Was That a Tax Lawyer Who Just Flew Over?: From Outside the Offices of Fairweather, Winters & Sommers

by Arnold B. Kanter, Paul Hoffman

Overview

In his fifth collection of law-firm humor, Kanter lets us see lawyers from the point of view of their clients and other outsiders. He shares with us the humorous perspectives of everyone from clients, jurors, and accountants, to the mother of a new associate trying to drum up business for her "little girl," a homeless person caught in a lawyer's well-meaning scheme to make him a charitable corporation, and the child of a two-lawyer couple who can't run a lemonade stand without everything becoming a major issue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936053612
Publisher:	Catbird Press
Publication date:	05/01/1996
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	223
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Arnold B. Kanter is a leading American legal humorist and has written five collections of humor about life in a law firm. He is an attorney who consults to law firms about management and hiring problems. He lives in Chicago.

Read an Excerpt

Was That a Tax Lawyer Who Just Flew Over?

From Outside the Offices of Fairweather, Winters & Sommers

---

By Arnold B. Kanter, Paul Hoffman

Catbird Press

Copyright © 1996 Arnold B. Kanter
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-936053-61-2

---

CHAPTER 1

Frae Monie a Blunder

LAST JULY THE FAIRWEATHER, WINTERS & SOMMERS firm threw itself a bash at the Bigwig Club to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. In searching for a keynote speaker for the black tie dinner dance, the firm solicited suggestions from all its lawyers. Although the names floated in response to that solicitation included prominent politicians, entertainers, sports stars and academics, the overwhelming choice of the lawyers — as exemplified by the ballot of Stanley J. Fairweather, which read "Me" — was the firm's founder.

Fortunately, Stanley was available for the assignment and delivered an address that long will be remembered by those in attendance. The full text of his remarks is set forth below:

Friends:

It is a great privilege to welcome you.

I requested the honor of speaking to you tonight for two reasons. First, I could think of no more appropriate speaker for the occasion. And second, I could think of no more certain way to assure that I would not be bored by some long-winded speech.

I have decided that our fiftieth anniversary should be commemorated by an appropriate publication. Since I have written a memo explaining my choice for what that publication should be, and since all of you read, I see no reason to recite the memo to you.

So now, in closing, I invite you to drink in moderation, dance with abandon and celebrate with joy.

Then Stanley circulated the following memo:

To: All

From: Stanley J. Fairweather

Re: Fiftieth Anniversary Book

Thus far, the books that have been written about our firm have been rather insular. The first two, The Handbook of Law Firm Mismanagement and Advanced Law Firm Mismanagement, looked at lawyers from the point of view of lawyers, which is never particularly illuminating. The third, The Ins & Outs of Law Firm Mismanagement, was written from the point of view of our firm's staff, and so its perspective was necessarily limited.

I think there is a compelling reason to venture outside the bounds of lawyers and those who work for our firm. As the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, wrote in his 1786 poem "To a Louse":

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.

Lawyers have no better giftie than other professions to see oursels as others see us. Some would say less. And it's the lack of that giftie which has led to so much of the foolishness that's been chronicled in the three previous books.

On the occasion of our fiftieth anniversary, I have decided that we should invite the commentary of people outside our firm, to try to help us to see oursels as others see us. I have thus commissioned a book to be written by a wide range of outsiders who run into our firm in one way or another.

It's even possible that the fruits of this effort will frae monie a blunder free us. But I sorta dute it.

The fruits follow.

CHAPTER 2

Was That a Tax Lawyer Who Just Flew Over?

HERE'S HOW IT ALL STARTED. One day, I was out in the marsh looking for heron, and I said to myself, "Louise, you've been standing out here in this marsh now for well over three hours. You're very chilly, your nose is running and you haven't seen a single heron. Just how long do you plan to stay out here doing this, anyway?" Well, since I'd put the question in that way, I left myself little choice but to answer, "I'm not going to stay out here a moment longer, Louise. I'm going to head home, get into some warm house slippers and fix myself a hot toddy."

