REPLY TO ALL

REPLY TO ALL

An older lawyer once told me, “Adam, a man can’t practice law without saying the word, ‘shit.’” He also assured me that there’s a special god that protects lawyers: his name is “Ah Shit!” Most lawyers can out curse any sailor. I developed a colorful vocabulary of words that would “make a crow blush” and plenty of creative ways to put them together. I almost never wrote those words. But when I did write them…I couldn’t take them back.

The real God—not Ah Shit—was working. Even when I hit “reply to all.”

I was so frustrated with Christine, the attorney for the defendant in a complex, multi-party case. We argued over basic document production for more than two years. The case was “old.” We still didn’t have even the rudimentary things we needed to understand our claims or take them to trial. Pretrial deadlines loomed. The Court had granted multiple continuances. It likely wouldn’t continue the case again…unless everyone agreed…and for a compelling reason. Important depositions were scheduled for the upcoming week. Depositions for which the document discovery was crucial.

While I “fiddled” with Christine, the rest of my practice was “burning down.” I faced deadlines in multiple litigation matters while I struggled to get what I needed in this damn contingent fee case. Mountains of paperwork, complex documents, and demanding clients were drowning my transactional practice. Meanwhile in the “exasperating case,” we had to pay our expert witness every month although no funds were coming in to reimburse us. A masterful and thorough monthly biller, the expert was right--he couldn’t finish his work without the documents that Christine was withholding.

I was confident that the email I sent the litigation team at my firm would move us towards resolving the impasse.

Christine is “throwing her toys” again. She won’t agree to give us the documents we need. She’s being completely unreasonable. Acting like a Dallas lawyer. And a bitch. Let’s file a motion to compel. Take her ass to court. Get the judge to sanction her for failing to provide the documents. That will teach her to screw with us!

And then, I hit “reply to all.” But I didn’t notice that “all” was “all the attorneys in the case”—our team and opposing counsel. The email wasn’t confined to the lawyers in our firm who were working on the matter. The email was gone. I’d put it in writing. I couldn’t take it back.

I didn’t spend a minute thinking that I shouldn’t have sent the email at all--even to my own team. I’d forgotten how much trouble was caused when email first became widespread. Some younger attorneys at the firm just typed whatever came to mind, hit “send” and let the “shit hit the fan.” Then giggled behind closed doors about the consequences.

But I felt justified in sending the email. What did it hurt to send it only to “our people.” The same lawyer who told me about “shit” and “Ah Shit” once said, “There are two kinds of sons of bitches. Ours and theirs. But ours wear white hats.” I thought I had only sent the email to the “white hats.”

We needed to turn this case into money. A few years before, as plaintiffs’ counsel, we negotiated a seven-figure settlement of a similar claim for the identical clients. We earned a six-figure fee. Without much work! The clients’ spokesperson had assured me that the facts in this new case were “even better.” I had believed her. With these documents that Christine was wrongfully withholding, we would finally understand the case and could settle it. Maybe we’d at least break even. Christine’s obstreperous behavior and the mushroom cloud of expert witness fees had removed almost any chance that we’d earn a windfall from this “shitty case.”

Christine was 10 or more years younger than me. She was a Harvard Law School graduate. Already a partner in a big Dallas firm. In West Texas, “Dallas lawyer” was a generic term for any opposing attorney who was a horse’s ass on basic issues. Who took you to court, or made you take them to court, over something like a discovery conflict. Instead of resolving it over the phone like a couple of “good old boys.” Even the judges out here lambasted “Dallas lawyers.” I’m sure if there were many Harvard lawyers in West Texas, we would have labeled them, too.

It almost felt like “beating up on a cripple”—another inappropriate expression in my vocabulary in those days—to rant about Christine in an email sent only to my colleagues.

When dealing with her, I ignored how much I respected and loved the older attorneys who had treated me well. And loathed the ones who “told me what to do” or acted like I was a “still wet behind the ears.” Objectively, Christine didn’t treat most people with respect. But I had gone over the edge; I used her bad acts to excuse mine.

She was brash. Aggressive. Cocky. Things admired in male lawyers and denigrated in women attorneys. She was bossy with her associates and staff and rarely used “please and thank you” when addressing them. She was the caricature of a “female lawyer”—or of many worse terms that some of my more sexist partners used. Although I prided myself on being “enlightened,” “up to date,” “accepting,” it’s hard to argue that my attitude towards women attorneys in those days was much better than the attitudes of my more crass partners. All too often, I called Christine a “bitch” in private conversations with my associates.

Maybe I was still angry over the times Elaine Grisham’s grade in a law school class had relegated my performance to “second.” Yet again deprived of winning that hard-bound book that I could display in my office. Elaine must have bumped me out of the AmJur Award at least five times.

