Yesterday, upon the stair,....

I met some clients who weren’t there.
Nor other lawyers, or a judge,
But from my tasks I could not budge.

Yes, it was one of those workdays yesterday. It began and ended with crimes, with two rounds of nothingness in the middle.

I rolled into the snowless Rochester car park around lunchtime, to find two Sheriff's cars at the street end of the driveway. Their roof racks weren't on, but a game was clearly afoot. Turns out there'd been a string of overnight break-ins along the streets in front and on the other side of the firehouse next to us. The retail joints had their cash registers rifled, and while they didn't get into our office proper, they did break into the patent attorneys' suite downstairs. They found a safe and somehow got it open, revealing only a pre-cloud tape backup of their computer system that probably dated to the Obama Administration.The burgulurs (as my mom would have called them) left the tape and made a mess down there, likely just out of frustration.

There were no specific appointments there for me, but I hadn't been in for over a week and won't be again until next Tuesday, so it seemed a good time to check in. I had to make a stop about halfway back home anyway, so that made it only about half the drive to Rochester it would have been. Before leaving for that late afternoon live court appearance, though, I got an unexpected call about another one, to be conducted by Teams.

Only problem with that, though, is that I'd withdrawn from that case just over four years ago, getting the then-judge's permission to do so because my then-client had effectively ghosted me. He wouldn't respond to formal inquiries about the case, wouldn't discuss what he needed to do and when, and needless to say he wasn't paying his bills to us. So for only the second-set-of-fingers time in my life, I made the formal motion to be relieved as counsel. Usually this requires serving the client with the motion papers, but when we tried to, that's when we found out that he'd given us essentially a fake address for himself: a UPS Store mailbox on a faroff suburban street. The judge then allowed service by text, which he wasn't answering but at least they were going through. My removal from the case was effective November 20, 2018, but electronic noticing is like the Mafia: you can get in but you can't get out. Over the years, I saw, and ignored, any number of filings about the case, but a few months ago, a new strange one showed up. My ex-client's opponent had also gone dark on his lawyer, and they were moving to withdraw, a motion approved by the latest judge to inherit this mess. That left the case in legal limbo, since in New York, at least, only human beings can represent themselves in a court of law. Corporations and similar entities must have a lawyer there, and now neither one did. I deflected the call, actually helped the court official try to track down SOMEBODY who might have a clue, and I expect now to see a dozen other notices about it which I will also gleefully and properly ignore.

----

And then it was off to Bugtussle.

Back in September, I appeared in a town court in this beautiful Orleans County hamlet, in connection with an eviction case. The client told me when to be there, and wanted to meet me ahead of time, which I did at the ubiquitous Timmy's just down the road from the turnoff to the building the court was in ("courthouse" would be a stretch). We rolled into the courtroom maybe 15 minutes early, only it wasn’t. They’d been given the wrong time, the other lawyer had been and gone and the judge already decided to reserve decision on it. Her Honor is a non-lawyer, which is permitted in what were once called "justice of the peace" courts. Since most of their business is dispensing fines in traffic ticket cases, she wanted time to look some stuff up. Not just the applicable law, but the tape recording of an even earlier hearing held in the case before I got involved, where some witnesses testified.

In October, I got a letter from them telling me to be there ahead of the court's usual evening calendar at 4:30 yesterday afternoon so we could go over what she was going to consider. I called, emailed and texted my client at least five times to confirm the appearance. No response to any of them. But, Responsible Rabbit that I am, I headed out there for the 4:30 hearing. (Bugtussle, by the way, is well outside the snow zone from last week. They have less on the ground than we do in Amherst where we didn’t get all that much.) I pull into a parking lot, empty except for one car. That would be the opposing lawyer, also there sans client. His office is just up the road so he's there a lot more often. And Her Honor? Um, she sometimes schedules things and then forgets.

Seeing how nobody else was inconvenienced except me, I left it to him to wait outside as I headed home. He had something on her regular calendar, which she presumably showed up for, and he promised to tell her I was there "on time" and we were okay with her considering whatever she wanted to consider. I headed home, and on a stop for gas came word of the final crime.

At least the one I'd find out about last night.

----

A still-friend from former church. I'd helped out her and her husband on a couple of things several years back. I'd occasionally run into them in one Wegmans or another, and they occasionally post Facethings, but I hadn't seen or spoken to either in probably over a year.

They're fine, but concerned. She'd gotten a call from a "process service" about her accepting a complaint on an old credit card from 2003. Or, if she wanted to avoid the bother, she could just pay it now, following the instructions in the letter they emailed.

I told her all the no's. No, you do not still owe a debt from 2003 if they never got a judgment on it. No, do not give them a dime or a byte of personal information. And especially no, do not open any link in that email. I am going over to their house this morning to look at it and get what information they have to offer them some readings from the Book of Threats. I was a little surprised that she reacted with so much worry; she used to work supervising in frontline fast food locations, including some skeevy locations, and was even pistol-whipped during a robbery once. Maybe the PTSD of that, and of other things they've been through, leads to it. I'm just glad I was there to help take a bite out of that potential crime.

----

But not the biggest one from yesterday, which I learned about this morning:

Chesapeake.

We have a friend who works around the corner.

Another lives just across the interstate.

Our daughter, nowhere near but in the same state.

Days after the Colorado massacre, the morning of another mass shooting, and the anniversary of JFK.

And the same day a Trump-apppointed judge in Buffalo enjoined any limitation on the right of open carry in New York. Thank heavens; now another deranged 16 year old has a 2A right to march into a gay bar that offends his sincerely held religious beliefs and they have no right to keep him out before he starts murdering infidels.

November 22 is probably an official holiday at the headquarters of the Nuts Running America.

We can't even beat Wales in soccer, but when it comes to bloodsport?