A Work Related Injury

There is a condition which afflicts lawyers. Not the ones you might think like arrogance or verbosity or acid reflux – those are career requirements more than afflictions – but a medical condition that most of us experience at least occasionally during our careers.

It happens, usually in a courtroom or hearing of some type, when someone (usually your client) says something so unexpected and horrible that you are momentarily stunned into silence.

“Oh, was it important that I was tried for the murder of my first two wives?”
“No, I haven’t had a DUI in a long time – almost 3 months.”
“Well, yes, that is a picture of my new boyfriend in orange jail coveralls on Facebook. That shouldn’t have anything to do with my request for full custody.”

The condition is called a CLUNG, and is defined as a sudden rush of sh*t to the heart of an attorney, brought about by his client uttering just such a statement in open court, usually in front of a recorder.

I had one of these during a hearing recently, and it brought to mind the first time I experienced the condition about a quarter century ago.

I was a brand new baby lawyer working in western Oklahoma. My boss, Jerry, was a great mentor with laughing eyes, a keen legal mind and eyebrows like the Tasmanian Devil. We were involved in a custody case that, in retrospect I see was designed primarily to build scar tissue on my part.

Our client was the dad, in his mid-40’s. He had snagged his daughters, ages 3 and 5, from his “wife”, age 19 and dragged them from “Little Dixie” in southeastern Oklahoma across the state to where we were on I-40 in the western part of the state, and wanted an emergency custody order.

As with most cases involving any type of “emergency” order, he came to our office on a Friday afternoon. I was assigned to the case and began working with him.

The client, Frankie, was a relatively willing student who took direction well despite the fact that he smoked 3 packs of cigarettes in less than 2 hours so we had to keep taking breaks. Our hearing was scheduled for early the next week.

We arrived in a tiny courtroom, anticipating a brief hearing before the judge that would be finished in just a few minutes. We were met instead by a packed house – the mother had shown up with no lawyer and 40 assorted relatives who looked like the road crew from the movie “Deliverance.” With Jerry at my side (after all, I’d never been in a courtroom before other than as an assistant or observer), I put my client on the stand and began going through our drill with the questions designed to show how he was a stellar parent and that the mother was sadly lacking.

And it went like a dream. He had a new shirt from Montgomery Wards, clean jeans, was shaved and had a fresh haircut. He answered the questions just like I wanted, didn’t extemporize or try to make himself out to be anything other than a concerned parent.

My naïve puppy-lawyer brain thought, “This is great. I’ve chosen the perfect career. I can do this.”

Then, about halfway through my presentation, a voice from the gallery shrieked, “Tell the Judge about the dead baby in the back seat of your car, Frankie!”

It was then that I experienced my first ever Clung.

It feels a lot like that first big drop on a roller coaster, when you can’t catch your breath and your stomach is moving upward while, at the same time, anything below the stomach is moving downward through your system. Sometimes you have to concentrate hard to keep from wetting yourself while holding it all together – after all, I was wearing one of the only two suits I owned.

As might be imagined, this single statement caused a degree of mayhem in the courtroom. There was much murmuring of assent in the audience, but by far the most disruptive thing was Jerry, who was laughing so hard that he was seized by a coughing fit and FELL OFF HIS CHAIR ONTO THE FLOOR.

Being at the same point in my career now that he was then, I can say I understand it entirely and would probably do the same thing. While it’s no fun to experience, the schadenfreude of seeing this happen to someone else – especially a new lawyer who’s still puffed up with his own importance – is quite entertaining.

At the time I didn’t think it was especially supportive on Jerry’s part, though.  I hadn't yet learned that lawyers eat their young.

The Judge, retaining his composure, looked down from the bench and said, “I believe I’d like to hear about that, Frankie.”

I held onto the table and tried not to faint. Jerry continued to cough and laugh as he tried to regain his dignity.

As it turns out, Frankie neglected to mention that a couple of years earlier he and his wife hit desperate times and were living in their car with the oldest child and their newborn son. The son died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the matter was investigated and it was found to be just an unfortunate natural death.

Had I known about that, I could have prepared for and dealt with it. Without adequate preparation, it was both devastating to the case and caused me to experience my first Clung.

The fallout? Judge Markum temporarily removed the children from both parents until Social Services could investigate further. As I recall, my client was living in a pretty seedy motel in town that probably wasn’t the most nurturing environment for small children. When faced with the fact that DSS would be involved and neither parent would have their daughters, the couple decided that things weren’t so bad between them and promptly reconciled their differences in the courthouse parking lot.

I went back to the office, with Jerry chuckling to himself the whole way.