When I got mad at her, which was often, I even called the judge in the case “an old bag.” In deference to her judicial position, I avoided calling her the “B” word.

Vulgar epithets directed to Christine’s abilities, parentage, anatomy, rolled off our tongues when my male colleagues and I discussed the discovery dispute. Sometimes we’d howl with laughter as we criticized and labeled her. It didn’t help that she had called the discovery disagreement a “kerfuffle.” What the hell was a “kerfuffle”? Only an arrogant, Harvard educated, Dallas bitch like Christine would use such a word.

Under these circumstances, sending the email was “orgasmic”. But I didn’t enjoy it long.

The reply was unexpected. How did Christine get something from my internal firm email!

Adam, I thought we had a good relationship and that we were working things out. We were close to an agreement. It’s going to be almost impossible for me to ignore the ugly, hurtful things you said. But I’ll try. The documents will be in our conference room in Petersville the day before the depositions. You can look at them then.

Oops. I hadn’t noticed that I’d sent the email to the “wrong” thread. Not to the internal one on the case. But to the external one that went to “everyone.” Shit!

To an “expert” in interpersonal relationships, like me, the email was like asking my wife…when I thought she was being unreasonable…if she was “having her period.” It was just about as “smart.” It exhibited the same degree of caring and empathy. No amount of “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant,” could ever fix it. Asking a woman if she was having her period…well, that was the “square root of classless.” Sometimes, I flippantly tried to “soften” the impact of my words by substituting, “Are you hormonal?” No better. I guess that one would work for menopause, too. Fortunately, by the time my wife and I experienced menopause together, I had learned not to say such cringeworthy stuff—at least to her. Unfortunately, when you say such things, you can’t suck the words back down your throat and start over. Nor could I recall the email and draft a different one.

I never considered whether my behavior aligned with my faith. My faith was on the back burner in those days. Perhaps I needed a crisis to revive it.

Instead of turning to faith, I prayed to Ah Shit. Sent several email apologies. Tried to write “I didn’t mean that” and “I’m sorry” in as many ways as I could imagine. But the reply emails were beyond “frosty.”

Christine produced the documents in bulk without much guidance as to which ones were important. A day wasn’t nearly enough time for my expert or me to understand them. So, I took a poor set of depositions. Maybe we could’ve asked the Court to continue the case, so we would have had more time to review them. But Christine seemed in no mood to give me a continuance voluntarily. We couldn’t afford to go to court fighting over a formal motion for continuance when my own emails were likely to become evidence.

Somewhere along the messy road in this awful case, I went to see my primary care physician for a routine checkup. Out of the blue, my pharmacy called me to pick up a prescription for a drug commonly given for a prostate infection. My PSA was too high.

Although I was chagrined and embarrassed by it, the younger lawyers in my firm howled and guffawed at my email. And at the predicament it caused me. I became a “folk hero” to them.

One would think that I would have advised my colleagues to treat people better and not to write things in emails that they didn’t want to become “public.” Instead, I only educated them on the dangers of hitting “reply to all.” Although I loved mentoring young lawyers, I was “teaching” an incomplete lesson here.

After we paid a few more huge invoices to our expert, he told me he couldn’t really find that our clients had been damaged much. Despite his having run up bills of more than $100,000.00 looking for the damages in the reams of paper produced by Christine. This was before electronic document production had really come to the legal profession. Looking through the document dump Christine gave us was tedious and painstaking.

Christine took our expert’s deposition in her elegant Dallas office. Barbecued him. Then she ate him for lunch. And grilled him again. And finally, she had him for supper. I wanted to crawl under the table. I had a biopsy a few days before the deposition. I noticed the messages from my urologist on my cell phone. But I didn’t return his calls.

I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Christine resigned and went to an even bigger firm in D.C. Her associate, Lauren, whom Christine had really treated poorly during the case, took over. I almost felt sorry for her. Except she was working on the “paying” side of the case…and we weren’t.

While juggling tests and medical appointments, I tried to convince our clients that there really weren’t any damages based on our expert’s report. We had a mediation and didn’t settle the case. Our clients’ spokesperson still insisted that she “just knew” there were damages but that our opponents had somehow hidden them in all the documents. Either my firm or our expert just didn’t find them. In truth, there were almost no damages. I had still learned nothing about name calling and labeling and told my colleagues what a “bitch” the client rep was to try to make us keep spending money on a shitty case. Maybe I was “learning disabled.”

