The Neon Lawyer (4 page)

Seven

Brigham called Rick to let him know he’d found a job and would have to quit. Rick, rather than being upset, told him he was proud of him. They chatted a few minutes, and then said good-bye.

Brigham strolled around the office and talked with everyone. He figured they might have some extra work here and there to throw his way.

There was Mark, a former cop who said he’d gotten sick of lawyers yelling at him on the stand, so he’d quit and gone to law school. And Ryan, who struck Brigham as a psychopath—he was glib and trying much too hard to seem friendly and normal. He had been a trucker, but had become a lawyer because he didn’t know what else to do. He specialized in small claims court and said he enjoyed it because most of the judges didn’t know the laws and he could get away with anything. Sandy was a civil rights lawyer who sued businesses on behalf of minorities, and then kept a percentage of any recovery. Harold couldn’t look Brigham in the eyes and kept his head down over his desk for the entire conversation, although Brigham did learn that he was a bankruptcy attorney.

And there was Molly. He couldn’t figure out why she was there. She was beautiful, appeared smart but not so smart that she was weird, and probably could’ve used those two traits to land a job at a real law firm.

Brigham did one more round through the office, but no one mentioned any work so he went and sat at his desk and waited.

Scotty shuffled into Brigham’s office toward the end of the day. He put a manila folder on Brigham’s desk.

“Your first case. Tommy said to give it to you. Thousand-dollar fee so you’d get two fifty.”

“What is it?”

“Speeding ticket.” Scotty turned to leave. “Trial’s tomorrow.”

“Wait, I can’t prepare for a trial in one night!”

Scotty stood awkwardly at the door and stared at his feet. “You did an internship, right? Where you tried cases?”

“Yeah, but I was supervised.”

“It’s just speeding—an infraction. The prosecutors knock stuff down to infractions ’cause you don’t get a jury trial if it’s an infraction. There’s no jail time possible, so they do that with every case they can to save time. Bench trials only take a few minutes. You’ll do fine.”

Scotty left, and Brigham stared down at the manila folder. He opened it. Inside was an information sheet on the client. A one-page citation was attached naming the client as Jake Dolls, and saying he had been doing sixty-seven in a thirty. His wife had been the only passenger. The third page was a signed representation agreement . . . and that was it. There were no other notes. Brigham closed the file and turned to the desktop computer. It was at least fifteen years too old. He flipped it on and it took almost ten minutes of deep grinding noises to boot up. He went to the Internet Explorer icon and double-clicked. That took another few minutes to open. He turned the computer off and pulled out his iPhone. He googled “how to handle speeding tickets,” found a few sites, and began reading.

The next morning, Brigham dressed in his suit again, and brought Jake Dolls’s folder with him to the Salt Lake City Justice Court.

A line of people were waiting to go through a metal detector to get in, and belts, rings, and watches had to be removed. When people set the machine off, a bailiff pulled them aside and checked them with a wand. When it was his turn, Brigham’s shoes set off the machine, and the bailiff took him aside and wanded him for a solid minute.

“I’m a lawyer,” he said. “Can’t I just go in?”

“No, we check you guys extra carefully.”

Once he was cleared, he could see the sheer mass of humanity from every walk of life hurrying into the building. The courtroom he needed to be in, upstairs, was another zoo. At least ten defense lawyers were discussing their cases, with the prosecutors up front, and the audience benches were full. Brigham looked at the name on the file again and said loudly, “Jake Dolls?”

A man raised his hand and stood up. Brigham took him outside the courtroom.

“Jake, I’m Brigham Theodore. I’ll be representing you today.”

“Where’s Tommy? I thought he was gonna be here.”

“He sent me. I don’t have any notes, so is there anything I should know?”

The man eyed him with his arms folded. “I told Tommy everything. He should be here.”

Brigham put on his best smile. “Well, why don’t you tell me? Let’s start with your wife—she was in the car with you?”

“Yeah. She seen it, too. She was pregnant. Don’t know if that matters but she was. We was just drivin’, and then this cop come up behind me goin’ really fast. So I go faster ’cause I think he’s gonna hit me. Then he flashed his lights and pulled us over.”

“Did you tell him you sped up because of him?”

“Yeah, and he didn’t believe me. Made me wait the whole time with my wife screamin’ at me while he gave me the ticket. That’s really why I’m fightin’ it—it ain’t the money; I just don’t think government should be able to do things like that and just get away with it.”

Brigham nodded, making some quick notes on the back of the file with a pen that was running out of ink. “Okay. Let’s go in.”

Brigham moved past the bar—the actual physical barrier separating the crowd from the lawyers—to stand in the well before the judge’s bench. If the judge had been on the bench, the bailiffs would have been required to tackle Brigham just for being there. As it was, he waited there with the other defense attorneys for his turn to talk to the prosecutor.

The prosecutor, a woman with black hair that came to her shoulders, was sitting at a table. Brigham smiled at her and said, “Hi, Brigham Theodore.”

“What do you need?” she said curtly, not removing her eyes from the file in front of her.

“Um, I’m here for Jake Dolls. It’s a—”

“There’s no offer. He can plead guilty and pay the fine.”

“Well, his wife was pregnant and—”

“He can plead guilty or we can have the trial.”

“Okay, but—”

“Next.”

Brigham felt someone gently pushing him out of the way, and another lawyer took his spot and tried convincing the prosecutor to give him a deal on a prostitution case. Brigham looked at Jake and could feel himself blushing. He went back to the defense table and sat on the bench behind it. Another lawyer sat there, a man in a suit with sneakers on. He was looking at his iPod, the earbuds dangling against his chest.

