The First Time by Paul Pearlstein

There is much they do not teach you in law school. Socratic Method does not anticipate a client’s request to locate an alibi witness named Slim, who can be found at the 7-11 at 4^th and L Sts, SE, between 2 and 3 AM. Neither does it teach the newly minted graduate what to do when there is a fist fight at a deposition; when an heir files a Bar Counsel complaint of theft because his estate account is stuck on an auditor’s desk; or when a judge has not ruled for over a year after completion of an emergency high priority bench trial.

I have often thought of the lawyer as a forensic anthropologist or perhaps a voyeur, observing the curious and extraordinary behavior of clients. My eclectic practice has endured some eye-opening experiences.

* A woman who was unwilling to accept the death of her sister though the sister lay dead in their shared bed for months.

* A greedy sibling who forcefully removed a 7 caret diamond ring from his dying mother’s finger.

* A 69 year old, recently released bank robber who intentionally bumbled a new robbery so he could return to his familiar jail cell.

* A divorce client who asked if his case would be improved if his spouse were to die suddenly.

* A defendant in a divorce case who committed suicide; with my latest pleading found next to his body.

* A criminal defendant client who “shot up” at the break of his jury trial and then nodded off when it resumed.

* An opposing counsel who arrived for an 8:00 AM deposition, incoherently intoxicated.

As I began to work in different areas of the law, a few of my “first time” rights of passage seem bizarre even now.

My first probate case involved the estate of a young man who had died suddenly in the kitchen of his apartment. The decedent’s body was not discovered for several days. To add to the tragedy, the man had a dog who was left alone, unfed and uncared for. When the body was finally discovered, the dog had consumed a portion of the corpse in the absence of any other food.

My first jury trial provided a lesson in humility. My client was injured in a cab ride gone bad. We completed jury selection and then the judge adjourned the proceeding for lunch.

When I returned to court, my client and her witnesses were absent. The judge waited about 10 minutes and then instructed me to proceed. I tried to filibuster my opening statement praying that my client would show up. After the longest opening in a nothing case, I sat down hoping that the defense’s opening statement would buy me more time. However, the defense smugly announced that they would waive opening statement.

“PROCEED COUNSEL” was the command from the bench, but I was not prepared to do so. Within seconds, the court ministered a coup de gras, dismissing the case, with prejudice.

My bankruptcy practice began with a pedestrian Chapter 7 liquidation case. While gathering the information for the petition, I was advised by the client that the debt on one of his credit cards had just increased by a cash advance, the exact amount of my fee. I also learned that the debtor had over 37 unpaid traffic tickets totaling at least $2,000 in fines and penalties. The timing of the cash advance was unfortunate but it was fully disclosed in detail as were each of the traffic tickets, although they were non dischargeable. The case was filed, nothing was challenged and a full discharge was granted. Apparently the sovereign had backed off and accepted or never noticed the discharge of the traffic tickets. I concluded that bankruptcy courts have the most amazing powers.

Lawyers are not alone. Anyone dealing with the public has their stories to tell, some hilarious, some shocking, many pathetic. But there is something unique about lawyers dealing with troubled or troubling clients that makes for great TV and fascinating literature. Despite years of practice, I continue to be bemused and startled by new cases. What next, my first cannibal or a Chapter 11 for a bordello?

Paul Pearlstein is a member of the three local bars, former Editor and Publisher of Real Estate Practice in DC, MD & VA and an active paddler and rower.

A Conversation With...Paul Pearlstein

Paul Pearlstein – in his art-filled office on Rhode Island Ave., with a view of St. Matthews Cathedral and a month-to-month lease that keeps him from being overly committed -  finally likes practicing law, after a mere 46 years.

“I can’t say I always loved it.  I began to love it more when I stopped caring about the money, and that was only in the last years.  I think the problem with the practice of law is the money.  It gets in the way.  If you’re always looking for the next check then you’re not really enjoying the process and devoting as much to your client as you possibly could.  So if you can relax from that…People ask me, what is it like to be a small practitioner in Washington.  There was an old old cartoon that I had seen, and it was a picture of two fellas in a jungle bar, you know, with the slow moving fans, and they were all in safari gear and pith helmets and khaki jackets and everything.  And they were both pretty drunk.  And one of them was a full sized man.  And the other one was a little bitty man sitting on the edge of the counter.  And the big one says, in an inebriated fashion, looks over and says, ‘Tell us again about the time you told the witch doctor to go to hell.’  To me, that’s the image of the solo.”

