Lawyer for the Dog

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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for Jerry, always

 

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Ann Stirling, Michael O'Connell, Jane Dowling Fender, Bonnie Lyons, Susan Schmidt, Sarah Steinhardt, Charles Merrill, Salley McInerney, Abraham Verghese, Alan Shapiro, Steven Kellman, and Wendy Barker; and to all the folks at Gemini Ink for their encouragement and help with this book; to Mary Evans, agent extraordinaire, for her faith in it; and to everyone at Thomas Dunne Books for nurturing it.

The late Maxine Kumin, my friend and mentor, read an early draft and made many valuable suggestions. I miss her keen mind and her literary mothering.

Thanks to my family folks, near and far, for your support and your stories, especially to my children, Luke and Sally, who endured my lawyering days.

I am indebted most of all to my husband, Jerry Winakur, for his love and patience through many drafts, and for his always insightful comments.

 

The Brief of My Life

I've defended murderers, rapists, burglars, and drug dealers. In my public defender days I represented a woman who threw her baby off a bridge and an eighty-year-old granny who whacked her husband with a frying pan when he complained about her cooking. You name a heinous crime or a major human transgression, and I've defended it. Or imagine the worst marriage in the history of the world, and I've represented the worst half of it.

And now what?

*   *   *

“I need a big favor,” said Joe Baynard, judge of the Charleston County Family Court, when he called this morning. He's forty-nine, just a couple of days younger than I am, but otherwise we are totally unalike, which is why, come to think of it, I fell in love with him, and also probably why he is now my ex.

“No more pro bonos,” I protested. I already had six or seven court-appointed cases on my plate, cases for which I would be paid next-to-nothing for God knows how many hours of work.

“Let me tell you about the case,” Joe said. We were on the telephone, but I knew from the tone of his voice that he was picking his fingernails and heard him slide open his desk drawer to deposit a sliver. He always picks his fingernails when he's agitated.

“One of these days Betty's going to find your stash,” I said. Betty is his secretary.

“What?”

“All those fingernails.”

“I empty the drawer once a week now.”

“I guess even the most hardened criminals can be reformed,” I said.

I heard him close the drawer. “I really need your help, Sally.”

I hated it when he got like this. It brought back all the guilt. Why couldn't I just despise him, like any normal ex-wife?

“But aside from doing me a favor, it's a really fascinating case,” he continued.

“Last time I took one of your ‘fascinating' cases, I had to borrow money to keep my practice going.” I'll never forget that one: he'd appointed me to represent a nine-year-old in a custody battle that went on for two years—with motion hearing after motion hearing, a six-week trial—at the end of which the dad, who'd been ordered to pay my fees, disappeared.

“There's plenty of money in this one,” Joe said. “I'm going to order some interim fees to whoever represents the dog.”

“The dog?”

“He's a schnauzer.”

“Are you kidding?”

I heard him shuffle some papers. “Yeah, that's right. A
miniature
schnauzer.”

“Since when does a dog need a lawyer?”

“This dog needs one. I'll have Betty copy the file for you, so you can get up to speed.”

“Joe,” I tried to sound firm, “I don't represent dogs. I don't even know why—”

“If I'm not mistaken, you've represented plenty of dogs in your time. Plenty.”

“Ha, ha.”

“And this particular dog is charming.”

“I don't like dogs.”

“I have a picture right here … very cute dog. So, you'll do it?”

“Explain why a schnauzer needs a lawyer.”

“Because he's tying up the case, and the case is tying up my court. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it,” said Joe. His voice broke. “I feel like … like I'm losing control.”

“Are you okay?”

“Can we have lunch today?” he pleaded.

“I don't think Susan would like that very much.” Susan is Joe's wife.

“We can eat in my chambers.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.”

“We've been divorced for eighteen years,” he said. “You think anyone cares if we have lunch together to talk about a case?”

“Susan might.”

“Believe me, Susan doesn't care.” Was that bitterness in his voice, or was I imagining it? “I'll ask Betty to order some takeout. You still a vegetarian?”

“Yes, but not vegan anymore.”

“Just tell me what you eat.”

“Vegetables. Cheese. Beans. No meat.”

