City of Cambridge homicide detectives Barney Freedman and Herb McCauley are assigned to investigate the 1998 murders of the assistant district attorney and child psychologist instrumental in obtaining the 1984 conviction of Raymond “Pokey” Parker, a day care center owner charged with sexually abusing ten children under his care. Parker, who died in prison in 1996, maintained his innocence and claimed at trial that the children testifying against him had been influenced by improper suggestion and undue pressure. The detectives’ investigation focuses on five close high school friends (presently college sophomores) who do not remember testifying at the trial or anything about the case. The five friends do their own investigation into the Parker trial when one of them reads Parker’s 1996 obituary and the name Pokey stirs a faint memory. The friends receive no help from their parents and some unsuccessfully try hypnotism to recover repressed memories. Memory may be read as two “who-done-its”—was Parker guilty and who killed the leading figures in the Parker case prosecution?
When 2013 dawns, the law firm of Carpenter, Sullivan, Jeffries & Boyle begins its second year and struggles to obtain new business. Carpenter and Philly’s new partners, Simon Jeffries and Rachel Boyle, land another law school as a client; the Sloan-Webster School of Law is being sued by three graduates who claim the law school’s placement office was ineffective and had failed to place anyone. Carpenter is referred two cases by a grateful client: a businessman seeking to enforce his father’s promise to let him run the family business, and a company president claiming that his company was overcharged by a large law firm representing the company in the sale of its business. As 2013 unfolds, added to the pressure on the firm to obtain new business is a proposal by a law firm specializing in business transactions that the two firms merge. The merger proposal particularly troubles Carpenter who had never considered practicing law with non-litigators or at a firm where his name might not be on the door.
2012 dawns with Philly pregnant and her new law firm, Carpenter, Sullivan, Jeffries and Boyle, scrambling to keep up with new cases. The firm represents a young lawyer who claims she was fired from a large law firm because she resisted the advances of a junior partner. A law school hires the firm to defend a lawsuit claiming that the law school had a non-functioning placement office and misrepresented the percentage of graduates landing law-related jobs. A high school sophomore retains the firm after being suspended for wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, “Jesus Loves Gays, Lesbians, and the Transgendered.” While juggling her pregnancy and professional life, Philly must also deal with her husband Paul’s life-threatening encounters as a City of Cambridge police detective.
It’s 2011 and Philly wants it all: to practice law; to advance her relationship with Paul, the man in her life; and to be there for her baby daughter, Daisy. Having it all requires money, and she and Carpenter are flooded with problematic contingency cases that they need to win to bring in cash: a golfer who lost an eye when struck by a tee shot and an assisted living resident run over by a man allegedly racing his wheelchair. They are also enmeshed in she said-he said cases in which a grade school girl, a high school junior, and a college student accuse men of improper sexual advances. Philly and Carpenter come to realize that they will need to change their approach to practicing law if they want to have it all.
Philly begins 2010 overwhelmed. Her fiancé has been killed by a drunk teenage driver, she is pregnant, and her urge to drink to submerge her problems becomes more pressing as the year progresses. Her personal problems and self-destructive behavior cause her to lose focus when it comes to representing clients forcing Carpenter to consider ending their legal collaboration. When Carpenter approaches her with a game plan that would move their legal practices forward, Philly must decide whether she is able to give up some control over her cases by delegating work to others.
Despite their many differences, lawyers Carpenter and Philly work well together. Carpenter has decades of experience in civil law. Newcomer Philly has the ambition and energy to take herself to the top of the legal profession. In their third year of collaboration, the two find themselves challenged by a series of difficult, challenging cases. Their clients include teachers challenging a town’s random drug testing policy, two high school students being sued for libel by the school’s principal for a satirical Facebook page posted by the students, a physician being denied clinical privileges by a hospital, and a law student accused of violating his law school’s honor code for not reporting a cheating classmate.
