Tag: short-story

THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF JAMES ISLAND

September 25th, 2025

       In 1927, when Irving Steinberg opened his law office at 61 Broad Street, gentile Charlestonians wouldn’t be caught dead hiring a Jewish lawyer. So, Mr. Steinberg built his practice representing the people gentile lawyers of the day wouldn’t represent. Later in his career, in the 1960’s, Mr. Steinberg earned a place on what was called The Broad Street Ring when he helped organize the sea island black churches as a formidable political force during the struggles for civil rights. Churches would often turn to Mr. Steinberg for legal representation when they needed help. When a former pastor sued the First Baptist Church of James Island for wrongful termination, they sought Mr. Steinberg’s help and he assigned the case to me as the newest associate in his firm.

        I quickly learned how historically significant the First Baptist Church of James Island is. It was founded in 1869 following the Civil War by emancipated people who needed a place to worship. They initially met in the Ferguson family home on what is now the corner of Camp and Dills Bluff Roads but, over the years, the congregation grew and built a permanent church on the site where it has worshipped ever since. It was over discrepancies in the church building fund that the pastor was terminated by the congregation.

I never envisioned myself representing a church so, if they were offered, I didn’t take any classes on ecclesiastical law in law school. Ecclesiastical law is the body of laws, rules, and regulations created and enforced by religious institutions to govern their internal affairs. Straightforward sounding enough but in Watson v. Jones decided in 1871 the United States Supreme Court ruled that matters of church discipline, faith, and internal organization are beyond the purview of civil courts. Courts can only intervene in church disputes if they can be resolved using “neutral principles of law” not requiring an interpretation of religious doctrine or practice.

        The pastor claimed he was wrongfully terminated in violation the church’s by-laws requiring a two-thirds vote of the congregation to dismiss a pastor. I met with the trustees of the church, and they gave me a copy of the church’s by-laws which I noticed they had been recently enacted. The trustees said they were adopted at the urging of the terminated pastor. The trustees further complained that the by-laws were not in accordance with a basic tenet of a Baptist Church that a pastor always serves at the pleasure of a majority of the congregation.

        I do not profess to be a scholar on the subject but I learned the Baptist faith was an outgrowth of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation which was both a religious and a cultural movement that believed salvation could be found through reading the Bible. What a truly radical idea, that ordinary people didn’t need the Catholic Pope in Rome to tell them what to believe. I learned before the Reformation there had been an almost two-hundred-year struggle to keep the Bible from being translated from Latin into the common languages. When I say struggle, I truly mean truly a life and death struggle. It was in 1300’s that Oxford Professor John Wyclif and fellow scholars first tried to translate the bible into English and only his natural death saved him from being burned alive with his collaborators. His blasphemy was so hated by the Church, poor John Wyclifs’s remains were dug up, burned, and thrown into the River Swift forty years later.

Baptists can be traced back to dissenters from the Church of England who rejected infant baptism and believed only professing believers should be baptized. The early congregations were forced into exile to Amsterdam. When they returned to England they did so with the firm belief that church and state should be kept separate. I found it remarkable how closely aligned the Prodestant Reformation and democracy were. Our Revolution was founded on the similar revolutionary idea ordinary people could choose their own government too. But, I realized I needed to stay away from matters of religious doctrine or practice and decided it would be best to simply rewrite the church’s by-lays, have the congregation adopt new by-laws, and reaffirm its termination of the pastor so that the case could be decided on ordinary principles of contract law.

I gathered up by-laws from other Baptist churches, including my in-laws Baptist Church in Aiken. I redrafted the by-laws to reflect the correct tenets of the Baptist faith and had the trustees formally call a meeting of the congregation to discuss the new by-laws. Business meetings were held on Wednesday nights and I was surprised at the turnout for ours. Almost as surprised as I was with the number of questions I was asked about why new by-laws were needed. I began to suspect some of the terminated pastor’s allies were purposefully trying to disrupt the meeting but we somehow managed to get through it about eleven o’clock that night. A second meeting was formally noticed and not only were the new by-laws were adopted, but the termination of the previous preacher was affirmed by a majority of the attending congregation.

About a year later I was invited by the trustees to attend the dedication of the remodeled church on a Saturday two weeks coming. Never having attended a church dedication before, I thought it’d be no problem, I’ll be in and out in an our or two leaving plenty of time to enjoy my weekend. Boy was I in for an education. I was warmly greeted by the trustees and invited to sit in one of the high back, pointed chairs on the chancel where I felt more than a little conspicupius in front of the packed church. I truly had a front row seat to the procession of invited preachers who gave one inspirational sermon after another. I remember one pastor in particular, he had to be in close to ninety years old and while he looked frail, he gave one of the most rousing and animated sermons of the day. He spoke in a cadence all his own. A stop and go cadence he not only preached but danced to bringing the packed church to its feet shaking the rebuilt church to it’s very foundations. Between sermons joyous hymns of praise were sung by invited guest singers and members of the church choir whose voices soared to the vaulted ceiling of the new church. I learned what a joyous noise truly meant and wondered to myself why my own church had been so quiet all my years. The hours passed until finally, around 2:30 or 3 that afternoon, I thought things might finally be wrapping up and I could go home but that’s when the Masons showed up in full regalia, wearing their Masonic aprons, gloves, sashes, collars, and medallions and began the ceremony to lay the new cornerstone of the church. It was at least another hour before I was finally able to leave.

