【Episode 42 – If the Case from *Extraordinary Attorney Woo* Had Happened in America (6)】
That afternoon,
Denny Duncan’s office.
“What? You read some memo written by a mere law student and persuaded my client to reject the plea bargain?”
The offered sentence had dropped from five years to one.
Of course, the support from him and his classmates had helped greatly in achieving that result, but regardless, meeting the client—to be exact, the client’s daughter—and persuading her not to accept the prosecution’s plea bargain deal was crossing the line.
Denny’s face turned red as he shouted.
“Isn’t she our client?”
Jeheon shot back. Polite, but not servile.
“Hey, wannabe, don’t get it twisted. If you think taking a case pro bono makes you a real lawyer, you’re dead wrong.”
“Isn’t this opportunity given so that we can think and act like lawyers?”
The corner of Denny Duncan’s mouth curled up.
It was not the kind of smile that appeared when he was in a good mood.
He had thought he liked the kid, but having him stand in opposition like this was extremely grating.
Still, for a very brief moment, the thought crossed his mind that the kid had the makings of quite a skilled litigator.
Of course, right now, he was back to thinking only about how to put the brat in his place.
“First, please review the legal memo I just gave you.”
“Are you kidding me? You think I’m your teacher?”
“I am not asking you to evaluate it. It is a memo I wrote for your reference, as I believe we may be able to argue not guilty on the manslaughter charge.”
“What do you know about criminal law? You think you know better than me? Better than me, a lawyer with thirteen years of experience? I’ve reviewed everything. There is nothing like that.”
“Still, Attorney…”
“A person is dead, and you are talking about not guilty? It was not even an accident—there is a statement saying she hit him out of anger. Don’t tell me you think those professors’ affidavits and petitions made the entire confession fly out the window? Only the existence of intent to kill was not acknowledged. The part where she admitted to striking his head in anger remains.”
“I am aware.”
“If you wrote something about self-defense or whatever, take it and throw it in the trash while you still can. Do not show it to anyone. A few years from now, after you become a real lawyer, you might wake up in the middle of the night thinking, ‘Oh, right. I wrote something that embarrassing.’”
“Please review it at least once before saying that.”
“Are you looking down on me? Just because I rent a single room in a shared office, you think I am some ambulance chaser from a third-rate law school?”
An “ambulance chaser” is a contemptuous expression used to demean lawyers, referring to those who chase after ambulances to solicit lawsuits.
The act of stirring up litigation is also called soliciting (touting for clients), and under United States law, lawyer solicitation is illegal.
Therefore, actual ambulance chasers extract patient information through backroom deals with hospitals or police, then pretend to appear by coincidence and subtly solicit cases.
Denny Duncan was no ambulance chaser.
“Not at all. I understand you graduated from Harvard Law School. I also heard that you worked at Hopkins & Sutherland for a long time, and that you were on the defense team for the Camille case.”
Hopkins & Sutherland was a major law firm. Denny found Jeheon admirable—at least the kid had done his research on his opponent.
Strange kid. He did not like what the kid had done, but the more he talked, the more he kept seeing redeeming qualities.
“I have included an opinion on self-defense, but it is not the main argument.”
“Who writes a brief that crudely?”
“It is not a brief.”
Whoops—
It was a legal memo.
“A legal memo is a document containing legal opinions, mainly given to clients or fellow attorneys. Rather than serving to persuade, it aims to present the most objective view possible of the case. Therefore, unlike a brief—which strategically omits weak arguments to persuade an opposing party or the judge—a legal memo covers and analyzes all issues.”
“So what I am saying is, if you wrote a memo suggesting a self-defense argument, throw it away.”
“That is not what I am trying to argue.”
The kid cut himself off without further explanation.
Inexperienced students always could not wait to say more.
But this kid stopped talking. And then he waited to be asked.
‘Look at this guy.’
It was not a technique that always worked, but it was not one a first-year law student should know.
And right now, it had worked.
More than being curious about what the kid had to say, Denny found himself curious about what the kid would do next.
“Then what is it? What the hell is in here?”
Denny asked, picking up the file Jeheon had brought.
“It contains opinions and evidence worth arguing not guilty for Ms. Go Jae-suk’s manslaughter charge.”
Cocky. But it was a necessary trait for a lawyer. Especially in front of someone looking down on you. Like right now.
“Haha. So you are telling me to read it myself and judge?”
Jeheon looked straight into his eyes without answering.
“Fine. I will take a look. Look. I am looking. But since it has come to this, if this is garbage like I think it is, it will not end quietly. You understand me?”
He had expected some cocky retort to his threatening remark, but the kid—
“Thank you.”
—left those words behind and disappeared.
That pissed him off even more.
It was not that the kid’s behavior was annoying; rather, watching the kid leave like that made him feel strangely small.
A thirteen-year veteran lawyer, losing his temper at a first-year law student…
---*---
The next morning,
Vanderbilt Hall, Golding Lounge.
“So? What did Attorney Duncan say? Did you explain it well?”
I could not.
“No.”
“Why?”
The original plan was to hand over the legal memo and the evidence we had found and explain, but Attorney Duncan treated me from the start with a dismissive gaze and tone.
There was no opportunity to explain.
Even if I had forced an explanation, his attitude showed he had no intention of listening properly.
So I deliberately took a harder line.
From his point of view, I must look like nothing more than a student who had just entered law school, so his behavior was not hard to understand.
However, sometimes there are things to learn from students, too.
