Free An Invisible Client by Victor Methos

wanted to be in court again and told him I’d do it myself.
    After that was a mediation that went nowhere, then I reviewed some demand letters to insurance companies that my paralegals had drafted. The letters were just summaries of the injuries our clients suffered and the amounts we were asking for. After the demands were received, we would talk to the adjusters, and almost all the cases would end there.
    By nightfall, I was actually exhausted from work. That didn’t happen often. As I was preparing to leave, I heard women arguing in the hall. Then Rebecca Whiting stormed into my office. She wore jeans and a T-shirt and looked like she’d been crying.
    Jessica, trailing behind her, said, “You can’t just go in there.”
    “How could you do that?” she said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “You told him you would come by the hospital and have ice cream with him.”
    “I got busy. Did they not tell you?”
    “Oh, they told me.” She folded her arms. “Mr. Byron, I know how much you’re helping us, and I’m very appreciative—more than I could ever tell you. But no one makes a promise to my son and then breaks it. His father used to do that to him all the time, and I would have to be the one to deal with the heartbreak. Joel can’t take it now. He doesn’t have the strength.”
    “Rebecca, no offense, but he barely knows me. Why would he care if I came by for ice cream?”
    She sighed. “You’ve never had children, have you?” She turned and stormed out of the office, leaving me staring at Jessica.
    I was halfway home when I pulled to a stop sign and didn’t start moving again. To the east was the hospital, and to the north was my home. I stared up at the lights of the hospital until a horn blared behind me and snapped me out of my thoughts. I started north, then I swerved and went east.
    I’d visited a lot of hospitals in my day. In fact, when the law firm first opened, I often hired law clerks to hang out in the cafeterias or walk the halls and listen to conversations. At any hint that someone had been in an accident, our man or woman would strike up a conversation with them. Eventually, the conversation would turn to lawyers, and our name would come up. My clerk would also just happen to slip one of my cards to the injured.
    That tactic was strictly prohibited by the Utah State Bar because of some ancient rule that in-person solicitation should be banned because lawyers had some sort of Jedi mind trick that could fool vulnerable people into signing up with us. Third parties working for us were also banned from participating. It was bullshit. The insurance companies had people at hospitals within twenty-four hours to settle big injury suits, knowing full well that the injured people couldn’t have talked to a personal injury lawyer by that time. I had a feeling money from the defense side had helped institute that ridiculous rule. I had a moral obligation not to follow it.
    For the first year Byron, Val & Keller was in business, we didn’t have money for law clerks, so I was the one at the hospitals. I’d been to every damn hospital in the state and ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at each. I would sit in the cafeteria and listen to the crying. A lot of crying happened in the cafeterias late at night. People would come down with their husbands or wives for a snack, and the pain would just hit them. Sometimes, I could see the change in their faces—the moment when they realized that might be one of the last times they saw the most important person in their life. I heard people’s most intimate conversations. When someone thought a loved one wasn’t going to make it, they laid all the cards on the table.
    I parked and got out. The emergency room was nearly empty as I went down the hall to the adjacent building. The ICU had its own wing, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city. The lights were beginning to blink on as darkness overtook the city. While I waited for the elevator, I stared out at the