Everyone makes mistakes. Who hasn’t? It amounts to a platitude. Just bad timing or too much to drink or a moment of misadventure. Some mistakes are however inexplicably egregious – which usually means we haven’t heard the full story. But what to say? Questioning the detail is perhaps too intimate an enquiry, an unwelcome curiosity in what is otherwise intended to be blowing off steam. But it helps in the overall assessment to recall the quip, “What was your first clue?” We have to trust our instincts.
My encounter with nefarious schemes during the practice of law for forty years was infrequent. Some instances were manifestly deliberate and untrustworthy – even at times comical. Whether the alliance is commercial or personal one has to be sensitive to the intention of involvement. If the collusion is designed to manipulate; or if it creates an association which extends beyond the usual realm, chances are you should be wary. There’s a reason for everything.
When I reconsider the full span of my private enterprise I recall only being commanded by a strict interpretation of applicable law – to the point, by the way, of having encouraged a client to confess his criminal behaviour and suffer the consequences rather than lie to the court and risk losing sleep for the rest of his life. He ended being granted an absolute discharge as a result I am certain of his cooperation and forthrightness; no criminal record in spite of the conviction. Never was there anything optional about the adherence to legal propriety – though I recollect a member of the bar once suggesting we overlook a detail on the basis, “Who’s gonna know or care?” My application was loyal to precision not popularity. The other chap had his own competing dissatisfaction with life and my picayune absorption clearly impeded things for him.
Seldom did I consider my alliance with anyone or anything to be of particular importance. What however was more frequent was my sense that I was “rocking the boat” or ignoring current custom – a violation normally preceded by the supercilious decree, “That’s not the way we do things around here!” The judge didn’t think so. I was able to bear the deprivation of that type of fraternity. Ironically it was my sustained particularity with the application of the law that strengthened my practice. Never did I overestimate the nature of what I was doing; always it was to me elemental – not purpose driven. I had learned as a child at the feet of my dear mother that I wasn’t a good liar (a conference which to this day I yet remember clearly). Insignificant though the prevarication was at the time its distaste lingered throughout my life.
It was amidst this faint background of experience that I overheard this morning a most peculiar tale of confederacy. The notable extravagance of the events is that I even heard of them at all. Nowhere that I could discern were my personal or professional attributes of any correspondence. I am to this moment rebounding from the confidence – which naturally I referred to the advice of a qualified practitioner.