        Mr. Steinberg got a hearty laugh, and I mean hearty as he loved my story about the dedication, but he reminded me the pastor’s suit was still pending and there was more work to be done. His lawsuit finally came up on the docket for trial. I informed the trustee and asked if any members of the congregation could attend the trial in a show of support. There were two courtrooms in the old courthouse on Broad Street. Civil trials were usually held in the smaller courtroom on the second floor with the judge’s chambers located off to the left of the courtroom. Judge Richard Fields was assigned to preside over the case. He entered the courtroom through his private entrance and began walking toward the judge’s bench in his usual fashion. Judge Field’s had a way of walking quickly, bent forward as if racing toward a finish line. He made it about half-way to the bench when he noticed the ladies of the First Baptist Church of James Island taking up the first three rows of benches in the small courtroom. The ladies were all dressed in their Sunday, starched white church dresses and hats. Upon seeing them out of the corner of his eye, Judge Field’s performed a perfect pirouette and headed back to his chambers from which he sent word he wanted to see the pastor, just the pastor and not the lawyers, in his chambers.

I don’t know what they talked about but after about thirty minutes we were told the case was being dismissed. I may not have known much about ecclesiastical law, or the propriety of Judge Fields meeting alone with the opposing party, but I do know it wasn’t my mastery of ecclesiastical law, it was the ladies of the First Baptist Church of James Island sitting on the front benches that won the case.
HE HAD CADILLACS IN HIS EYES

May 30th, 2025

A good private investigator can make an average lawyer look like a superstar in a courtroom. Many former police officers become PIs but, for my money, the best PIs come from the other side of the street. Joe Rogers was, without a doubt, one of the best PI’s I ever worked with.

Joe grew up in a rough North Charleston neighborhood. A born hustler, he was the guy everybody came to for whatever they needed which, of course, meant he was in and out of trouble like the tide. It was a miracle he ever made it to high school but, when he did, he quickly became BMOC running a discount gas station selling siphoned gas out of the school bus parking lot. Joe’s mother told the judge that was the last straw and she was washing her hands of him, so it was off to the John De La Howe school for boys. Hustling there got him assigned to KP duty and, in retaliation, Joe fed raw rice to the chickens. He was forced to make a hasty getaway when the chickens started exploding. They found the tractor but not Joe who ade it all the way to Florida where he was taken under the wing of someone who’s hustles involved somewthing more than selling penny ante gas.

When Joe got older, Joe was drawn to the smuggling trade, not so much in the smuggling end of the business, but more onshore logistics setting up safe houses and moving truckloads of pot from coastal off load sites to cities up and down the East Coast. To launder his earnings, Joe bought, sold used luxury automobiles and led a quiet life on the money he stashed away while the Feds were closing in on his former associates still in the trade.

Before long his savings ran out and Joe was forced to find other employment. He started earning commissions referring his old smuggling associates to bail bondsman. When those same bondsmen got stuck holding hefty bonds on defendant’s who failed to appear, Joe discovered he could earn even heftier commissions tracking them down and bringing them in. A bail bondman on the hook for a $100,000.00 bond would gladly pay Joe $25,000.00 if he could bring them in. And boy could Joe bring them in. He’d track them down, find out where their favorite bar was, and sit down next to them all friendly like and tell them to relax, he was the nice guy. He’d tell them he’d let them get their affairs in order and turn themselves in thereby avoiding the broken bones, gunshot wounds, and handcuffs that would come with the muscle bound, bald guys who would track them down after Joe. If a bail jumper needed representatio, he’d refer them to me. Before long he talked me into letting him do investigative work for me and impressed me with him results.

Joe’s colorful background and resoursefulness gave him a unique understanding of human nature and the ability to convince people, including me who normally wouldn’t hie a criminal to work foir him, into doing things they probably otherwise wouldn’t do. That’s what made him such a great private investigator.

A client of mine and his friend of his were leaving a downtown dance club late one weekend night when they happened upon two girls fighting. My client’s friend was intervening to break up the fight when one of Charleston’s finest came up from behind him and billy clubbed him on the back of the head. The fight ended and the police officer ordered everybody to leave. My client walked his friend back to their car but, by the time they got there, his friend was feeling dizzy and starting to pass out. My client ran back to ask the policeman to call an ambulance, but the police officer got angry and threatened to arrest him.