It was over that hot toddy that I began to take stock of what had become of my life. Actually, it was over my third hot toddy, as I recall, that I really got into it. "Louise," I said to myself, "you're fifty-seven years old now, you've got a good job selling commercial real estate, your husband died two years ago, your children are grown, you own your own home in the suburbs, you enjoy reading historical romance novels and quilting tablecloths, you just had your hair cut short and tinted red, and what do you do, you spend all of your free time standing out in the marshes looking for water fowl."

"No," I corrected myself, "you're fifty-two years old, your job is in the audit department of a bank, you never married, you rent an apartment in the heart of downtown, you read only trashy mystery novels and you haven't changed your hair style or color since you were seventeen. The only thing you got right is the part about the water fowl." It was then, in an epiphany, that I realized I had been looking for water fowl too darn long.

This realization, though, put me squarely on the horns of a dilemma. While I was sick and tired of searching for water fowl, I still enjoyed the voyeuristic pleasure of looking at things that are not aware I am looking at them. Also, I had just made an enormous investment in equipment — a high-powered telescope, a fancy single lens reflex camera with 500mm lens, bird call whistles, camouflage outfits and more. I was not willing to jettison all of that paraphernalia.

So I began to think of alternatives. I could decide to focus on big game, arrange safaris to far-flung parts of the globe. But those trips would stretch my budget beyond its breaking point. Also, who was I kidding? I'd be scared to death out there tracking rhinos.

Just then, as luck would have it, the phone rang. "Who was it on the phone?" you're probably wondering. I'll tell you in a moment, but first I need to set the stage.

About a year and a half ago, I got a letter from the IRS informing me that they were going to audit my tax return. Well, I nearly died. I started to think about all of the things they'd get me for. Probably I'd valued the sweaters and bras I'd given to the Salvation Army at somewhat more than their fair market value. Worse, I wasn't sure I had receipts for all of the business meals I'd deducted. So I figured they'd probably send me up the river for five to ten, minimum.

Luckily, though, unlike some people, I had a cousin Seymour to call. Seymour Plain is a tax partner at the Fairweather, Winters & Sommers law firm. Through clever representation and bargaining with the IRS, Seymour got me off with only a six-month prison term. No, only kidding; I went scot-free.

Yes, the phone call was from cousin Seymour. Seymour was very excited. For twenty-seven years he had toiled in anonymity as a tax lawyer at the Fairweather firm. Well, actually, he wasn't exactly anonymous; everyone knew he was Seymour, just plain Seymour (the irony of that characterization, given Seymour's surname, was not lost on lawyers at the firm).

But Seymour was calling to say that now, at last, he'd arrived. One of his senior partners, James Q. Sommers, had been called to an important meeting, with his maker. And, though Seymour was griefstricken at James's passing, his loss had been ameliorated by the knowledge that he would inherit the departed's corner office. In fact, Seymour informed me, he was calling from his new office right that minute and was looking right down at my apartment building.

I asked Seymour which corner he was looking from, and he informed me that it was the northeast. I told him to hold on for a minute, dashed into my bedroom to grab my telescope and tripod, and raced into the living room to set it up. A moment later I returned to the phone and told cousin Seymour that I loved the blue-and-white-striped shirt he was wearing, with his initials on the pocket. Needless to say, Seymour was dumbfounded.

After we hung up, I went back to the living room to collect the telescope, but could not resist peeking through the lens again. At first, I looked just at my cousin, but then nudged the lens a bit to look at the woman in the office next to his. She was dressed in a conservative blue dress, with white buttons down the front and a white collar. On her walls, in addition to her law school diploma (Duke, '79, magna cum laude), were some finger paintings done by her children (Anita, 5, and Brian, 7). Papers were strewn all across her desk. Her secretary sat with a steno book in her hand, taking dictation, as the woman lawyer paced back and forth, first looking down at her feet and then glancing up and around at her secretary.