The other image of the solo, which Paul Pearlstein would seem to embody even if there isn’t a funny cartoon depicting it as such, is the guy who’s tried everything he’s wanted to try.  “The practice has sort of gone where it’s went and I’ve followed,” he says.  “I’ve enjoyed that.” 

Pearlstein was in the army in France and thought he’d be a tax lawyer afterwards until they rewrote the Code before he got out of the service. He now concentrates on real estate law – and bankruptcy law, its corollary (one practice gets busy when the other abates, Pearlstein says) plus estate planning.  He’s also done family law – though only for 20 years, he says, and not any more – as well as arbitration, litigation, and most anything else that’s come his way that he finds interesting both in work and in life. 

Life-wise, Pearlstein has raised four interesting kids – a mountain climbing Vet, a yoga teacher in Manila, a former national gymnast who trained in Beijing, and a firefighter.  He’s married a Quaker tuba player from Indiana, and joined a Reconstructionist, klezmer-oriented Jewish congregation which once had Amy Goodman from Democracy Now as a guest speaker, on Yom Kipppur..  He spends a lot of his time doing what he enjoys  rowing shells, canoeing and playing music.

“I just always enjoyed being on the river.  I took up whitewater kayaking.  But I just wasn’t very good.  I didn’t have a reliable roll.  So whenever I turned over I would get out, which is the most dangerous thing you can do.  And so I just started using a whitewater canoe for flat water.  I’d go out a couple of times a week.”  After a knee replacement Pearlstein got involved with a local canoe groups, and next thing he knew he was paddling dragon boats from Taiwan and outrigger canoes from Micronesia, all over the country – Hawaii, Nevada, California, New York, Maryland and Virginia.

“Almost everybody’s thirty years younger than me,” says Pearlstein.  “But not quite.  There’s a couple of guys that are within ten years.  But it’s a very welcoming group, it’s fun, the racing is fun.  I’ve always been a river rat.  I don’t know why.  I think part of it is I don’t have very good eye-hand control but I have lots of stamina.”

Pearlstein also spends his time agitating for the things he believes in.

“One of my prayers is getting music education back in DC public schools.  I’m being a gadfly – calling people, being obnoxious, writing letters.  They’re beginning to add music teachers this year and I’m still writing letters, just trying to stay on their rear ends,” Pearlstein says.  “I’ve been a musician all my life.  I played violin through high school  We had such a great music department at W-L in Arlington.  And it was so meaningful to me.  And I think the two things that I probably got out of my youth are the love of playing music and rowing.  Music was once a very important element to the school system.  In the last 35 years they’ve cut back and cut back and cut back.  But for a lot of kids – the only reason they attended school was for the music; choir, band, orchestra  Everything else for them at school was boring or off-putting.  And here’s something really positive, and they eliminate it?”

Pearlstein says he’s starting to slow down, doesn’t want a long-term lease on his office.  He’ll keep doing things that seem interesting and right to him, keep being a gadfly, and somehow it’ll all work out.

“I got divorced.  I got traded in I guess.  And it was around that time you kind of had to go back to the basics.  And I said, ‘What did I really like to do?’  And I thought: I like music.  And I like the river, I like the water.  So I’ve kind of been doing that, been putting most of the emphasis in that,” he says.  “And it’s kind of funny but it works out.  I think so many lawyers are doing what people think they should be doing- or what they think they should be doing.  You know, people that go out and join country clubs and start playing golf.  And I’ve talked to some of them and said, ‘Why are you doing that?  Do you like golf?’  If you like it you should do it.  But if you don’t like it don’t do that.  If you don’t like going out to lunch don’t go out to lunch.  Yeah, so I do lunch here, I bring my stuff in.  I’m going to be me, I’m not going to try to be someone else.”

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Arin Greenwood is a contract attorney and freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. She has been published in the Washington City Paper and the ABA Journal. This is her third piece in a continuing series for the DWLR. Arin can be contacted directly at aringreenwood@hotmail.com.