My client was left to drive his friend to the ER where, when asked what happened, told the admitting nurse his friend had been struck on the back of his head by a policeman. Unknown to my client, the ER reported the assault to the police and, when the dispatch call went out, the police officer with the billy club responded to the ER where he used it again on my client in the waiting room. To hear the police officer tell it, my client was drunk and disorderly, resisted arrest, and assaulted him. In addition to getting a good beating, my client was charged with assaulting a police officer, a felony carrying up to ten years.

Police officers falsly accusing people they beat up during an arrest of assaulting them is a common ploy to cover up their own wrongdoing. It usually works and the prosecutor assumed my client, like most everyone else in such cases, would accept a plea to the lesser included offense of resisting arrest, a misdemeanor carrying only one year with a recommendation of probation. But my client was adamant he wasn’t pleading to something he didn’t do. When my client refused to plea, the judge felt compelled to remind him and me of the ten years she could impose if he were convicted.

As compelling as your client’s story may be, if you’re going to call a police officer a lying thug in open court, you need solid proof. My client’s friend was in with the doctors and didn’t see what happened. My client never had a chance to get the names of any witnesses in the ER that night before he was dragged off to jail. The security camera didn’t cover the area near the payphone where the assault occurred. And, and the security guard on duty in the ER that night developed sudden onset amnesia not wanting to buck the cops. Joe really proved his resourcefulness and worth finding a witness for me.

Joe had the gift of being able to fit in anywhere, move about without hardly being noticed. He camped out in the ER for several days and learned the name of the nighttime janitor working on the night of the assault. It took him a day or two more to become friends with the janitor and speak with him. Joe learned the janitor not only witnessed the unprovoked beating the police officer put on my client but was shocked by its ferocity. Finding a witness is only half a PI’s job, the other half is getting them to agree to testify. Joe convinced the janitor of the righteousness of his testimony and gave him the courage to come forward.

The prosecutor never bothered to find any witnesses and was planning on relying exclusively on the officer who felt invincible lying through his teeth about what happened. Police aren’t allowed to wear their uniforms in court, but this one wore his shinny badge on a chain draped around his neck. He testified with all the ease and polish of an professional liar or paid expert. With a practiced look of “just doing my job” he testified matter-of-factly, “I was dispatched to investigate a routine disturbance at the hospital. When I arrived on the scene I found the defendant acting in a loud and boisterous manner disturbing the patient’s in the Emergency Room. I approached him and asked him politely, sir, I need you to calm down so I can ask you some questions to which the suspect responded with a string of profanities in the presence of women and children . When I tried to peacefully escort him out of the ER to continue my investigation, he struck me with a closed fist in my chest and I was forced to subdue and arrest him in accordance with standard police procedure.” Smugly thinking he had nailed my client’s coffin shut, the prosecutor turned the officer over to me for cross examination.

You could see the prosecutor’s concern when I thanked the officer and said I had no questions. When I served on the Board of the Trial Lawyers Association, I had the opportunity to hear famous trial lawyer, Gerry Spence, who was in South Carolina volunteering his time to appeal the death penalty sentence imposed on a minor. He addressed the board at our retreat and told us the biggest mistake he saw lawyers make is giving adverse witnesses the opportunity to keep repeating their story on cross examination. As an example, he used an intersection automobile accident. After a witness has already testified on direct he had the green light, he said too many lawyers will cross examine like this: So, you say the light was green when you entered the intersection? Yes, sir, the light was green, plain as day, had been green for a good while. I had to wait for other cars ahead of me to go before me. So, there were other cars ahead of you, did they block your view of the light? No, sir. I had a clear view and could see the light was definitely green the whole time. So, if you had to wait, how do you know the light hadn’t changed to red before you entered the intersection? Because there were only two cars ahead of me and the light stayed green as I entered. Gerry Spence said it was our jobs as lawyers to tell our client’s story as many times as we can during a trial, not to give the other side a chance to keep telling their story. I took his advice to heart early in my career and had no desire to waste time giving this officer the opportunity to repeat his lies about what happened on cross examination. Thesurprised prosecutor rested his case, and I called the janitor Joe had found.

He said he was the nighttime janitor and had worked at the hospital for going on twenty-three years. There was no disturbance in the ER that night before the police officer arrived. He testified with his whole being. When he testified about seeing the police officer walk right up an assault my client, his eyes got big as if he was seeing it live in front of the jurors. His voice broke as he described the viciousness of the assault. No, he did not see my client strike the police officer, he never had a chance before the policeman started beating him. There was an unmistakable ring of truth in his testimony and, by the time he finished, there wasn’t a person in the courtroom, including the judge, that didn’t know the officer was a lying thug. I didn’t have to give an earth shattering closing argument telling the jury what they already knew but did say, ” That may be his badge hung around his neck, but it doesn’t shield him from the truth of what he did.” The jury returned a not guilty verdict no time at all. All thanks to Joe.

