The Justice Game

32

Kelly Starling and Blake Crawford emerged from the courthouse side by side, family members and friends trailing in their wake. The protestors gave the entourage room to pass and refrained from yelling slogans in their face. They were on their best behavior.

The media was not.

Cameramen walked backward with their cameras just a couple of feet from Kelly’s face. Reporters fired questions at will.

“Ms. Starling, how do you feel about the court’s ruling?”

“I feel great.”

“What evidence do you have that MD Firearms knew about the sales?”

Kelly smiled. “Lots.”

“Is it true that the investigative report about Larry Jamison was flawed?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Kelly shot back, before she could remind herself to keep her mouth shut.

“Could the defense raise that as contributory negligence?”

Kelly picked up the pace. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

Kelly fielded a few more questions on the fly, until she and Blake outdistanced the reporters. When she parted company with Blake at her car, about a half mile from the courthouse, there were tears in his eyes.

“I’m glad I found you,” he said.

Kelly gave him a quick hug and imagined what a wonderful husband he must have been to Rachel. The man was sensitive and not afraid to show it. And though she hated herself for being so obsessively analytical about it, he would make a strong witness.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” she warned.

She spent most of the ride to D.C. thinking about Blake and Rachel, even pulling a picture of Rachel from her briefcase to remind herself of the woman’s innocent charm. The rest of the time, she was on the phone with the firm’s public-relations director. There would be four local television stations waiting for her in a firm conference room when she returned. The partners were proud of her. They thought a press conference would be a good way to capitalize on the free publicity.

Kelly sighed, but what choice did she have? She would prefer to try her case in the courtroom, but Melissa Davids would probably be all over television that night, spouting off about this money grab by Rachel Crawford’s family.

It couldn’t hurt to even the playing field a little.

On the way to the airport, Case McAllister didn’t seem to be at all bothered by the hearing. He had tossed his suit coat in the back and slouched down in the passenger seat, relaxed and talkative. “We knew going in that we were going to lose,” he reminded Jason. “I’ve got some friends in the Virginia legislature. They’ve got ways of getting the word to Judge Garrison. We may still win this thing on a Motion to Strike at trial.”

Jason wasn’t so sure. He would prepare for the case as if it were going to the jury. Judge Garrison’s ruling had not left a lot of wiggle room for a Motion to Strike.

For most of the trip, Case talked about everything except the lawsuit. When they pulled up to the curb at the airport, he reminded Jason not to talk with the press. “Melissa likes to handle the publicity aspects herself,” Case said.

No kidding, Jason thought.

“You just focus on trial prep,” Case said.

After he dropped Case off, Jason spent a few minutes analyzing the day’s events. Case seemed supremely confident, almost as if he had an inside line on Judge Garrison. But if he did, why would Garrison have ruled against MD Firearms today? Could it be that Davids and McAllister actually wanted to lose this hearing, realizing that the free publicity for their company would be worth millions?

The thought that his own client might be pushing this case toward trial troubled Jason. Maybe it was just the product of his cynical and imaginative mind. Or maybe Case had been through so much controversy in his day that this was just a blip on the radar screen. Either way, Jason still felt it odd that the same ruling that had sent his own stomach into a relentless churn had not seemed to impact Case at all.

But then he thought about the moment that Kelly had first pulled out the Farley ruling. Case had seemed understandably frustrated. And surprised. So maybe he just got over things quickly.

When Jason reached the interstate, instead of heading north toward Richmond, he took the second entrance ramp, heading south and eventually east to Virginia Beach. There were certain things he couldn’t control. The judge, for example. Maybe his client as well.

But Jason had a job to do, and he needed to focus on that. He had to assume this case would ultimately go to trial.

Today had given him a chance to analyze Kelly Starling, and he had been impressed. She was businesslike and well prepared, but she also had a quick smile, lively brown eyes, and a short, layered haircut that gave her an all-American image. She could do Wonder Bread commercials. Plus, she seemed to be a true extrovert, not a private person like Jason who just played the part of a trial lawyer.

But he could count on at least one weakness. She was from Burgess and Wicker, a traditional big firm that taught traditional big-firm trial prep. She would focus on pretrial depositions, file truckloads of legal motions, and try to bury Jason in a mountain of paperwork. She would view the trial as a battle of evidence, hers versus his, a procedural competition with the verdict as the prize.

But Jason had been trained differently. At Justice Inc., under Andrew Lassiter’s watchful eye, Jason had discovered that the courtroom was not about debate; it was about drama. The trial was a play, the jury the audience, the lawyers the actors. What mattered most to Jason was not this piece of evidence or that piece of evidence. What mattered to him was the audience. What did they value? What motivated them? How could he touch on the issues they cared about most? It was Cicero, not big-firm training, that formed the basis for Jason’s playbook: Touch the heart, move the mind.

That was the key to advocacy.

But there were practical concerns as well. He had overlooked a critical case in his prep for today’s hearing because he wasn’t part of the local legal culture. That was why smart companies usually hired local legends for their trials as opposed to nationally known out-of-town lawyers. Every courthouse had its own culture. Every city and county had its unique jury pool with a unique set of values, fears, and hot buttons to push.

Let Kelly Starling focus on evidence and legal motions, Jason decided. He would work hard on those aspects of the case too, but his real focus would be elsewhere. He would become part of the Virginia Beach culture. Tonight he would spend time hanging out in Virginia Beach. Tomorrow he would look for a temporary place to stay for the next few months, just like Robert Sherwood had suggested.

In six months or so, unless Case McAllister took care of things behind the scenes, Jason would play a starring role in the case of Crawford v. MD Firearms.

It was time to start getting into character.