Legal Eagle

A couple of days ago an attorney friend of mine asked me for a favor. Between family lawyers and the friend ones, I probably know a couple dozen attorneys and like keeping them on the speed dial. Just last month, for example, when forced to deal with a frustrating insurance issue regarding the family car, I consulted with an attorney brother, an attorney brother-in-law, and two attorney friends. There’s something about a little legal jargon that makes me feel invincible in the midst of conflict. I like to pepper the conversation with big lawyerly terms gathered from my lawyer crowd, hoping to scare my opponent into capitulation. Things get heated, though, and I’m not always sure when to use the right term. When this doesn’t work I blame it on my adversary’s inability to detect nuance and the fact they weren’t born with a brain. Next I resort to less subtle jousts like, “Well, when I spoke with my attorney about this, they recommended such and such.” This tactic generally proves even less fruitful.

So the other day when my friend asked for a favor I quickly said yes. It seems he’d had some legal problems of his own and when the legal jargon tactic followed by statements like, “You realize I am an attorney,” didn’t work he turned to me. And why not? I’m no attorney but then he was way past the legal route and came looking for some more specialized work.

It turns out my friend was heading to small claims court and needed a person not directly involved in the case to serve papers to the defendant.

“Perfect,” I said then added, “You realize I have a bit of experience with this sort of thing, don’t you?” And while I’ve technically served papers before I did spend a year as a private investigator looking into insurance fraud cases. But like I told him - that’s a totally different story for another time.

I caught a lot of people though. Unfortunately yesterday turned out a bust as the defendant didn’t live at the expected address. I’m on the case though and will now turn to my killer private eye skills to track them down.