The cancer treatments didn’t go well. My surgery wasn’t fully successful. The post op pathology was discouraging. My surgeon told me how long I was going to live. I told my wife and children not to “Google” my condition. My oncologist said there was hope but maybe only about 5%. He said I likely just wouldn’t live “long.” But he recommended hormone therapy and radiation. Now I learned about hot flashes and Depends. “Man boobs” and a ruined sex life. A lifetime of running and weight lifting. Gone in an instant.

It took a long time to forgive the doctors and acquaintances who had told me when the cancer adventure started, “You have the cancer every man wants to have. It’s so curable.”

Someone had hit “reply to all” about my cancer. And “everyone” had an opinion on what I should do. It became increasingly more stressful to deal with all this “advice.” My older son told me, “Dad, it’s your cancer. You control the treatments you have and how you feel about it. Not other people.”

A couple of pastor friends and my younger son prayed powerfully with me over the phone.

The children next door—mine were grown and gone—were so kind to me. Their grandfather had died of prostate cancer. I’m glad they “knew.”

I believe God was beginning to mysteriously work in both the cancer journey and the sorry lawsuit. It was my choice how to treat Christine and Lauren.

I turned the cancer over to God, retaining rights only to decide upon treatments.

The case still had deadlines because we couldn’t settle it. I needed the Court to grant us a continuance. I called Lauren. She already knew about the surgery. I had called right after I learned the case was “hers.” Told her we needed a fresh start. I’d treat her well, if she treated me well. And that I respected her and would never say disparaging things about her. It was usually important to me to treat people right, even my opponents. It was time to start.

“Hey Lauren. I don’t’ know where to begin. I’ll be short. My surgery didn’t turn out like I’d hoped. The cancer wasn’t confined. It was in a lymph node. I’m going to have hormone therapy and radiation. I’ll be ‘out of pocket’ for at least three months. Can we please continue the case and have an agreement not to set anything until I know where I stand? If I must give up the case, I will. But I’d like to see it through.”

“Wow. Sorry to hear that, Adam. That must be tough. Especially for your wife and sons. We’ll cooperate with you in whatever way you need.”

“Thanks.”

She closed by saying, “I’ll pray for you.”

When Lauren and I called the “Old Bag” to ask for a continuance, Judge Johnson was kind and empathetic. I quit calling her an “old bag.” She’s now deceased; she was a great judge because she was “equally mean” to everyone!

The law firm stood by me. The managing partner helped me find an “out” in our contingent fee agreement with the clients. If we thought the case was costing the firm too much money—e.g. the expert fees—in relation to how much we would likely collect in damages--we had the right to quit.

So, we exercised our “out.” I hated to “fire” the clients. I had rarely done it in 30 plus years of practice.

Lauren and I negotiated a settlement. The clients accepted it.

The exasperating case went away when Lauren and I applied the “Golden Rule” to our relationship, instead of my trying to see how much “gold” I could get for the law firm out of settling it.

I didn’t become “perfect.” I remained far from an expert in interpersonal relationships. Even though people think lawyers are good at that.

How differently it felt, however, not to label people as much. I quit calling a partner who came around all the time and nagged us about our billing and collecting, the “Hall Patrol.” How I enjoyed visiting with him after I was no longer labeling! He’s been dead 15 years. I still miss him.

It was so much better not to write exactly what I thought and hit “send!” Maybe even take my own “advice.” Type it. Read it. Delete it.

Lauren checked in on me as much or more than anyone who wasn’t in my family or close circle of friends.

One day, long after the case was over, she called.

“How are you, Adam? I haven’t checked on you in a while.”

“Every checkup, there’s no sign of the cancer. It’s a miracle.”

“It’s an answer to prayer,” she responded. When she hung up, I sat in my office chair and cried.

Sadly, Christine and I never fixed our relationship and very infrequently crossed paths in the future. But at least I learned something from my mistakes; Lauren and I made things “better.”

From time to time, people in the firm started asking me illegal questions such as “when are you going to retire?” Although I have no idea what it’s like to be a minority or a woman, a bit of “age discrimination” helped me see many things differently. I had an appointment with the best civil rights attorney I know—a woman! I left the firm, without bitterness or rancor, for a new firm where my grey hair and experience are valued. The firm paid me everything it owed me. Without a peep. One of my partners had seen me leaving her office!

My oncologist told me I’d likely not die of prostate cancer. But would probably die of “something else.”

I’m sure God didn’t “approve the email.” But He redeemed it.

He redeemed the cancer, too.

I don’t mean He “saved” me from something. But He turned both things around into “good.”

Long before I knew the results of my treatments, I began to make a list of every good thing that happened to me because of the cancer. Things that wouldn’t have happened…but for the cancer. The list filled many pages.

Maybe one day I’ll outline what I learned from hitting “Reply to All.” The first bullet point will be, “God works in a mysterious way!”