POTOMAC FEVER

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

I had within the last couple of months hung out my shingle in the District of Columbia, having become disillusioned with the practice of law in a large, very large, national law firm. The pay was great, but the money wasn't worth it. Life was altogether too short to spend it making large corporations larger and richer, and doing nothing which I considered helpful to the other, every day people like myself. I had gone into the practice of law believing it to be a service profession—which brought much amusement to my fellow attorneys—with the lofty expectations of doing good things for people in need.

Today had been one of those days when I was not the least bit convinced that being a sole practitioner was all it was cracked up to be. Granted, opening one's own firm in a city crawling with attorneys may not have been one of my more brilliant ideas. Walking down L or M Streets at lunch time is like walking through the courthouse corridors. Every conversation you hear is "I'm about to get the deal sewn up ..." or "I'm sure the hearing this afternoon will result in my client ..." or "I have to get back so I can get a call through to the broker in London before closing ...". You'd give your eye teeth to hear a simple "Oh, George, look at that beautiful, old hotel!". A sole practitioner in a town where you can't help but trip over lawyers at every turn isn't being a small fish in a big pond. It's more akin to being an amoeba in the ocean.

Business cards of most Washington attorneys had tiny print to get the attorney's name fit into the space not taken up by the addresses of the firm's national and global offices. Mine read simply:

Jennifer L. Baldwin Attorney at Law

An address didn't even appear since I had only just found a place in Northwest Washington to hang my hat and hadn't had time to get new cards printed up.

My background was pretty typical for Washington. I worked on Capitol Hill for 10 years, starting out on the staff of a not terribly esteemed Member of the House of Representatives and then moving up to a staff position in the Senate where I spent the majority of my time on the Hill. During that time, I somehow managed to get through law school. After graduation, I joined a mammoth firm in a luxurious office building off Dupont Circle. All very impressive, so I was told. This left me wondering why my stomach was in knots every morning by the time I parked my little Japanese car amongst the Jaguars and Mercedes. I did primarily an administrative practice which entails hearings, applications, licensing and the like before Federal agencies.

None of this in any way prepared me for sole, general practice. Today was a prime example. I had my first criminal case—sort of. I agreed to take an arraignment for a "friend" of mine. I watch television, so figured this can't be too tough. You just go in and tell your client to say "not guilty" at the appropriate time. Well, wrong again. At least I had had the good sense to inform the Court that I had not done criminal work before. The judge could have figured that out since I didn't know which table was for the defendant. I got very lucky and had a wonderful judge, a marvelous, friendly and patient clerk, and a pleasant prosecutor which eased the pain somewhat. However, the arraignment proceeded to go on for the entire day.

As it turned out, my client, while looking like an unassuming, intelligent, fragile-built young man, was loonier than a bed bug. He apparently believed that if he wrote a check there was nothing wrong with the fact that there were no funds to back it up. At least he did this at only the finest hotels and did not limit himself geographically. This turned out to be the source of the problem, as a pretrial report, which he had graciously refused to have conducted but which was then ordered by the Court, turned up numerous outstanding warrants throughout the United States. During all this, the little fellow professed to be a multimillionaire, thereby precluding the judge from appointing an attorney for him to let me off the hook.

So much for my simple "not guilty". During the process, I was locked in the lockup section behind the courtroom with two other prisoners and my client, who had nothing kind to say about members of my profession (apparently the guard forgot I was back there and went to lunch); drank unknown cups of really lousy coffee in the courthouse coffee shop to kill the seemingly endless hours; and the bailiff had to act as a buffer between me and my harmless-looking client who was loudly "whispering" to me to "Plead the Fifth!".

The judge finally managed to find some other poor attorney who the judge knew had handled other delusionary clients and gave him this one to add to his illustrious client base. The judge sent me on my way with thanks and saying he hoped this would not be my last criminal case. He could tell I really cared, he said. I smiled graciously and thanked him, but criminal law was clearly not my field.

Leaving the courthouse on Indiana Avenue was indeed a blessing. Even the 14th Street Bridge traffic jam could not put a damper on my relief at having gotten through that with my physical well being and license intact.

I finally parked on my one-block street in Alexandria, just about a mile north of Old Town, and grabbed my briefcase out of the back seat of my car. I was met inside the door by my black and white cat, who had adopted me after apparently being abandoned by someone in the neighborhood. When the cat first arrived, I didn't know if it was a male or a female, so I called it Nicki. I figured that could be short for Nicholas or Nicole. As it turns out, he is Nicholas T. Cat. And quite a character he is. He seems to have been a fighter in his earlier years, and came complete with a notch in his right ear and a bottom eye tooth which goes outside of his upper lip. The result is a sort of "tough-guy" look. Good thing he didn't turn out to be Nicole.

I didn't have much energy left to accomplish anything that evening. It wasn't that I had accomplished much all day, but I spent a lot of effort getting nowhere. I got Nick some dinner and me a bowl of soup. We watched a little television while I decided what to do with myself the next day. I finally arrived at the conclusion that I deserved to give myself a break. Today had been rather unsatisfactory. However, by the time I woke up on the couch and decided it was time to go to bed, I had yet to determine what that wonderful endeavor would be. I decided not to decide, and went upstairs to bed where Nicki had already taken up more than his half of the king size bed. How a cat, large though he may be, can take up more room that I do, small as I may be, was a constant source of amusement to me. I managed to crawl into the space allotted for me and was immediately asleep.

Chapter Two