something. An offer’s been made on Joel’s case.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, it’s customary to negotiate at the outset on something like this, even though both sides don’t have all the information yet. They offered one million. Our firm would get a third of that, and the rest would go to you. You probably wouldn’t ever have to work again if you were careful with the money.”
“And they’re going to come out publicly and say what happened?”
“No, the opposite. They’ll draft a gag order for a judge to sign. It’ll state that you can’t ever talk about the case to anyone in public. If the terms of the deal ever got out, they could sue you.”
“They won’t even apologize? They’re going to get away with this?”
“We don’t know for sure how much they’re liable for this. There could very well be some maniac out there poisoning children’s medicine. It’s weird that it’s only one medicine and only in one geographic location and that there haven’t been any additional cases, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility that this was one person who tampered with a few bottles after the cough syrup was already in stores. Pharma-K is offering this money to get this case out of the news and move on. The more people hear about it, the fewer will buy their cough medicine and other products.”
Silence a moment.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t care about the money. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else’s child. And I want to know why my son is dying. You can’t imagine how important that is. But I’ll do whatever you say. I trust you. If you say to take it, I’ll take it.”
I
At the time, I had six dollars in my checking account, and my job, which was seasonal, was ending in two weeks. The billboard spoke to me more than almost anything ever had. I quickly finished my bachelor’s degree in a night program while I waited tables during the day, and then I applied to six law schools. University of Kansas was the only one that accepted me, and I was approved for student loans to cover tuition. I loaded up on credits each semester and took summer classes, too—as many as I could. I finished law school in two years rather than three, then clerked for a nearby solo practitioner who focused on personal injury. I analyzed the markets for personal injury law and found that Utah, despite its two law schools pumping out graduates, had a low number of personal injury lawyers per capita. Only North and South Dakota had lower numbers, but I sure as hell wasn’t moving to either of those. I packed up one gym bag and took the Bar in Utah.
Olivia seemed amazed by the fact that someone could just pick up and move their entire life at the drop of a hat. She’d never lived anywhere except the house she had been born in and one summer in California.
Her experience of law school was a lot different than mine, too: she aced every class, was on the staff of every prestigious journal, and didn’t even seem to need to study. She said she would just glance at the assigned reading and know what the professors were looking for. For me, law school consisted of two years of pain and frustration. For her, it was a time to relax and get to know her fellow students.
I didn’t remember I was supposed to meet Marty and Raimi until I was home in bed.
I woke up the next morning and didn’t have a hangover. I even went for a quick jog before coming home to make coffee and have a croissant. When enough time had passed, I called Rebecca.
“How is he?” I asked.
“He’s awake now. We’re just watching television. They think he can go back to ICU this afternoon.”
“Rebecca, I need to talk to you about something. An offer’s been made on Joel’s case.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, it’s customary to negotiate at the outset on something like this, even though both sides don’t have all the information yet. They offered one million. Our firm would get a third of that, and the rest would go to you. You probably wouldn’t ever have to work again if you were careful with the money.”
“And they’re going to come out publicly and say what happened?”
“No, the opposite. They’ll draft a gag order for a judge to sign. It’ll state that you can’t ever talk about the case to anyone in public. If the terms of the deal ever got out, they could sue you.”
“They won’t even apologize? They’re going to get away with this?”
“We don’t know for sure how much they’re liable for this. There could very well be some maniac out there poisoning children’s medicine. It’s weird that it’s only one medicine and only in one geographic location and that there haven’t been any additional cases, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility that this was one person who tampered with a few bottles after the cough syrup was already in stores. Pharma-K is offering this money to get this case out of the news and move on. The more people hear about it, the fewer will buy their cough medicine and other products.”
Silence a moment.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t care about the money. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else’s child. And I want to know why my son is dying. You can’t imagine how important that is. But I’ll do whatever you say. I trust you. If you say to take it, I’ll take it.”
I
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