Chapter 7: Friday Night Law

Besides being in the family business of a criminal gang banger and the regional prince for my Grandfather the drug lord, my late night job is as a lawyer.

(You are probably asking yourself which is a lower form of scum. It is okay, I am not offended. I ask myself the same question as I look at the sub-creatures who surround my life.)

I am not your usual lawyer, I do not take depositions, talk to lying clients, or put on a show in court. I went from Law School to clerking (two judges) and then directly to this high-priced law firm you never heard of. It is a law firm that mostly writes opinions for other lawyers, judges, corporations and insurance companies. Very expensive bulletproof opinions that will stand every appeal because we are very smart people who write them that way, without the distractions of dealing with clients and the court system. We can and do argue both sides of each issue without bias, then we explain who will win. Consider, for example, many large lawsuits are about damages, and insurance companies as well as their clients need an expert opinion to keep their biased internal risk management departments on track.

A serious advantage of this job is that, since we don’t deal with people, we can work on our own schedules. I can work, say, all night Friday - which is what I was going to do now.

A disadvantage of the job is that, because our work is so confidential, it must be done at our office where the work computers are all on a private air-gapped internal network. We also have resource computers that are on the web, but they are pretty much read-only so nothing original goes on them.

You might wonder why I have two jobs. Call it an excess of greed coupled with opportunity. The drug business profits depend on what volume for what drugs, and sometimes we were at the low end of both scales. I find I am allergic to the low ends. Also, you deal with folks who are likely to turn violent at any time. Honestly, I would be out of that business entirely, except my Grandfather needs his prince.

The law firm does pay well, and there was no seasonal effect plus there are VERY nice fringe benefits. But I actually viewed it as a long-con. I intended to make partner, worm my way into operations, and then discover more than $50 million in partner’s equity had precipitously and inexplicably disappeared. I intend to retire rich and young.

Lawyers fight all the time among themselves about money, but once they have spent all they have time to spend (time is the limitation) they let the rest sit in the firm to earn more. (It is called “Return on Equity Invested” and rates are very attractive, plus it looks good to the other partners.) My current thoughts regarding blame for the coming massive loss are Bitcoins or “those damn Israeli/Russian/Chinese/Korean hackers,” but I figured I had 5 to 10 years to work it out. Maybe less if Abril (my date for Saturday night) stayed on top of her game.