“What about one of those Greek salads from Dino's?”

“Fine. Dressing on the side.”

“It's great that you're still a vegetarian,” he said.

“You always thought it was an affectation.”

“But it's good for the dog…”

“What?”

“I mean for your relationship with the dog.”

“I don't have relationships with dogs,” I said.

“I could argue with that.”

“Anyway, what difference would it make to the dog … my being a vegetarian?”

“It shows respect for animals,” Joe said. “I have my lunch break at one thirty. You'll be here?”

“I'm preparing for a trial.”

“
Please
, Sally.”

He hadn't said “please” that way since the day I left him.

*   *   *

My favorite law school professor used to say that the most important thing about a legal brief is that it be what it claims to be:
brief.
State the facts concisely, he'd say, without losing anything essential. Judges don't have time for irrelevant information, no matter how interesting. Make your arguments in plain language. Nobody wants to wade through a swamp of “therefores” and “howevers” and twisted syntax.

“If you had only twenty-five words to state the facts of your life,” this professor used to say, “what would you write?”

Sarah Bright Baynard, b. Columbia, South Carolina

B.A. University of South Carolina, magna cum laude

J.D. University of South Carolina Law School

Married Joseph Henry Baynard, divorced after five years

True enough so far, but I've left out that afternoon when Joseph Henry Baynard took Sarah Bright, aka Sally, to his basement apartment near the law school, luring her with a plea for help with Constitutional Law, but mixing Constitutional Law with a little vodka and tonic and some Beatles on the boom box. Somehow Joe and Sally found themselves dancing and laughing, then falling exhausted onto Joe's sofa (that threadbare thing he'd covered with a batik bedspread) and laughing some more, then kissing, both surprised at how good the kissing was.

In the Brief of My Life, doesn't that afternoon matter as much as my birthplace, my degrees? My career?

Assistant Public Defender

Associate, Baynard, Baker, and Gibson, Charleston, South Carolina

Chief Public Defender, Charleston County

Solo practice, Sarah B. Baynard, LLC

And in the Brief of My Life, what about that morning in the ladies' room of Baynard, Baker, and Gibson—Joe's family firm, the venerable firm of his father and his grandfather—my head bent to my knees, the pain I'd been ignoring all morning grinding deeper in my pelvis? I hadn't even been sure I was pregnant. I was doing my best that morning not to think about it, but this miscarriage was undeniable, and with it the other things I didn't want to think about: my misery at the firm (“You never even tried to fit in,” said Joe) and my failure as a wife (“You never really wanted this marriage, did you?”).

What really matters in the Brief of Life, as I'm just now beginning to understand, is what you won't read about yourself in the alumni news or your local newspaper—your loves, your joys, your losses, your grief. That grief that almost pulled you under, the quiet daily struggle just to stay sane.

If I died today, in this my forty-ninth year, you'd see my obituary in tomorrow's
Post and Courier.
If you stopped to read it, perhaps you'd be impressed by a life so full of accomplishments. You'd have no clue, reading that Final Brief, what a mess I've made of it.

*   *   *

The file for
Hart v. Hart
is really a collection of files, enough to fill a cardboard box.

“Betty's working on copies for you, but it may take a while,” Joe says. He's already started on his chicken sandwich.

“I haven't agreed to take the case.” Nevertheless I reach for the file labeled
Pleadings.

“Eat your lunch while I give you a summary,” he says. The salad is drowning in dressing, but I'm hungry. “Mrs. Hart filed for divorce at the end of July—”

“Jesus. All that paper already?” I motion toward the files.

“I told you, the case is out of control.”

“Who represents the wife?”

“Henry Swinton.”

“That weasel.”

“It would be improper for me to comment,” Joe says, winking.

“And the husband? Who's the lucky lawyer?”

“Michelle Marvel.”

“She of the marvelous short skirts and low-cut blouses?”

“I never noticed.”

“Right.”

“She's smart as hell,” he says.

“Smart enough to use that short-skirt-and-sweet-smile routine to throw you off guard until she opens her mouth and venom comes out.”

“That's going a bit far,” says Joe.

“I said it, not you.”

“But so far,” I talk through a mouthful of salad, “you haven't exactly won me over.”