Health issues overtook Joe, but, even when he could no longer be a PI, we remained good friends. When my wife returned home early from an out-of-town trip to discover our house overrun with partying teenagers, she knew to call Joe instead of the police. In exchange for nobody getting arrested, Joe had them all cleaning the house with lighting speed. When they finished, Joe called Mary to say she could come home. Thereafter, Joe babysat our house and our poodle whenever we went out of town. All my children knew to call Joe if they were in a jam and couldn’t reach me.

Joe took to driving taxies to make a living and developed a string of what he called “specials,” regular customers he would take care of. Working single mothers who needed their kids dropped off or picked up at school every day, elderly people who needed to be taken to the store to buy groceries or medicines and back home again, and hookers who needed transportation and protection when meeting Johns at night. And, just like with me, Joe made friends with everyone who relied on him.

One night when my boys and I were sitting down for supper, Joe had some time to kill before taking a hooker to her next stop, so he brought her by our house. She couldn’t believe I would welcome Joe and her into my home and soon realized Joe was like a member of my family. While my teenage boy’s eyes about popped out of their heads and jaws dropped to the table, the drop-dead gorgeous hooker couldn’t help telling us how much Joe meant to her. So much so, she declared Joe shouldn’t even be driving his taxi at night anymore cause, “he has Cadillacs in his eyes.” And so, he did, he saw the best in everybody, and it made him one of the best private investigators I ever had the pleasure to work with.
Practicing Being Indignant

May 25th, 2025

Senator T. Allen Legare

I first met Bobby Howe on the second day of the South Carolina bar exam in 1975. The tension in the air was palpable during the mid-day break when Bobby, a complete stranger, ran up to me and said, “If only I knew the difference between a garageman’s lien and a modis operandi, I’d have this bar exam licked.” I busted up laughing and we became instant friends. Little did I know then Bobby would later become the only client I ever had to be featured in The National Enquirer magazine. When Bobby once introduced me to Judge Ralph King Anderson as his lawyer, the Judge replied in an ominous voice, “that must be a gargantuan task.” And it certainly was but thankfully, I didn’t have to do iot alone. Bobby’s father, Gedney M. Howe, Sr., asked his dear friend and fellow lawyer, Senator T. Allen Legare, to watch out for Bobby after he was gone and I couldn’t have asked for a better co-counsel.

T. Allen Legare was always a fighter. He won the Southern Conference Boxing Championship in 1939. During World War II he parachuted behind enemy lines to blow up bridges and train tracks with the French resistance. I once asked how he could fool Germans with his heavy Charleston accent and he seriously replied, “There wasn’t any talking to Germans, we killed any of them unlucky enough to cross our path.” He graduated from USC Law School in 1941 and was a fixture on Broad Street for 69 years. He was Charleston’s State Senator and was instrumental in creating the South Carolina Port Authority making Charleston one of the main east coast ports. Even on the hottest days, young Broad Street lawyers knew better than to be caught by Senator Legare not wearing a tie and jacket on the street. He was the epitome of a Broad Street lawyer perfectly melding politics and the law.

One day, walking to the courthouse I ran into him with one hand on top of a parking meter and the other flailing furiously in the air. I asked, “Senator, are you okay?” He smiled and said he was on his way to a court hearing and was practicing being indignant. Semi-retired when I first worked with him, he would still come into his law office every day to read South Carolina’s major newspapers and answer correspondence. He fittingly lived below Broad in a beautifully renovated home on Legare Street and threw a yearly Frogmore Stew party for lawyers and judges on his Wadmalaw Island plantation. I never dreamed I’d get to work with him, but I did in two high profile cases both involving Bobby Howe.

The first case, my only case that made it into the National Enquirer, occurred when Bobby was caught digging up the backyard of an arrested Hilton Head Island drug smuggler looking for a 120-quart fishing cooler full of cash. Bobby had asked the prosecuting U.S Attorney if his client could receive a downward departure under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for turning in a huge sum of money (presumably the contents of the cooler less Bobby’s fee) and had been told he could before Bobby set foot on the client’s property. The problem was the property had been seized by the Federal government as the fruit of the client’s lucrative smuggling business. When Bobby’s face appeared on the evening news and in the newspapers, Senator Legare reached out to me to offer his help.

I told Senator Legare I had Bobby checked into an out of state rehabilitation facility and he offered to persuade his friend, United States District Court Judge Sol Blatt, who also boxed for USC in the Southern Conference, to continue the case until Bobby could finish treatment. But nothing was ever easy about representing Bobby, and he stumbled over the first step of the facility’s twelve-step rehabilitation program. Instead of admitting his helplessness to overcome his addiction, Bobby told his counselor he was just hiding out until the heat died down back home in Charleston. Apparently this was deemed disruptive and the director of the facility was threatening to toss Bobby out of the program. I dreaded having to tell Senator Legare and, when I did, I thought the phone lines would melt between our offices. I was instructed in no uncertain terms I was to keep Bobby in the treatment facility. It was a test I needed to pass to earn Senator Legare’s respect and, believe me, it took everything I had to convince the director to at least give Bobby a mental health examination before discharging him. Thankfully, Bobby scored so far off the charts for a bi-polar disorder, he was transferred from the Addictive Disease to the Mental Health unit.

