Jim Kassalonich threw his head back and drained his glass, setting it on the table with a slight clatter. He looked across the table at his bar-time company, and the two men studied each other for a moment. Darren Rosalevsky was slight in build, with a shy demeanor, and alert, very oval eyes.
Kassalonich was a big man, tall and wide. He was in his late fifties, and had been practicing law in Nashville for almost thirty-five years. Rosalevsky was younger, barely over forty, and one would have thought he was almost a student of the older, larger man, had one been positioned at a nearby table.
“I hate this goddamn case,” the burly man said. “I hate the case, and I hate the client even moreLet’s do what we can to get rid of it.”
The younger man leaned forward slightly, and said in a slightly strained voice, barely audible above the background noise in the bar, “I think my client is willing to settle for something reasonable. Of course, I’ll have to run anything we talk about by him.”
Kassalonich set his heavy hand down on the table, so loudly that others looked around from nearby tables. His voice was naturally loud, but he tried to keep it low as he spoke forcefully. “Hell, don’t run it by him. Tell him what you need to tell him to settle this thing. Just come up with something reasonable that I can live with.”
Rosalevsky’s voice seemed even weaker now, as if he was subdued by the demeanor of the larger man. “How am I going to do that? I have to keep him posted on what’s going on, and make sure it’s something he wants to do.”
Kassalonich shook his head from side to side. “No, you don’t. You don’t have to do that at all. That’s what I used to think, the first ten years or so that I was practicing law. You just haven’t set the right tone with your client. You have to let them know early on that whatever you decide is how it’s going to be. Within reason, of course. You can’t just blow off a good settlement when it would take just a little bit of work. But you don’t keep ‘em going forever, or you’ll never make any money.”
Rosalevsky sat silently for a moment, looking uncertainly at Kassalonich; he seemed to be thinking it over. “It would certainly be a lot easier that way in some cases. Sometimes there are clients who don’t know what their own best interest is, and a lawyer has to guide them into it, I suppose. But at the end, it’s their call.”
Kassalonich shook his head again, and ordered another beer. The two men sat without saying anything until the waiter returned, then Kassalonich lifted the glass and took a large gulp. He set the glass down hard again.
“I tell you, you’ve got to take charge. And this case is a prime example. We could spin our wheels all day long with these two, and never get anywhere. They hate each other too much to have good common sense. The only thing they hate more than each other is our bills. They don’t like paying lawyer bills. At least, my client doesn’t, and from what he says about your client, he doesn’t, either. What they want us to do is waste our goddamn time forever, like we operate for free. Then one day their hatred will run its course, but we’ll be stuck holding the invoice that they’ve refused to pay, or argued about, or threatened us with malpractice about. I nip that shit in the bud”
Rosalevsky ordered another beer, and looked around the bar. It was sparsely crowded in the late afternoon, and it was easy to have a private conversation. Still, it didn’t pay to ignore the fact that someone might be sitting in the next booth—somebody important, or somebody who knew somebody important. He slowly turned around to look behind him thoroughly, and then scanned the outside area to the right of their table in a half circle until he came back to Kassalonich. They made small talk until the waiter arrived with his beer, his third of the afternoon. He didn’t normally drink that much, usually just one, part of a second one every once in a while. Now he was starting his third. He knew his head was starting to swim, and he knew that he was getting into territory that was a little beyond him. But he had begun to grow disgruntled with his own client some time ago, and what Kassalonich had been saying struck a nerve.
“Your client doesn’t pay his bills?”
“This guy actually pays pretty well,” Kassalonich said. “I have a lot that don’t, but he pays pretty well, although he bitches about every single one, and takes a long time to pay ‘em. That’s not really the problem with this case. My problem is, I don’t think he even has a case, or not much of one at all. And I don’t think a judge is going to think so, either. But he wants his day in court, and he’s determined to try to push me into itWhat is your client saying about all this?”
Rosalevsky hesitated. It was a very direct question, and he wasn’t really used to being put in that position. “Well, you know, I don’t know what his internal thoughts are—“
“The hell you don’t!” Kassalonich’s eyes bulged a little bit as he leaned forward and gripped Rosalevsky’s left arm. “You know damn good and well what your own client thinks. Is he ready to cough something up to make this go away? C’mon, man, let’s put this one behind us. I’ve got better things to do”
Rosalevsky nervously took a sip from his beer. After a hesitation, he turned the glass back up and took a large drink from it. He was feeling woozy now, more so than he could ever remember. Worse, he could feel it coming on strong, as if he was just at the beginning stage of it. He quietly chastised himself for putting himself in this position. I should have known better than to trust another lawyer, he thought to himself.
He tried to shake his head slightly, to shake the oncoming drunkenness out of him, without alerting Kassalonich what he was doing. But Kassalonich, as big as he was, and seemingly immune to the effects of the beer they were consuming, was alert and watching.
“Here, have another one,” the larger man said, signaling for a waiter. “Drink upI think we can settle this whole thing tonight.”
“No, no,” Rosalevsky said, pushing his chair back as if he was about to stand up. “No, no. I have to talk to my client about all this. Talk about what his options are—“
“Bullshit!” Kassalonich boomed, seemingly not caring about whether anyone heard him or not. He edged his chair forward and glanced around. People who had turned to stare at them now turned away under his glare. “You go back to him and make him agree to whatever we work out this evening. This case won’t do either one of us any good, either financially or reputation-wiseListen, I know it all sounds different than what we learned in law school, but if we did everything the way we learned it, we’d never get anything done. And we’d all be broke. Up to our ears in debt and unpaid legal bills. Ever drown in your own accounts receivable? Well, I haveOkay, now here’s the way I think it should be”