Their personal lives prove as complicated as the cases they have taken on. Philly agrees to move in with her boyfriend and Carpenter contemplates a similar move with the woman in his life. As they navigate their relationships, shocking events threaten their happiness and their future.
Carpenter and Philly make an unlikely legal team as they take on complicated and challenging civil cases. In his sixties, more than twice Philly’s age, Carpenter brings more experience to their relationship. Yet Philly is able to match his creativity in a courtroom. In one case, they represent a senior lawyer in a large Boston firm who sues his firm for age discrimination because he no longer wishes to honor the firm’s age-seventy retirement policy. Philly accepts a court appointment to represent a mother who is in danger of losing her fifteen-year-old daughter to foster care because the daughter is a habitual truant and has been arrested several times for shoplifting. With Philly’s help, Carpenter represents a man who seeks to be released from a state psychiatric hospital because he claims he is no longer a sexually dangerous person.
Their cases often raise questions with no right answers. May a lawyer capable of practicing law after age seventy be barred from suing his law firm for age discrimination because he agreed to retire at age seventy? Should a troubled daughter be separated from her mother when both thrive living apart? Are written psychological tests capable of predicting whether an individual remains sexually dangerous?
No Right Answers is a sequel to Turn The Page. The cases Carpenter and Philly handle are suspenseful and explore complex, controversial issues. Their constant struggle to balance the intensity and stress of their law practices with their personal lives and relationships, makes for a gripping, engrossing read.
Ghosts Can Only Go Straight offers eleven poignant tales of a changing world as the new millennium dawns. The title story focuses on a Chinese grandmother who is convinced that her daughter’s house is haunted. Her grandson’s search for the truth reveals more about the humans in the house than the ghosts. In other stories, a teenager uses threats to become lead singer of a rock and roll band; a young woman reassesses her relationship with her boyfriend following their encounter with a turtle; a couple is confronted with a Russian adoption agency’s questionable actions; and an insurance agent on a Yangtze River cruise discovers that his seemingly settled life is at risk of coming apart. Some stories are suspenseful or humorous while others are incredibly poignant, including the account of a cancer patient discovering geometric patterns in the seating arrangements in a doctor’s waiting room. The human passions and fears at the heart of the stories in Ghosts Can Only Go Straight make for a memorable collection of tales marking the dawn of a new century.
Carpenter and Philly make an unlikely legal team. Carpenter is a sixty-year-old civil court veteran with years of experience. Philly is less than half his age, brash, and given to going her own way. When they collaborate on a case, fireworks usually follow—but more often than not they get results.
Their caseloads are full. They’re representing a high school student suspended for allegedly making a threat to blow up his school; a whistleblower who claims that physicians in a medical practice are overcharging health insurers; a mother who is sued for causing a car accident by serving champagne to celebrating high school seniors; and a baseball player who sues his sports agent after turning down a major league offer on the advice of the agent and then becoming injured.
While dealing with the vagaries of their clients, opposing lawyers, and judges, Carpenter and Philly try to balance work with their personal lives. Philly must deal with the unorthodox courtship methods of Raul, a computer troubleshooter and nighttime janitor. Carpenter must confront the sabbatical plans of Connie, the woman in his life.
Funny, moving, and poignant, Turn The Page captures the tensions, strategizing, and tradeoffs that occur in the trial of civil cases, as well as the ongoing struggles of busy lawyers to juggle successfully their professional and personal lives.
What do you get when you take six aging lawyers near the end of their careers, put them together in a diner outside of Boston, and give them a few hours each weekend to talk about current events and discuss their caseloads?
This is not the set-up for a joke about lawyers, but, rather, the setting for author Ken Behar’s book, Not Too Shabby (Barrister Tales from Ed’s Breakfast Emporium), a compelling collection of thirty short stories tied together by the setting in which they are told, the broad nature of the social and human issues they address, and the profound insight they provide into the legal profession.