I thought the problem keeping Bobby in the facility had been solved but they were just the beginning. The first morning in his new unit, Bobby cracked to his new group, “Yesterday I was across the hall in addictive diseases, today I’m over here with you guys in mental health. I feel like I’m getting better already.” Apparently, getting laughs in group therapy is also considered disruptive. So is getting caught having sex with another inmate in the storage closet, getting caught unaccompanied in restricted areas, and also finagling a prized eggshell mattress cover from an orderly. They don’t teach classes in law school on how to keep crazy clients in rehab so you just have wing it. Fortunately, Bobby made friends with his psychiatrist and together his psychiatrist and I kept Bobby in the program. Loaded up with enough psychotropic medications to choke a horse, Bobby was finally discharged to face the music before Judge Blatt.

Judge Blatt was one of the finest jurists it was ever my privilege to appear before, but he was strict, especially in drug cases. Fortunately, he was also fond of Bobby who practiced law by a different set of rules. One of which was, if you can get the judge to laugh, he can’t send your client to jail. Most of what judges do everyday is anything but fun and a good laugh is always a welcome distraction. Bobby sure knew how to make Judge Blatt laugh but I doubted it was going to enough to save him from Judge Blatt’s wrath. Fortunately, as fond of Bobby as the judge was, he truly loved and respected Senator Legare. You could see the anguish on Judge Blatt’s face when Bobby appeared before him represented by Senator Legare.

The practice of law and politics was always personal to Senator Legare. A man’s word and loyalty to his friends meant everything to him. Before Senator Legare started speaking at Bobby’s guilty plea, I was felt certain Judge Blatt had made up his mind he needed to make an example out of Bobby. Senator Legare began, not with what Bobby had done, but at the bedside of Bobby’s father, Gedney M. Howe, Sr., also a renown Broad Street lawyer and also a dear friend of Judge Blatt. Senator Legare choked up with emotion describing how Big G on his deathbed grabbed his hand and made him swear he would look out for Bobby after he was gone. His vow to their mutual friend cut straight through to the judge’s heart while at the same time put the judge in an impossible position. Not one to ever do that to a friend, Senator Legare, seamlessly switched and began giving Judge Blatt a graceful way out. Senator Legare pointed out Bobby never found the cooler and never took anything, never lied about or tried to conceal what he’d done, and, misguided as it may have been, thought he was helping his client get a downward departure. More rthan that, Bobby had accepted responsibility and sought needed help by voluntarily entering a treatment program where he was diagnosed as being bi-polar and given needed medication. Judge Blatt couldn’t help but see the flashing yellow arrow to the exit ramp Senator Legare plowed for him and readily headed in that direction. So, he’s been discharged from the hospital? Yes, sir, he has but he remains under active medical treatment and supervision. And I can make it a condition of any sentence I might impose that he’ll continue such treatment and monitoring to make sure he continues to get help? Yes, sir, absolutely and your Honor knows I will continue to honor his father’s dying wish. Judge Blatt’s sentence of two years’ probation, with continued treatment and medication, but no referral for disciplinary action, was more than either Senator Legare or I could have hoped for.

A great result but it turned out keeping Bobby on probation wasn’t any easier than keeping him in the rehabilitation facility and it wasn’t long before Bobby got himself embroiled in another newsworthy spectacle. A young female law clerk working for Bobby’s brother alleged Bobby and a Circuit Court Judge Bobby’s brother wanted removed from the bench offered her cocaine in the bathroom at a party hosted by the Deputy Solicitor. Bobby flatly denied the allegation quipping, “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.” The Senate Judiciary Committee decided it needed to hold a hearings and issued a subpoena for Bobby’s appearance. While I advised Bobby needed to bide his time in an unknown location, I reached out to Senator Legare for his help a second time.

I delicately explained to Senator Legare Bobby there was no truth to this young lady’s allegation, but I was reluctant to open Bobby up to questioning under oath by the committee. Senator Legare asked how I proposed we allow Bobby to testify but limit the questions he could be asked? I explained Bobby would answer any question about the alleged incident without limitation, but asking him questions about other, unrelated matters would invade Bobby’s right to privacy, jeopardize his probation, and possibly affect his ability to continue to practice law. The argument was about as nuanced as a legal argument can be but Senator Legare, even in his mid-eighties, had a sharp legal mind. He loved our lengthly conversation about the right of privacy not being included in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights but being recognized by Justice William O. Douglas as being necessarily implied by the penumbra of the rights expressly guaranteed.

