The rusty knife of justice.*

Justice is not swift.

It is no duel that ends quickly with a clean bullet or a piercing thrust. No, justice is trench warfare: its wheels are grimy and caked with weary sweat and bloody frustration and the dust of endless dawns spent reporting to the battlefield. It grinds slowly on, and some combatants fall by the wayside, too exhausted and disheartened to continue. They have no more resources; they have other pressing needs; their time spent fighting has taken them away from livelihoods and families. Those who remain persevere through doggedness, fatalism, belief in the cause...they endure, and so, persevere.

Few people see beyond the first burst of publicity surrounding the filing of a lawsuit. There are months of investigations, research, appearances and re-appearances, motions and cross-motions, judgments and appeals. Clients, so filled with energy and purpose at commencing action at last, must be encouraged: must be told to buck up, to settle in and keep coming back to the courthouse, to keep asking for more leave from work, to wake early and pass through the metal detectors to wait still more in the crowded court hallways where tempers flare and children wail. After all this, sometimes their patience is rewarded. Sometimes not.

Slow, creaking, lumbering justice. The price of civilized society.

*First published July 2009.

Characters from the "office"

On some days, going in to work for me means going to court, and like any other workplace, it has its characters.* Go often enough, and you begin to recognize the ones with recurring roles: the court officers who rotate metal detector and wanding duties at the courthouse entrance, the window clerk snatching bites of her bacon-and-egg sandwich between customers, the slightly frumpy court attorney with rapid-fire speech who flutters about the judge like an anxious satellite...


This is not including the various shades of lawyer there to represent and defend clients: there's the 40- or 50-something ponytailed lawyer whom I've never seen in a suit, always in dress shirt and slacks or khakis. Another one seems to come straight from the eighties - salt-and-pepper goatee, unkempt salt-and-pepper mullet, rumpled suit, sometimes sneakers. He's usually short and impatient with his client's opponents. Another of the attorneys always seems to be in a bad mood, her face a puffy red as she galumphs off to another appearance, files tucked under one arm and uncoordinated purse swinging wildly about.

And of course you can't forget the judges. I only see one of them with any regularity, but he's a hoot. In contrast to his surname, Judge Little is a giant of a man who looks especially imposing when he strides into the courtroom, black robe streaming behind him. Everything about this 50- or 60-something figure is broad and measured: his frame, his gestures, and especially his speech. Little speaks as though each word were a particularly tough morsel that he must bite and chew carefully: he bares his teeth before speaking, and enunciates every syllable in a slightly gravelly, even tone. He uses the same tone even when he's joking, so it's difficult to tell at first. I remember how he prefaced one occasion when we'd appeared before him for at least the eighth time in a contentious case. To our client: "Ms. Cutler, Mr. Perfiglio has said he wants to write you a check and be done with everything." Turning to Perfiglio: "Ms. Cutler has said she is very happy with your concessions and never wants to come back here again. So what do you need me for?"

Judge Little asks tough questions of both sides, and you'd be afraid of him generally, except for moments like these. Every so often he'll also take out a large plastic container from behind the bench and start offering candy to everyone in the courtroom like a sombre St. Nick.

Nearly ten months after being on the job, it seems my own character has acquired a name: "HP Girl," referring to the type of case I usually work on. Never mind about the inaccuracy of calling a woman a girl. I've arrived at last and can now join the circus performers who make up New York's courts.

*Names in this post have been changed to protect privacy.