(From “The Client” by j. Grisham)

(Abridged)

The second lawyer hired by Barry the Blade Mundano to defend him was another angry hatchet man by the name of Willis Upchurch, a rising star among the gang of boisterous mouthpieces trotting across the country performing for crooks and cameras. Upchurch had offices in Chicago and Washington, and any other city where he could hook a famous case and rent space. As soon as he talked with Mundano after breakfast, he was on a plane to New Orleans to, first, organize a press conference, and, second, meet with his famous new client and plot a noisy defense. He had become somewhat rich and noted in Chicago for his passionate defense of mob assassins and drug traffickers, and in the past decade or so had been called in by mob brass around the country, for all sorts of representation. His record was average, but it was not his won/lost ratio that attracted clients. It was his angry face and bushy hair and thunderous voice. Upchurch was a lawyer who wanted to be seen and heard in magazine articles, news stories, advice columns, quickie books, and gossip shows. He had opinions. He was unafraid of predictions. He was radical and would say anything, and this made him a favorite of the loony daytime TV talk shows. He took only sensational cases with lots of headlines and cameras. Nothing was too repulsive for him. He preferred rich clients who could pay, but if a serial killer needed help, Upchurch would be there with a contract giving himself exclusive book and movie rights.

Though he enjoyed his notoriety immensely, and received some praise from the far left for his vigorous defense of indigent murderers, Upchurch was little more than a Mafia lawyer. He was owned by the mob, yanked around by their strings, and paid whenever they decided. He was allowed to roam a bit and spout at the mouth, but if they called, he came running.

And when Johnny Sulari, Barry’s uncle, called at four in the morning, Willis Upchurch came running. Upchurch drooled into the receiver as Sulari asked him to fly immediately to New Orleans. He skipped to the bathroom at the thought of defending Barry the Blade Mundano in front of all those cameras. He whistled in the shower when he thought of all the ink the case has already generated, and how he would now be the star. He grinned at himself in the mirror as he tied his ninety-dollar tie and thought of spending the next six months in New Orleans with the press at his beck and call.

This was why he went to law school!

The honorable Harry Roosevelt had presided over the Shelby County Juvenile Court for twenty-two years now, and despite the dismal and depressing nature of the court’s business he had conducted its affairs with a great deal of dignity. He was the first black Juvenile Court judge in Tennessee, and when he’d been appointed by the governor in the early seventies, his future was brilliant and there were glowing predictions of higher courts for him to conquer.

The higher courts were still there, and Harry Roosevelt was still here, in the deteriorating building known simply as Juvenile Court. There were much nicer courthouses in Memphis. On Main Street the Federal Building, always the newest in town, housed the elegant and stately courtrooms. The federal boys always had the best – rich carpets, thick leather chairs, heavy oak tables, plenty of lights, dependable air-conditioning, lots of well-paid clerks and assistants. A few blocks away, the Shelby County Courthouse was a beehive of judicial activity as thousands of lawyers roamed its tiled and marble corridors and worked their way through well-preserved and well-scrubbed courtrooms. It was an older building, but a beautiful one with paintings on the walls and a few statues scattered about. Harry could have had a courtroom over there, but he said no.

He remained here, in the Juvenile Court Building, a converted high school blocks away from downtown with little parking and few janitors and more cases per judge than any other docket in the world. His court was the unwanted stepchild of the judicial system. Most lawyers shunned in. Most law students dreamed of plush offices in tall buildings and wealthy clients with thick wallets. Never did they dream of slugging their way through the roach-infested corridors of Juvenile Court.

Harry had turned down four appointments, all to courts where the heating systems worked in the winter. He had been considered for these appointments because he was smart and black, and he turned them down because he was poor and black. They paid sixty thousand a year, lowest of any court in town, so he could feed his wife and four teenagers and live in a nice home. But he’d known hunger as a child, and those memories were vivid. He would always think of himself as a poor black kid.

And that’s exactly the reason the once-promising Harry Roosevelt remained a simple Juvenile Court judge. To him, it was the most important job in the world. By statute, he had exclusive jurisdiction over delinquent, unruly, dependent, and neglected children. He determined paternity of children born out of wedlock and enforced his own orders for their support and education, and in the country where half the babies were born to single mothers, this accounted for most of his docket. He terminated parental rights and placed abused children in new homes. Harry carried heavy burdens.

He weighed somewhere between three and four hundred pounds, and wore the same outfit every day – black suit, white cotton shirt, and a bow tie which he tied himself and did poorly. No one knew if Harry owned one black suit or fifty. He always looked the same. He was an imposing figure on the bench, glaring down over his reading glasses, at deadbeat fathers who refused to support their children. Deadbeat fathers, black and white, alike, lived in fear of Judge Roosevelt. He would track them down and throw them in jail. He found their employers and tapped their paychecks. If you messed with Harry’s subjects, or Harry’s Kids, as they were known, you could find yourself handcuffed and standing pitifully before him with a bailiff on each side.

Harry Roosevelt was a legend of Memphis. The county fathers had seen fit to give him two more judges to help with the caseload, but he maintained a brutal work schedule. He usually arrived before seven and made his own coffee. He started court promptly at nine and God help the lawyer who was late for court. He’d thrown several of them in jail over the years.

Notes

1. Mob n– organized crime (Mafia).

2. at smb’s beck and call – always ready and required to do exactly what smb asks. E.g. She says that working as a lawyer means being at your client’s beck and call all the time.

3. Juvenile Court – a court that deals with crimes committed by young people. E.g. He’s been a Juvenile Court judge since he came here.

4. track down v – find, discover by following evidence that has been left behind. E.g. The police have tracked him down in Memphis.

Proper Names

Barry the Blade Mundano /'bxrI Dq 'bleId mAn'deInqU/

Harry Roosevelt /'hxrI 'rqUzqvelt/

Upchurch /'ApCE:C/

Chicago /SI'ka:gqU/

New Orleans /'nju: 'O:lIqnz/

Washington /'wPSINtqn/