One Lawyer's Stories

By Ron Rubin

Meet a playful and thoughtful Judge O’Connor before she became Justice O’Connor. Run into George Washington. Appreciate the brief eloquence of a Navajo herdsman.
Punch a doggie at a round-up. Talk with a professional safecracker. Witness two ex-marines banging heads during a deposition, like bighorn sheep.
Say a quick hello and goodbye to the regulars at St. Elmo's bar in Bisbee. Sip bourbon with a judge in his chambers while a jury deliberates.
Ron Rubin had these encounters and many more over the course of his fifty years as a lawyer in Phoenix, AZ.
From the time he was preparing to be a lawyer at the Columbia University School of Law to his years as a prosecutor and to a sometimes amusing, sometimes tragic year as a sole practitioner, to later years as a partner in a small firm, as a part-time Scottsdale city court judge, and as an associate in a mid-size firm, Ron met and dealt with the profound, the profane, and everything in between.
Mostly, though, Ron enjoyed the absurd and the humorous, as revealed in these pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quio
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985988031

Ron Rubin

After graduating from the City College of New York, the Columbia University School of Law, the US Army Light Vehicle Driving School, and the Motion Picture Projectionist School, in February 1963, Ron Rubin and his wife Rebecca headed west in their beat-up 1956 Pontiac. They had no job offers and no clue where the trip would end.Crammed with all they owned, the car lagged and broke down many times, starting when it dragged itself across the George Washington Bridge trying to reach New Jersey. It quit running in Pennsylvania, was towed into Maryland, and was repaired in Tennessee, Texas, and New Mexico.In Tucson, Arizona, a court commissioner suggested that if they weren’t ready to retire and weren’t asthmatic, they should head to Phoenix, which they did. Liking what they saw, they found an inexpensive apartment and settled in.They raised their two sons Joe and Rich while Ron practiced law and Rebecca became a marriage and family counselor, earning recognition for her expertise in helping people in bereavement. They moved a few miles west to Scottsdale in 1990.You can contact Ron Rubin at [e-mail].

Book preview

One Lawyer’s Stories

Ron Rubin

Copyright

Copyright 2022 Ron Rubin, text and photographs.

Edited and published by Mado Reid, Quio Publishing, at Smashwords.

To order the print version, go to lulu.com/shop/ and type Ron Rubin

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Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains

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ISBN 979-8-9859880-3-1

For permission and interview requests,

contact Ron Rubin at [e-mail].

You can also visit Ron's author page at

https://www.smashwords.com/interview/RonRubin

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Part I. OPENERS

Prior to Law School

Law School

Thereafter

Poetry at Night Court

"A.K.A.

The Bar Exam

Newly Admitted

Chasing Cattle

Addendum: Aah

Part II. FOR THE PROSECUTION

A Trial Lawyer Despite Myself

Pregnant

Best Man

The Top of the Map

Holy, Holy, Holy

What About the Cherry Tree?

Mayhem

A Piece of the Old West

All of Them?

There Goes the Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Something Other than a Cuss Word

A Near Eruption

A Reminder of Where the Power Lies

… And for Dinner

Here’s Blood in Your Eye

Hospitality

Virility

Is the Doctor In?

Around the Courthouse

Not in Arizona

Addendum: Mea Culpa

Part III. FLYING SOLO

Winking at Me

First Fee

F.D.R. (R.)

The Brass Bed

What’s a Spleen Worth?

The Unexpected

Call Me in the Morning

Call the Audubon Society

Not a Good Day

C.Y.A. (Unwritten Rule One)

Embarrassed or Convicted?

Cyanide on Friday, a Shotgun on Monday

Part IV. LIFE IN A SMALL FIRM

Moving On

I’ll Eat It!

Getting Ready for Trial

The Trial

After the Trial

Murder One

Before the Trial

The Trial

An Aside

Just Foolin’ Around

Absolutely

Semper Fi

Meanwhile, Back at the Office

Humbug

What Am I Doing?

Not So Good

Wow!

Sally’s Game

Art and the Law

Drag Racing on Central Avenue

Some Interesting People

Did I Say That?

Meandering (Unwritten Rules Two and Three)

The Other End of a Horse

Exception

Reality Check

Random Stories About Judges

Aside

It’s Hot in Here!

What’s It Worth?

Being a Wise Ass

Pretty Incredible

Countrymen Should Not Sue One Another

Guilty as Charged

Very Sad

The Best Minute Entry

Minutiae

Not Sour Grapes

The Sun Doesn’t Shine Everywhere

Follow the Green

Addendum: Black and White

Oh, Shit!

Bear with Me

Liquid Assets

Both Sides Now (Unwritten Rule Four)

This Is Not a Fairy Tale

Eloquence

Dueling Bishops

Oh

Just So Much Blood (Unwritten Rule Five)

Joe

The Choirpractor (Unwritten Rule Six)

Cochise County

Introduction

Dealing with the Board of Supervisors

A Day at the Ranch

St. Elmo’s

Dress your Best

On a Pedestal, Briefly

Random Jury Stories

Financial Hardship

Who You Know

A Nice Young Man

Plagiarism

Surf’s Up!

My Friend

Part V. INTERMISSION

Retirement

The Fairy Tale Judge Strikes Again

The Cabin

The Creatures

Reality

Part VI. ON THE BENCH

Serendipity

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

I Misspoke

Who’s Your Daddy?

How Did He Do That?

Now That’s Fast!

I Hear No Absence of Ignorance

Next Question

Same Guy Here

Part VII. REENTRY

A Difficult Job Search

Dumped on

ATLP

On the Other Hand

Anything Else?

Boy Toy

What a Blast!