With Bobby in the back seat, I picked up Senator Legare and we set off driving to Columbia to meet with Senator Smith, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. As good a lawyer as I might fancy myself to be, I fully acknowledge I never would have gotten a meeting with Senator Smith if it wasn’t for Senator Legare. We were greeted by Senator Smith like long lost friends which I sure the senators were. They exchanged handshakes and pleasantries before Senator Smith sat behind his desk and asked what he could for Senator Legare. Senator Legare got right to the point and got the same response from Senator Smith that I got from him when I suggested Bobby’s sworn testimonby could be restricted. Senator Smith asked skeptically, “Now Allen just how am I supposed to do that?” Senator Legare launched into such an impassioned argument for the right of privacy you’d have thought he’d discovered the right all by himself. Still Senator Smith was non-committal and said he’d have to speak with the other committee members. Senator Legare got up abruptly and turned to leave but stopped, turned back to the senator and barked, “If your brother was still alive, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.” I have no idea what Senator Legare was referring to, but I could see it made a deep impression on the senator.

Still not knowing whether to risk allowing Bobby to testify, we decided to wait and see how things developed in the hearing. Senator Smith was the last to enter the chamber and take his seat. He began the hearing with an admonition to the other committee members he was not going to allow the hearing to become a circus and was going to limit all questioning strictly to the matters at hand to preserve the witnesses’ rights of privacy. Senator Legare nodded all would be okay and Bobby was sworn in as a witness. Bobby absolutely, unequivocally, and in no uncertain terms denied the allegation. In true Bobby fashion in no time he had the committee members laughing about the absurdity of thinking a sitting circuit court judge would be snorting cocaine with some unknown girl in the Deputy Solicitor’s bathroom.

Too many lawyers get to thinking too much of themselves. That only they can win a case. When I think back over my career, I think of all the great lawyers it has been my privilege to work and try cases with. Lawyers who helped me win way more cases then I ever would have won on my own. T. Allen Legare was one of the finest lawyers I have ever known and worked with. The epitome of a true southern gentleman. He honored a commitment he made to Bobby’s father and helped me win two high profile cases I couldn’t have won without him. All he ever asked in return was my respect, loyalty, and friendship all of which were gladly given.
My Della

May 1st, 2025

Molly Pratt

Some law firms and lawyers treat their staff like automatons expected to do only what they’re told. The truth is, every great lawyer I have ever known, without fail, has had a dedicated assistant working, not for, but with them. Molly was mine, she was Della to my Perry. A lawyer I admired very much, Coming Ball Gibbs, referred her to me when he heard I was looking for a new legal secretary. Years later he confided, however, when I thought I was interviewing Molly for the job, she was actually interviewing me. Luckily, I passed muster and got the job. We worked together for so many years I’ve lost count, twenty-eight I think. Over those years she became so much more than just my legal secretary, she became my administrative assistant, paralegal, office manager, co-counsel, editor, accountant, therapist, confidant, life coach, and, most importantly, my friend. Our lives became so entangled, there is simply no way to separate my career from our career together.

So much so trying to pick a story to illustrate what she meant to me and my practice was almost impossible but I think the story of the arson case she solved for me comes closest. Although it was never part of Molly’s job description to review the evidence in my cases, she made up her own job description and did pretty much whatever she thought needed doing . I soon got used to it and learned to appreciate how her keen eyes often saw things that slipped my attention.

I was hired to defend a guy accused of burning his own house down for the insurance money. A racial slur that had been spray painted on the house before the fire motivated SLED to get involved. The problem was SLED focused more on my client starting the fire than it being racially motivated. SLED appointed a team of forensic arson investigators under the command of the seasoned Special Agent in charge of the arson squad. And they were thorough, so thorough they buried me under a mountain of evidence the week before trial that the Special Agent argued proved my client’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

It wasn’t hard to get the gist of SLED’s case against my client from the official report of its investigation. The racial slur was a ruse to conceal the real motive for the fire, good old fashioned greed. Chemical testing and analysis proved the gasoline fueled fire was deliberate. The owner’s gas can, covered in his, and only his, fingerprints, left in the interior hallway after it was doused with gas and ignited had miraculously survived the flames. But the evidence tying my client to the fire was circumstantial and allegedly contained in the mountain of evidence SLED dumped on me. There were banker boxes filled with business and bank records allegedly showing my client’s industrial maintenance company was heavily in debt and going bankrupt. Hundreds of photographs of the burnt-out house allegedly showing that valuable property had been removed from the house before the fire. And there were was a file of indecipherable cell phone tower data for the tower near the house off which my client’s cell phone pinged during the fire contradicting his statement he wasn’t there.