Over the course of five summers, the group of lawyers regularly convenes at Ed’s Breakfast Emporium to socialize and share stories and tactics with each other. Always eavesdropping is the diner’s proprietor, Ed, who has derisively dubbed them “the Barristers,” and who often offers his barbed criticism of how each Barrister handles the case he or she is relating.
The thirty tales the Barristers share cover a wide range of topics that are sometimes humorous, sometimes dark, and always intriguing. Included in the cases shared are those of a rabbi accused of sexually abusing a Bar Mitzvah candidate; a female practitioner of Wicca who seeks to prevent a Wiccan man from casting a love spell on her; a casino that sues a compulsive gambler after the gambler breaks his contract not to enter the casino and wins big; a teenage girl subjected to a civil commitment hearing after allegedly burning down her house; a community that opposes an alcohol residential treatment center coming into its neighborhood; a dying woman in a cancer research project who believes she is receiving a placebo and sues to obtain the actual drug being tested; a client who is turned down as a sperm donor because he had participated in homosexual sex; and a physician who may lose her license for prescribing a sexual surrogate for a troubled teenage boy.
In addition to revealing the compelling facts of these cases, the Barristers also reveal the finer details of the role lawyers play in the legal process. The picture that Behar paints of the practicing attorney is comprehensive and deep. The characters cope with the difficult practical, moral, and ethical decisions lawyers make and highlight how they must often sort through issues to which there are no obvious “right” answers. They must put aside their personal beliefs and viewpoints to effectively represent the interests of their clients, and be resilient in the face of both favorable and unfavorable case outcomes.
But the cases the Barristers share only represent one part of their lives, and, structurally, they are only part of each tale that is told. Also incorporated into the tales are the matters of small talk that the Barristers enjoy with their ritual Sunday breakfast. Ranging from conversation about local sports teams to heated debates over the war in Iraq, the Barristers touch upon a variety of subjects that represent other important facets of their lives, emphasizing that a lawyer lives not only in the world of his law practice but also in a broader world of trivial, mundane concerns and global events beyond his or her control.
A sampling of the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between, Not Too Shabby is a thoughtful, entertaining collection that explores the types of civil cases that modern fiction does not often explore. The unique perspective from which it is delivered, and the valuable insight it provides on how lawyers handle cases, make it stand out on the bookshelf as a must-read for anyone interested in a fresh form of legal fiction.
Richard Nye, the head of a large Boston law firm’s probate department, finds his well-ordered life spiraling out of control when the department’s junior partner, Michael Patterson, is arrested for stealing over three million dollars from clients’ accounts. Holding himself personally responsible for the firm’s financial loss, Richard withdraws into a shell of self-pity. He threatens to quit the firm’s basketball team and resents the efforts of his best friend, litigation partner Brian Murphy, to pair him up with his legal intern, former college basketball star Hazel Wynott, a divorced mother of two. Richard sees his career disintegrating as some of his partners seek to hold him financially responsible for Michael’s embezzlement.
When Richard decides to play for his firm’s team, he comes to realize that basketball is the one thing that provides him with genuine moments of joy. The season takes an unexpected turn when Hazel shows up for the first practice of what had always been a men’s team.
Michael engages sole practitioner Charlie McCaffrey to arrange a plea bargain and when the bargain is made, Michael disappears. Left penniless by her husband, Michael’s wife, Janet, turns to Charlie for help. Against his better judgment, Charlie comes up with an idea to get Janet back on her feet, and his plan to bring Michael to justice proves both comic and dangerous.
In part, Hoops is a love and basketball story for thirty-somethings. Basketball plays a major role in the lives of Richard, Hazel and Brian and each finds that coming to terms with that role and knowing when it’s time to give up the game, is part of growing up. Set in what may be Larry Bird’s final year with the Boston Celtics, Hoops is laugh out loud funny, suspenseful, and that rare novel that depicts likeable characters confronting personal crises with results that ring true.
HOOPS may be ordered at authorhouse.com.
Copyright © 2023 Ken Behar – All Rights Reserved.