At promptly 4:30 PM, I present myself to Matt’s office. I practically had to have a map drawn to it because his firm is so large. I found out during my initiation tour that Connover and Crown employs thirty-eight lawyers and fifty-two staff persons. Its main practice areas are corporate and civil litigation, although there are also smaller practice areas like elder law, criminal law and the such.
Apparently, Matt built the firm from the ground up, starting it just a mere ten years ago when he had graduated law school. Miss Anders hinted that Matt was the majority owner, and Bill was more or less an original investor, who was sort of just hanging on to a nominal amount of ownership interest at this point.
Knocking, I hear him say, “Come in,” and I steel myself to just about anything. When I open the door, I see he’s still on the phone, but he waves me in and points to a chair across from him. I settle in and gaze around while he talks.
I take in the understated elegance of his office decor. Browns, tans, and grays seem to be his color preference, and his taste in furniture leans toward the contemporary. Spying his degrees on the wall, I see he did his undergraduate at Stanford and got his law degree at Harvard.
Freakin’ smarty pants.
Not that Columbia was anything to sneeze at.
“No, we’re not settling for that amount. Twenty-five is our bottom line. You have until close of business tomorrow to decide and let me remind you… I not only represent Mrs. Sanderson, but I also represent each of her three children, and if you don’t pay the twenty-five, then I’ll be filing Mrs. Sanderson’s suit only. And after I’ve dragged your company through the shit-storm that is our legal system for the next three years, I’ll file the first child’s suit… and I’ll drag your ass through the same shit-storm for the three years after that. Then the next child’s, and then the next. I’ll have you tied up in litigation long after you’re ready to retire from the practice of law, and get this… I could give a fuck if I win even one of those cases. The mere fact I’ll drown you in legal expenses makes me go all tingly inside. So do yourself a favor, pay the twenty-five and save yourself the heartburn.”
Matt listens for just a few seconds, and then he says, “Very good. I expect the check tomorrow by noon.”
He hangs up the phone without a good-bye and immediately types a few notes on his computer. While his long fingers work the keyboard over, I ruminate on that conversation.
Damn, that was some hot legal talk. I have no clue if his case had merit or not, but I would have paid whatever he was telling me to pay after hearing that.
When Matt finally stops typing and swivels his chair to face me, I say, “So… sounds like you just settled a case for $25,000. Congrats.”
His face remains impassive, not even a hint of a smile. He says, “Try twenty-five million.”
“Excuse me?” I say, stunned, because I surely misheard him.
“Twenty-five million,” he reiterates, calm as day.
Clearing my throat and trying to calculate what one-third of twenty-five million would be, because… holy shit, that’s a huge legal fee, I ask, “May I inquire as to what type of case?”
Standing from his computer, Matt walks over to a mini-fridge and pulls out a bottled water. He holds one up to me, but I shake my head no.
“Train accident,” he says matter-of-factly. “Mrs. Sanderson and her kids were on a train. They were all killed when a truck driver who was drunk off his ass got his rig stuck on the tracks. Train couldn’t stop. Kids and mom died a fiery death.”
“Oh,” I say quietly. “That’s terrible. But hey… you should be happy. What a settlement!”
“It was worth more,” he says in disdain, but he doesn’t elucidate. However, as an attorney, my interest is peaked way too greatly to let it go at that.