It really didn’t help that my client had ready answers for almost everything. The property was located out in the country a good ways north of the Santee Cooper Lakes in the Francis Marion National Forrest. My client and his wife planned to live out there full time, with my client commuting to work and his wife pursuing her passion for breeding dogs, but they were still renovating the house and hadn’t fully moved in yet explaining the relatively empty closets and dresser drawers. Although my client couldn’t recall any overt racial threats, he was more than willing to talk about how he felt unwelcome in the otherwise white community. He admitted his business was having difficulties but claimed that was nothing new, it had happened before, and all it would take was one good contract to get back on his feet again like he’d done many times in the past. But the problem from a lawyer’s perspective is having to explain too many things away in a courtroom itself raises suspicions in jurors’ minds, suspicions a skilled adversary can easily exploit. And, like I said, he had excuses for almost everything but not everything. Like why his cell phone pinged off the cell tower near the burning house. The only good news, as I saw it, was the last-minute evidence dump suggested the Special Agent was trying to hide something and all I’d have to do is methodically go through the entire mountain evidence piece by piece until I found the needle in the haystack. Fortunately, Molly offered to help review, organize, and label all the photographs.

Something that endeared Molly to me and everybody who knew her was the way, when she heard a good joke, was surprised by someone or something, or really if anything tickled her in just the right way, she’d let out an unmistakable snort. It sometimes took people by surprise the first time they heard it, but Molly’s good-natured acceptance of her own foible quickly put everyone to ease. That’s what I heard when she was going over the photographs, that unmistakable snort from her desk, and I knew instantly she’d found something.

I waited and soon enough she stuck her head in my office to ask if I had a moment. Of course, I told her, and she entered handing me a photograph with a look of pride on her face. I looked at the photo but only saw a pair of slightly singed women’s high heeled shoes. I must have had a quizzical look on my face because she let out an exasperated sigh, and said, “Oh, my dear boy, those are not just any old high heeled shoes, those are Manolo Blahnik high heeled shoes.” She waited for the light to go off and, when it didn’t, she explained the significance of the shoes to me.

“You know how the SLED investigator said valuables had been removed from the house before the fire? Well, he’s full of shit,” Molly said bluntly. “If you’d watched the TV show, Sex in the City, you’d know those are Manolo Blahnik high heeled shoes that retail for nothing less than a grand. No woman, and I mean no woman,”Molly emphasized, “would ever leave a pair of Manolo Blahnik high heeled shoes in her closet to be burnt up in a fire.”

The light did go off and I immediately saw how the photograph would make it seem on cross examination like SLED’s Special Agent must have ridden the short bus to agent school but that lawyer in me also knew the prosecutor could easily suggest my client, who was accused of the arson, who was every bit as ignorant about his wife’s shoes as I was, who left the shoes. Fortunately, like I said, Molly and I worked together, the operative word being worked, and we got to it.

Molly was on to something and so we both dug in. If the Special Agent could make such a glaring mistake about thousand-dollar shoes, what other mistakes had he made? We went back over the photographs one by one and soon discovered item after item of valuable property that had been left behind in the fire. Molly quipped almost under her breath how hard it was to pick things out of SLED’s photographs the burned-out wreckage and mentioned how helpful it would be if we had some photographs of the house before the fire. I asked the client, and his wife remembered they’d spent Christmas about a month before the fire at the house and she had an undeveloped roll of film that had been taken Christmas morning.

Armed with the new photographs, we could trace everything shown in the Christmas morning photographs to the rubble on the floor shown in SLED’s photographs taken after the fire. Large, flat screen tv, shown hanging on the living room wall Christmas morning? Still right there all burnt up in the blackened debris on the floor. We hadn’t found a smoking gun proving my client’s innocence, but we’d found the death by a thousand cuts of the prosecutor’s case. Remember what I said about having too many explanations being the kiss of death? It applies to prosecution witnesses too. After the Special Agent tried but failed, again and again, to explain away the obvious truth, he was forced to admit his expert opinion valuable property had been removed before the fire was, well, as Molly put it, full of shit.

But what about that pinging cell phone data? The prosecutor saved the cell phone technician for his last witness, thinking he’d finish strong but, by the time he called the technician it was too late. The young technician lacked the Special Agent’s experience giving canned testimony and readily admitted how much he didn’t know. Like exactly how far did the signal of the oversized tower in National Forrest near the house actually reach? “I don’t know” answers to carefully worded questions are the stuff reasonable doubt is made of, and the technician was glad to oblige. In the end nobody, not even the technician, knew why my client’s phone pinged off the tower.