“She’s a real ballbreaker,” the man said.

“Seems like it.”

“She won’t give you anything. You gotta set everything for trial in here. But you get a free appeal.”

“What’dya mean?”

“This is justice court—you get to appeal anything that happens to the district court. Starts the whole case over, so you get two bites at the apple. But when you appeal it, the judge can lock your client up. Still, Judge Bolson ain’t so bad.”

The bailiff said, “All rise. The Honorable Judge Zandra Bolson now presiding.”

The judge was a middle-aged woman with curly hair. She sat, moved her files in front of her, and said, “You may be seated. Who’s first?”

Every lawyer scrambled for the podium, fighting for a spot up there. The man with the iPod elbowed another lawyer in the chest, laughing, but Brigham could tell he meant it.

Brigham sat there for two and a half hours while the other lawyers handled their cases. Finally, his turn came at the podium. His heart felt as if it might rip out of his chest, and he was worried everyone was staring at how badly he was sweating. He gripped the podium hard to stop his hands from trembling.

“Matter of Jake Dolls, please, Your Honor.”

Jake joined him at the podium. Brigham thought Jake must be the only person there more nervous than he was.

The judge opened a file. “Are you Jacob Ray Dolls, sir?”

“Yes.”

“And is the address we have on the citation correct?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Counsel, what’s anticipated?”

Brigham was staring at the charge sheet when the prosecutor cleared her throat. He glanced to her and she pointed to the judge.

“Oh, sorry, Your Honor. Um, what was that?”

“I said, what’s anticipated?”

“We’ll be going forward with the trial.”

“Well, by all means, proceed,” she said mockingly.

Brigham sat at the defense table, as did Jake. He wasn’t sure which one it was until the bailiff pointed to it: the one farthest away from the jury box. He waited for the prosecutor to offer her opening statement, but she was busy on her phone. He thought maybe it was customary to let the defense go first at a bench trial.

Brigham had spent at least three hours preparing his opening statement. It couldn’t be too long—judges probably hated that—but it couldn’t be so short that it didn’t seem like he cared about the case. So he’d written it, and then cut and trimmed until it was down to about five minutes.

“Your Honor, when our Constitution was written, the Founding Fathers sought to protect—”

“Mr. Theodore,” the judge interrupted, “what’re you doing?”

“Um, opening statement.”

“We usually waive opening statements. It’s a speeding ticket. I know what speeding is and what to expect.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, Your Honor.”

“Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, “the City calls Officer Walbot to the stand.”

An officer in full uniform took the stand. He held up his right hand, and the clerk made him put his other hand on a Bible.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

Once the officer was sworn in, the prosecutor went up to the podium and said, “State your name, please.”

“Thomas J. Walbot.”

“What do you do, Mr. Walbot?”

“I’m an officer with the Salt Lake City Police Department.”

“How long have you been with them?”

“Ten years.”

“And Officer, what were you doing on August fourth around ten in the morning?”

“I was patrolling the area of Fourth South and about State Street here in Salt Lake City.”

The prosecutor had her phone out and was texting as she was asking questions. Brigham guessed she had done this several hundred times to get that comfortable. “And did you cite someone at that time?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“The defendant. Jacob Dolls.”

“Tell us what happened.”

The officer leaned back in his seat, keeping his eyes on the prosecutor rather than the defendant. “I noticed a silver Honda coming down Fourth South at a high speed. I clocked him on my front ladar at sixty-seven miles—”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Brigham said, his voice cracking a little. “The officer hasn’t laid proper foundation.”

The judge rolled her eyes. “Ms. Rollins, please lay the proper foundation.”

The prosecutor glared at Brigham and then turned to the officer. “Do you have ladar in your vehicle, Officer?”

“Yes.”

“What is ladar?”

“The word is a combination of
laser
and
radar
. You aim it at a spot and it lights it up, so it can then can read the reflecting light. It’s completely replaced radar as a means of determining speed, because it’s nearly a hundred percent accurate.”

“Was your ladar working properly?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you calibrated it?”

“That morning.”

“And it was working properly?”

“Yes.”

The prosecutor looked to Brigham as she said, “And you clocked the silver Honda at what speed with the ladar?”

“Sixty-seven. The posted speed limit in the area is thirty miles an hour.”

“Did you identify the driver?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see him in the courtroom today?”

The officer looked to Jake. “Yes. He’s the man there, in the shirt and tie, next to defense counsel.”

“How did you identify him?”

“His driver’s license.”

“Thank you, Officer. Nothing further.”

Brigham swallowed, and his mouth felt like sandpaper. The judge didn’t say anything, so he rose slowly and stepped over to the podium, waiting for someone to tell him it wasn’t his turn yet.

“Officer,” he said meekly, “you clocked him on your front ladar as you were following him, correct?”

“I saw that he was traveling at a high speed, so I followed him. I visually estimated his speed at sixty-five miles per hour.”

“Visually estimated? That must have been some guess since you were only two miles per hour off.”

“I received training on visual estimates at the academy. We’re required to be accurate to within two miles per hour on our tests in order to pass.”

Brigham hadn’t known that and felt like everyone could see through him. He scribbled some nonsensical notes on his legal pad. “Um, how far away were you from his car?”

“Close.”

“How close? Twenty feet?”

“Somewhere around there.”

Brigham wanted to put a foot up on the lectern to seem more relaxed than he actually was, but he was shaking too much to manage it. No one would have seen it, anyway. “Were your lights on?”

“Yes.”

“Your siren?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And Mr. Dolls moved over to the side at first, right?”

“Yes. He pulled from the number one lane into the number two.”