I know because I have taught students myself. Sometimes you overlook the obvious because it is too obvious. Especially when you are overconfident that you know more and know better.
In such cases, the answer is not to fight his pride, but to draw his interest.
If he is a decent lawyer, he will cool his head and review our legal memo. However, if he is a lousy lawyer… I believed he was not. If he were that kind of petty person, he would have ignored the affidavits and petitions we had prepared in the first place.
“He seemed busy.”
“Ah, he did seem like it. Looking at that office, most of the lawyers there seemed to handle personal injury cases, like car accidents…”
“I think he will review it and contact us.”
“Really? That is a relief, then.”
---*---
“Ack, you startled me!”
Donna Colson, who had just arrived at work.
As always, she had come in to place the mail on the lawyer’s desk, only to find Denny sleeping in a corner of the room.
“Good morning.”
“Denny, don’t tell me you slept here last night?”
“The chair was too uncomfortable.”
“Practicing in advance?”
“For what?”
“Living on the streets?”
“Ugh—that is like a curse.”
“You got another demand letter from your ex-wife’s lawyer. Pay the overdue alimony.”
“Hey—I told you not to open my personal mail.”
“I did not open it.”
“Then how do you know?”
“You can tell just by looking.”
Denny looked at the mail Donna had just placed on the desk.
Just as she said, he could tell without opening it. It was a lawyer’s demand letter.
“Donna, do you know what the worst kind of lawyer is?”
“If you are going to say divorce lawyer, stop. It makes you look pathetic.”
“Divorce lawyers! No, seriously, she is the one who slept with another guy. Why do I have to pay her living expenses?”
“How should I know? Even a Harvard lawyer does not know that.”
“Anyway, this country’s divorce laws are messed up. No, seriously messed up.”
“Want me to get you coffee?”
“Oh—thanks. What is the occasion, asking me first?”
“You look desperate. For coffee.”
“When was I not?”
“Today it is worse. Please, at least buckle your belt properly.”
Only then did Denny scan his disheveled state. His hair was a mess, and his half-undone tie hung grotesquely around his neck. His belt, just as she had pointed out, was fastened around his hips rather than his waist.
He let out a short laugh and straightened his clothes. Only then did he start to feel awake.
“Black, please?”
He had slept in the office because he had stayed up past three in the morning reading the legal memo and materials Jeheon had left behind.
‘Annoying brat.’
The damn thing was written well.
Because it was a legal memo meant for clients or fellow attorneys, it was not without a lengthy feel, but if you cut out a few unnecessary parts and strengthened the tone, it was good enough to be submitted to the court as a brief.
“No, I have changed my mind. Put me through to the DA’s office.”
“You are going there? When?”
“Tell them to prepare a cup of coffee for me. I will drink it there.”
He intended to argue not guilty on the manslaughter charge.
Denny left the office with Jeheon’s legal memo and materials.
If the Case from *Extraordinary Attorney Woo* Had Happened in America (7)
New York, Queens District.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office was located inside a hexagonal federal building standing at the intersection of Jackie Robinson Parkway and Queens Boulevard.
“Samuel, let us wrap up all the cases that need to be finished by year-end. We are too backlogged.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah, have you heard from Duncan’s office?”
“Regarding Ms. Go Jae-suk’s case? No, sir.”
Carl Shane, the Queens District Attorney, had been waiting for Denny Duncan’s call.
He had let a plea bargain—one with no reason not to accept immediately—sit for several days already.
The reason given was that he could not contact the client’s daughter, but it made Shane uneasy for no good reason.
“Call and tell them by tomorrow… No, I will do it myself.”
“Understood. But how did Attorney Duncan end up like that?”
Since they were on the topic, Assistant District Attorney Samuel Lane of the Queens District asked something he had been curious about.
“End up like what?”
“I heard that when he was at Hopkins & Sutherland on the Camille case, he was on that team. And he graduated from Harvard Law. How did he fall so low?”
Shane had no particular desire to defend Denny Duncan, but someone who had become DA only two years ago was absolutely not at a level to hear words like “fallen so low” or “ruined” about him.
“Do you know how Hopkins won the Camille case?”
“Of course. It was a huge case when I was in law school. I followed it from the first trial. I read all the briefs Hopkins submitted.”
“Then you should know well how well-written those briefs were.”
“Absolutely. They were amazing.”
“The person who drafted those briefs was Denny. The lawyer you just said had ‘fallen so low.’”
“What?!”
It was the first time he had heard this. Samuel Lane’s eyes went wide. He had been a lawyer for six years now, but he had never seen a document as well-written as the briefs submitted in the Camille case.
Back in law school, he had envied that level of writing, thinking he would have no regrets if he could write like that. To think that the drafts of those briefs had been written by that unfunny jokester, Denny Duncan… he could not believe it.
“Really?”
“I heard that the firm was planning to settle the Camille case roughly, but Denny clung to it and carried it through.”
“Wow—I had no idea.”
“If you end up facing him later, you should know: if he gets serious, he can be a real handful.”
As he spoke, he felt like he was building the guy up more than necessary. Still, it was not empty talk. It was advice born from experience.
Knock, knock.
“DA Shane.”
Right then, a secretary knocked and entered.
“Yes?”
“Attorney Denny Duncan is here. What should I do? It is an unscheduled visit…”
What is this? It feels like the protagonist just made his entrance…
“Perfect. I was just about to call him. Let him in.”
“Yes, sir.”