Almost involuntarily, I shifted the telescope to the next office. There sat a gentleman, a shelf full of big black volumes behind him with the names of corporations involved in public offerings and mergers embossed in gold on the spines. He wore a brown suit, had his wing-tipped shoes propped up on the desk, hands clasped behind his full head of graying hair, and appeared to be talking, though nobody else was in the room with him. His diploma showed him to be a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law, 1967, cum laude, and other certificates, hung in matching walnut frames on his wall, evidenced his admission to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and the United States Tax Court, and his commendation for having served as Chair of the Tax Law Committee of the local bar association for sixteen years. He had to swing his feet off the desk occasionally in order to reach a white meerschaum pipe that sat in an ash tray on his desk.

I went back into my bedroom and searched for the notebook I took with me on my birding trips, then returned to the living room and began to write, glancing from time to time into the telescope:

Brown-suited, wing-tip-shoed, male tax lawyer, Northwestern '67. Cum. Partner. Pipe-smoker variety. Sighted with feet on desk, talking into speaker phone.

I swung the telescope back to the woman in the office next to my cousin Seymour and noted in my book:

Blue-dressed, white-collared, female litigator, Duke '79. Magna. Partner. Messy-desked pacing dictator. Child-bearing.

Excitedly, I shifted the telescope to the next office, where I spotted my first associate, eating a sandwich, his shoes off, scratching the back of his head and flipping crumpled balls of paper over his shoulder into a waste basket. Quickly, I made more notes.

I was hooked.

Lawyer-watching has proved the answer to all my problems. I can do it in different places and ways, using the naked eye in the courtroom (binoculars elicit disapproving looks from the bench), and my telescope or binoculars for long-range observation. I photograph them in their natural habitats (which, of course, vary considerably, from elegant large firm offices to legal aid hovels) and at play. As I become a more practiced observer, I can identify and classify the lawyer I'm seeing simply by the way he moves (litigators walk quickly, ERISA lawyers amble about slowly) or holds his head (executive committee members elevate their noses, real estate lawyers watch the ground). Shoes, briefcases, hats, glasses — they all hold clues to proper identification.

And the varieties of lawyers seem endless. I already have more than two hundred on my life list.

CHAPTER 3

Forming the Flock

"CAN WE PLEASE come to order?"

"Pass the mustard, please."

"Hey, who gave you the right to chair ..."

"We need a name."

"Do we have a quorum?"

"I didn't get a copy of the agenda."

"I'll trade you, the mustard for the pickles."

"May I please have your attention for a minute."

"I bet you'll need more than a minute."

Surprisingly, the above dialogue is not taken from the transcript of a Fairweather, Winters & Sommers Executive Committee meeting. Instead, it emanates from a small group of Fairweather clients convened in the board room of Rite-Stuff Manufacturing Co., one of the firm's long-time clients. The meeting was called by Jack Rite, who was struggling to open the meeting.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please," Jack pleaded as the group finally quieted down. "Thank you all for coming. As I think you all know, my name is Jack Rite. Most of us have seen each other at the bimonthly ERISA seminars, bowling parties and weenie roasts the Fairweather firm has been hosting over the past several years in an attempt to purchase our loyalty. It's been so nice getting to know some of you that I thought it might be fun for us to get together without anybody from the Fairweather firm sidling up to us. So now that we're together, let's talk about what we would all like to see happen with this little group."

"I'd like to see our little group expand into a big group," said Rebecca Fissure, senior vice president and general counsel of Cellular Solutions, a biotechnology company.

"Yes, the firm has hundreds, even thousands of clients; I would think we ought to be able to attract more than seven," added Byron Fair, president of Fair Toxi-Beaut Corporation, and Stanley Fairweather's nephew.

"On the other hand, we assistant vice presidents at The First National Bank of Suburbia have found that a small group does have certain advantages," commented Ann-Louise Rutherford.

"Yes, if we are going to be — how shall I say it — discreet, it might be very advantageous to remain small," added Sheik Hamurabi Ben-Sulitan Mohammed Fasil Ben-Ayatola Holomon IV, who had engaged the Fairweather firm in several sensitive international legal matters.

"What do we need to be discreet for, Ben-Ben?" asked Rebecca.

