【Chapter 30 – A Star is Born】
“Heon, the Korean restaurant case that was on the news—you were the one who handled it?”
“Sein, congratulations. That was really amazing.”
“No way, Michael. You took that case pro bono?”
“So, Dongwook, you were a lawyer? I had no idea. Then you were the one who actually handled this case.”
I had known I would gain some degree of fame, but I hadn’t imagined the reaction would be to this extent.
After it was covered on NSNBC, local broadcast stations and newspapers came to interview us as well.
Naturally, the students at school were in an uproar, and even the professors teaching second- and third-year courses came to ask our names.
We had become stars overnight.
Even Professor Alastair Mitchell, a straight-laced English gentleman, could not hide his excitement.
“Truly amazing. Honestly, I think I should begin with an apology. I’m sorry, Heon, Dongwook, Sein, and Michael. Please accept my apology. I had preconceptions because you were freshmen.
But please understand.
The reason I had you take on a pro bono case was so that you could feel the client’s desperation through a real case, not a hypothetical one, and experience how to formulate a litigation strategy.
But for the case you brought in to be a seven-point-two-million-dollar lawsuit... any professor would have been flustered. Moreover, without even reporting to me, you proceeded with the plaintiff’s deposition on your own and agreed to a trial date. Hahaha, that night I couldn’t sleep a wink. I mean it.
Anyway, it was truly a breathtaking litigation strategy. For this case, you thought like real lawyers and planned your strategy. Moreover, it was meticulous to the point of even using the fact that you were law school students.
One cannot say there was no risk, but it was a bold move. There is no litigation without risk. Variables always arise, and gaps always appear. At such times, how a lawyer acts strategically can make a losing case winnable, and a winning case win even bigger.
Everyone was excellent, truly!
I’m so looking forward to the Immigration Law Moot Court Competition next February! Well done!”
***
154 Bleecker Street, New York.
Peculiar Pub.
After spending a few chaotic days, we gathered at the pub where we had first met.
“Good work.”
“You worked hard too, Hyung.”
“You had it harder than me. Heon, you basically did everything.”
“How could I have done everything? You pulled all-nighters with me at the library every day and couldn’t even go home. Doesn’t your wife say anything?”
“Ah—this is nothing. I did much more when I was in Korea.”
“Now, now. The beer is here. Let’s stop with the stuffy litigation talk and drink.”
“Right. Ah, Michael, you worked hard too. Sein, you too.”
While Dongwook-hyung and I handled the deposition, Sein and Michael were busy investigating Samantha Chen and Maxwell Donahue.
In particular, Sein helped greatly in persuading Samantha Chen, and Michael found out through Hyung roughly what Maxwell Donahue’s annual salary was, what lawsuits he had handled, and so on.
He always spoke like an unhelpful Hyung, but that wasn’t the truth.
“Alright, cheers.”
I may have stood at the very front, but it was a lawsuit I couldn’t have won without the help of the three.
“Ah, Heon, right, Boss Kim called. He said he’s so grateful, and asked if he really doesn’t have to pay anything.”
The owner of
I told him we could probably get $5,000,000 if we negotiated a bit more, but he said that amount already far exceeded what he deserved and wanted to stop here.
“Ah, seriously, can’t we get paid? We were sued for $7.2 million and turned it around to get $4.3 million? Wouldn’t taking around $1 million be fine?”
“Hey, Michael—you’ll get flagged by the Bar Association’s Ethics Committee before you even become a lawyer. How can you ask for a fee when you agreed to do it pro bono?”
“Honestly, the case we agreed to take pro bono was the lawsuit Maxwell filed. The case that got the settlement was the one claiming damages for frivolous litigation, so isn’t that a separate suit? We didn’t contract for the latter.”
Michael wasn’t wrong. Strictly speaking, there was room to argue that.
“Michael, usually you seem like someone with a screw loose, but at times like this, you’re definitely a lawyer. You’re right.”
“That’s right, Hyung.”
“It may be right, but that doesn’t mean we can take a fee. As you said, we didn’t make a separate contract either. And leaving aside whether there was a contract or not, it’s not right.”
“That’s what I’m saying. This guy, his eyes only sparkle when talking about parties, money, and women.”
“Hey, O Sein, you say that because you don’t know me well yet. I like food too. And I was joking.”
Though he said that, it would be a lie if I, Dongwook-hyung, and Sein didn’t have any regrets whatsoever, and Michael hadn’t really meant that they should take a fee.
It was just a trivial joke, and we all felt like we were flying high at having won our first lawsuit (excluding Dongwook-hyung).
“Ah, Boss Kim said come anytime. The four of us eat free for life.”
“Really? Awesome! Their haejangguk there is to die for the day after drinking. He said for life, right? Shouldn’t we get that in writing? Hee hee.”
That wasn’t all.
After receiving the settlement, the boss donated one million dollars to NYU Law School and opened a Korean BBQ restaurant in Koreatown.
We could eat free at that BBQ restaurant too.