Having made my defense through the prosecution’s witnesses, I elected not to call any witnesses and thereby secured the last argument. I saved my best argument, the one Molly gave me, til final argument. It is always a good idea to tell the jury whenever somebody gives you a good jury argument. I’ve always found a little humility goes a long way in the courtroom. So, I gave Molly the credit she was due. “Now, I admit I know next to nothing about women’s high heeled shoes, but thank God, my secretary Molly does. She’s apparently not only an expert on women’s high heel shoes but on the TV show called Sex in the City. She says she watched every episode and knew right off the shoes shown in the Special Agent’s photographs of the defendant’s master bedroom closet were Manolo Blahnik. She knew because they were featured on the show as a recurring theme episode after episode. She tells me they retail for upwards of one thousand dollars. No wonder Molly says no woman in their right mind would ever leave a pair of Manolo Blahnik high heeled shoes behind in a house fire,” I entoned in my and the final argument knowing the proseutor wouldn’t have a chance to respond. I knew I had a not guilty verdict when every woman on the jury nodded in agreement.

But this isn’t a story about an arson case or a trial victory Molly won for me, it’s a story about how important my relationship with Molly was to me and my practice. She not only lifted me up being my biggest cheerleader, but she was also the anchor that tethered me to the ground. Her intelligence and wit were as much a part of my success as my own. And, to top it off, her good nature made practicing law fun. The point of this story is, if I only expected my staff to do what I told them to do, I’d have missed out on everything Molly offered to take my practice to the next level.

Next time, instead of asking your staff for a cup of coffee, ask them to sit down and drink a cup with you, ask how they’re doing, for their opinions about the work you’re doing, and how they can help. You may find your practice excelling when your staff starts working with, not for, you.
ZE ZE ZELLAZORROW

April 27th, 2025

Lawyers like to brag about their criminal not guilty or personal injury million-dollar verdicts but sometimes satisfaction practicing law comes from handling seemingly ordinary matters. It fell to me as the youngest associate in the firm to handle a request for a name change made by a senior partner’s client about to receive a large PI settlement. He wanted to change his name from Rochester Pressley to Ze Ze Zellazorro to better reflect his Puerto Rican heritage. Never having done a name change, all I had to figure out how to do one and, fortunately, it turned out to be pretty straight forward. All I had to do was just draft a petition to the then County Court, attach an affidavit the client had no criminal convictions, bankruptcies, or outstanding judgments, wasn’t seeking to avoid creditors, publish a notice in the local paper, and draft a proposed order for the judge to sign. Piece of cake, or so I thought. The case was assigned to the Honorable Lester Legare Bates of the Richland County Court usually a most friendly judge. It turned out, however, Judge Bates had trouble wraping his brain around the name Ze Ze Zellazorro or anyone wanting to better reflect their Puerto Rican heritage.

I was anticipating just a routine hearing. Hearings like this were conducted informally in the judge’s chambers and always began with Judge Bates asking, “What can I do for you, my boy?” I sensed something was amiss when I didn’t get a “my boy” at the beginning of the hearing. And things went downhill from there. To put it simply the judge felt I was wasting his time. He began to pick apart my petition. “How do you know your client doesn’t have any criminal record?” “Well, your Honor,’ I stammered, “He said he didn’t have one and his SLED record check came back clean.” A muffled harumph was all that got me from the judger. “What is the meaning of this ‘Ze Ze Zellazorro,’” the judge growled, “Is it some stage name he wants to use?” “No, your Honor, his parents migrated to the United States from Puerto Rico back in the 1960”s and his father changed their name to Pressley to better fit in. My client simply wants to go back to his family’s original name, Zellazorro.” Apparently not satisfied, the judge asked his clerk, Mr. Chitwood, to swear my client in and began questioning him in a gruff and demeaning manner.

Things got testy when the judge indicated he thought my client wasn’t an American citizen and seemed genuinely confused when I told him Puerto Ricans were granted American citizenship by the Jones-Shafroth Act in 1917. The judge went allegation by allegation through my petition demanding sworn verification of everything. My client stood his ground and directly answered each question. I could see the judge’s complexion darkening with each affirmative answer. I guess he expected the sneer in his voice would intimidate my client and get him admit some falsity in his answers. You could sense the judge’s frustration mounting when it never happened.

Exasperated, he asked if I had any questions. I thanked the judge although I was unsure what for, and asked my client about his service in the Army and two tours of duty in Vietnam. The judge’s attitude immediately changed. He cut me short and, with a great flourish, signed my proposed name change order. “Here you go, my boy, anything else I can do for you?”

“What just happened?” the newly named Ze Ze asked as soon as we were outside of the courthouse. “I thought you said it was just gonna be in and out, no big deal.” “I have no idea, I guess the judge took offense to something, but I don’t really know,” I replied. Ze Ze thought for a moment before saying, “I do. I’ve faced such discrimination all my life. It’s part of the reason I wanted to change my name, because I’m proud of my heritage. I want to thank you for sticking with me and not backing down.” It may have been a miniscule victory in the long struggle for civil rights in Americsa, but it meant a lot to me because it meant a lot to my client.

It had to be a year or so later when the receptionist buzzed saying there was a call for me from a Rochester Pressley. I picked the phone and asked, “Ze Ze?” He laughed and said, “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

Tag: short-story

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My Della

ZE ZE ZELLAZORROW