"You can never tell. A sheep in the wilderness may still attract foxes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Leonard Jenkins, a former futures trader who presently found himself on the streets.

"It's a saying in my country that illustrates the need for even a sheep in the wilderness to remain discreet."

"Why?"

"Well, for example, if it wore a pungent perfume, then, even in the wilderness, a sheep might attract a fox."

"A sheep wearing perfume?"

"It is only a saying."

"I see," said Leonard. "Frankly, the size of our group makes no difference to me. Big, small, who cares? As long as there's food at these shindigs, you can count me in."

"Doesn't the size of group we want depend on what we're trying to accomplish?" asked Jack.

"I suppose it does," said Rebecca. "I'd like to see a forum for us clients to get together to discuss problems we may have."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," said Byron. "I've been having a lot of trouble with my lower back lately. I get up, I feel fine; but around three in the afternoon I'm in agony."

"You should try swimming a couple times a week, Byron. That's terrific for your back. And leg lifts," advised Ann-Louise.

"You mean like this?" asked Byron, getting down on the floor and lifting both legs apart at a 45-degree angle. "Ooh, that hurts."

"No, cross them and lift them together, arch your lower back so that it's flat against the floor."

"Wait a minute, that isn't exactly the type of problem I was thinking of," said Rebecca. "I mean what about the ridiculous way Fairweather's legal fees have been going through the roof lately! And then, on top of it, I get charged $.25 a page for photocopying, $2 a page to send a fax and $25 for the two tuna sandwiches we ate in a conference at the firm. Those are the things that concern me."

"Thanks a lot, Rebecca. You don't give a damn about my back, do you?"

"It's not that, Byron, it's just that I don't think there's any particular reason to think that this group will be able to deal with that problem."

"There's a pretty good reason, actually. I was a physical therapist before I went to work for the bank," announced Ann-Louise.

"Well, yes, but that's just an accident."

"Like heck it was. I went to physical therapy school for two years. Was it just an accident that you went to law school, Rebecca?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, Ann-Louise. I meant that it was coincidental that we happened to have an expert in our group who was able to deal with Byron's back problem — which I really do care about — and ..."

"I have this really terrible kink in my neck that I get from time to time," said Ben-Ben. "Sometimes I can hardly turn my head."

"Just close your eyes and move your head slowly from side to side, like this, stretching gently, five times to each side. Then, when you're through with that, rotate your head clockwise ten times, then counterclockwise ten times, very slowly, like this. Then drop your head forward, gently, and slowly bring it all the way back. That's it. Try that for a week or so and if it doesn't feel better, call me at the bank. Here's my card."

"Actually, I think it feels a little better already," said Ben-Ben, who had been following along with Ann-Louise as she demonstrated the neck exercises.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Was That a Tax Lawyer Who Just Flew Over? by Arnold B. Kanter, Paul Hoffman. Copyright © 1996 Arnold B. Kanter. Excerpted by permission of Catbird Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

Frae Monie a Blunder,
Was That a Tax Lawyer Who Just Flew Over?,
Forming the Flock,
Ten Bucks Off,
Leave No Valve Unturned,
A Behind-the-Bars Look at the Bar,
Art Over-Imitating Reality,
Taking a Shine to You,
Diary of An In-House Lawyer,
Pressing for Information,
Trial, By Juror,
Lawyer: English Dictionary,
Setting the Ground Rules,
Talking About the Law,
Total Quality Overmanagement,
Legal Lemon Aid,
Think I'll Make Me A Lawyer or Two,
'Round the World,
Conflicting Advice,
In-House or Out-House,
Oyez, O-No,
Divorce, American Style,
Philosophically Speaking,
Ferreting Out What's Fair,
Just a Formality,
Out on the Beat,
Of Sound Mind and Body,
Surveying the Situation,
What's Eating You, Anyway?,
There's No Place Like ...,
The Devil Is In The Details,
Habeas Corpus, For a Price,
A Risky Proposition,
Agent for Good,
Playing It By The Numbers,
Lovely To Look At,
Trading Places,
Postscript,