“Kya—But having finished one case makes me want to do another. When I had just come from Korea, I really didn’t even want to look at case files.”
“You’re a lawyer by calling.”
“This... ha, it’s embarrassing to say, but being a lawyer has a certain kind of thrill. Should I say it feels like a warrior?”
“A warrior?”
“Yeah. Keke. Among our law firm partners, there’s someone who is a bit of an outcast, or should I say a voluntary outsider—anyway, he’s a founding member, but he eats alone and all that. But when it comes to writing briefs, he’s truly amazing. When he writes a brief, all the lawyers in the firm circulate it to read. I happened to have lunch alone with him once, and he said this: ‘A lawyer is a warrior who fights on behalf of others.’ Ugh—I nearly choked on my food when I heard that.”
“Haha, I think I would too. Eating alone with someone like that.”
“But I still think of what he said from time to time. After all, he was saying to go out and fight with the resolve to die in someone else’s place.”
The resolve to die in someone else’s place.
Yes, I think I’ve heard those words before.
I thought they were cool then too...
“Now, now, let’s stop with the law talk and school talk. Ugh, my head hurts.”
“Then what should we talk about?”
“What talk?”
“Party talk. Halloween party. When we said we’d do the pro bono case, I thought, ‘Ah, this Halloween I’m going to be stuck in the library,’ but fortunately, Halloween isn’t over yet!”
If you ask someone living in North America what the biggest festival of the year is, the most common answer would probably be Christmas, and the next would be Halloween.
On the last day of October, the entire city becomes a ghost town.
“Ah, by the way, Heon, what happened with that case?”
“What case?”
“The case where the Washington, D.C. judge sued the Korean dry cleaners.”
“I told you. It was dismissed for frivolous litigation.”
“I mean after that. Did the dry cleaners receive a hefty compensation too?”
“No. They only received compensation for legal costs. There were no punitive damages.”
The case of *Pearson v. Chung* was special in many ways.
The amount of the lawsuit was significant, but the fact that the plaintiff was a judge drew even more attention.
The plaintiff judge sued the dry cleaners for losing his pants.
The damages claimed were initially $67,292,000, later reduced by $54,000,000.
Of that, $500,000 was for attorney fees,
$2,000,000 was for his own physical and mental damages,
$15,000 was for rental car expenses from having to use another dry cleaner far away, and,
the remaining $51,500,000 was designated to be used for litigation expenses of consumers who had suffered inconveniences like him.
The cleaners were custom-made for his body, and he claimed that the suffering of having to wear clothes without them was indescribable.
The basis for his claim was that signs reading “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Same Day Service” were posted on the dry cleaner’s window, and he argued that this was fraud.
The owners of the dry cleaners, Mr. and Mrs. Chung, offered the plaintiff $12,000 in settlement, but the plaintiff judge refused the settlement, and the case eventually went to trial.
Another amusing fact was that during this process, the pants were found and the Chungs offered to return them, but the judge adamantly denied they were his. The pants matched his description, and the tag the dry cleaners had attached for sorting was identical, yet he refused to acknowledge them to the end.
Eventually, on June 25, 2007, Washington, D.C. Judge Judith Martnoff issued a ruling in favor of the dry cleaners. The reason was that the judge’s claim was an unnecessary lawsuit.
The story doesn’t end there. The judge appealed the trial result several times, and the “frivolous lawsuit” that occurred in 2005 was not concluded until 2010. The results were all dismissals.
The plaintiff was removed from his administrative law judgeship and his law license was suspended for 90 days. He appealed both administrative decisions but lost again.
That is the ending of “The Great American Pants Suit.”
“Wow—he must have really loved those pants. Anyway, Heon, you’re coming to the Halloween party, right?”
Love Calls
｢To Jeheon,
Hello. My name is Jane Wilson, and I belong to the recruiting team at Skadden.
You probably already know about our law firm from what you’ve heard, but to briefly introduce ourselves first, we recorded $3 billion in revenue last year alone, making us the most profitable...｣
｢Mr. Je,
It is an honor to be able to contact you like this.
My name is Liam Ross, and I am currently serving as the chief hiring officer at the Clifford Chance New York office.
Clifford Chance is a London-based law firm, but it has more than 2,500 lawyers affiliated worldwide, and the New York office alone has more than 200 lawyers...｣
｢Hello, Heon,
I’m Olivia Green, a recruiting partner attorney at Kirkland & Ellis.
I got your contact through James Kim. I hope it isn’t rude to email you like this.
I found the result of this frivolous litigation trial very interesting. Through James, I also saw the immigration law legal brief Heon wrote. It was breathtaking. I can’t tell you how many times I checked to see if a student really wrote this.
I won’t talk at length. I’d like to meet once; if you let me know when is good...｣
The attention that began with the “frivolous lawsuit” did not end with congratulations from professors and classmates.
Top-tier law firms in New York began sending love calls regarding summer internships.
I wasn’t the only one who received them. Sein, Michael, and Dongwook-hyung were all contacted by law firms.