Stay Home Young Man

My Monster

A Happy Song and A Good Prayer

Sur la Table

With a Little Help from My Friends

Friendly G

Do It Right

This Is Bad

Part VIII. HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S OVER?

The World Will Tell You

APPENDIX

Letter from Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Decision, Société Jean-Nicolas v. Jean-Claude Mousseux

Minute Entry, FNF Construction vs. Cochise County

Letters to the Judge on the Bench

Letter from the Mayor of Scottsdale

Letter from the Presiding Judge, Scottsdale City Court

State Bar of Arizona, Special Award of Honor to Mr. Ronald I. Rubin

The Author

INTRODUCTION

On a Friday afternoon, minutes after a jury found him guilty of a felony, my client killed himself in a courtroom.

The following Monday afternoon, attempting to serve a divorce complaint, which I had drafted and filed on behalf of a wife, a process server was greeted at the front door by her husband and found himself looking at the mean end of a shotgun. The husband then barricaded himself inside his home. The Sheriff’s Office called and told me several armed deputies had the house surrounded.

Many people enjoy telling stories. Not everyone wants to hear or read them. If you are one of those, find yourself another book.

Every courtroom lawyer has stories to tell. Few involve the drama of suicide in a courtroom, a pointed shotgun, or a confrontation with a sheriff’s posse.

The stories that follow tell of situations and people I observed or dealt with, factually accurate to the extent an aging memory allows. They include the absurd, the funny, the ugly, the frightening, the sad, the delightful, the startling, the stupid, the profound, the profane, the poignant, and the wise. Pardon the language: it is what it was.

Part I

OPENERS

PRIOR TO LAW SCHOOL

Long before I had any clue that I would become a lawyer, there were some hints. I was balancing, and not always well, believing I was smart and a good student, while I enjoyed being a talkative, irreverent wise-ass, always looking for the fun in things. My grade school report cards, kept by my mother for reasons unknown and which I still have, for reasons equally unknown, reveal my good grades, but also that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

Kindergarten Voice too loud.

First grader Talker.

Second grader Ronald has been troublesome all this term.

Fifth grader Talks too much, never quiet.

Four times my classmates elected me class president, and four times I was quickly impeached by teachers who thought I didn’t set a good example. My strong pipes, however, led to my playing Santa Claus, four times, in school plays. No one else could ‘Ho, Ho, Ho" as loud as I could.

I behaved pretty well in high school, my big voice earning me some stage time in class assemblies.

In my first college accounting class, I was immediately lost. One day, my brain thoroughly clouded by a concept far beyond my understanding, I let out – without moving my mouth or lips – a long, slowly descending, low whistle. Who’s the canary? the professor demanded. No one turned me in.

I transferred from the business college to become a liberal arts major and smugly believed I could ace any class I signed up for if I wanted to, with the exception of required physics, chemistry and advanced mathematics classes. I do admit to having heard or seen written that all self-esteem is an exaggeration. It quickly proved to be true.

LAW SCHOOL

I was the three hundredth – and last – person admitted into my law school class. Aware that I would be walking the hallways of old Kent Hall and sitting on the same wooden rows of seats that two future presidents named Roosevelt, and judges Benjamin Cardozo and William Douglas had spent time on, I still thought, albeit only for a very short time, that I would do well in law school.

Those smug, cocky ideas were roughly and totally ripped out of me during the first hour of the first class I attended at Columbia University School of Law, an introductory class entitled Legal Method. That the professor’s name was on the cover of the case book used for the class, and that nearly everyone else seemed to understand the legal concepts referred to and the terminology being used, had me intimidated and baffled, and really doubting that I belonged in that class or that school. The precision of the language and reasoning of appellate decisions assigned to be read in preparation for classroom discussions was unlike anything I had ever seen. I was overwhelmed and stayed that way for the ten-day duration of that class. That I studied harder than I ever had and scored only a C-minus for the course jolted me.

I soon learned that many professors on the law school faculty were giants in the upper echelons of the legal world; federal judges, partners in major law firms, authors and editors of important legal treatises. Herbert Wechsler, once an advisor to F.D.R., taught constitutional law. When he spoke in class, people feverishly tried to take verbatim notes trying to not miss a word he said. The scratching sounds of pencils and ballpoint pens led him, one day, to insist that everyone stop writing and just listen to him. He said, When you write down everything I say, it gives me the heebies.

The names of Paul R. Hays and Milton Handler were on the labor law casebook. The tall, white-haired Hays, who looked, I thought, exactly as Hollywood had taught us a judge should look, was later appointed to the federal bench. Handler, with a flair for the dramatic, about two minutes before his lecture was to end, would leave his podium down in the ‘well’ at the front of the classroom and very slowly climb up the ramp leading to the exit door at the top, talking as he walked and ending his last sentence precisely as he reached the door, walked through it, and was gone.

The legendary Richard R. B. Powell, years earlier, had authored The Rule Against Perpetuities, a legal principle accepted nationwide, and had also written a six-volume treatise entitled Powell on Real Property. Powell didn’t lack ego. One fellow had the nerve to ask him a question in class one day. Clearly annoyed at being interrupted, Powell said, "Don’t be wasting everyone’s limited classroom time with something, if you made the effort, you could easily find in Powell on Real Property, volume IV (and paraphrasing here), chapter seven, section eight, subsection nine, paragraph ten, at page 276." There were no further questions.

Jack Weinstein’s name was on several books, including Weinstein’s Evidence Manual. He was referred to as The Shadow, as he often clouded our minds. He was later named to the federal bench.

In time, I became a much better reader, learned the vocabulary and was able, at least some of the time, to grasp obscure legal concepts. I never did reclaim the confidence I had known as a student prior to law school. That troubled me. When, at a very low time, I grumbled about dropping out, So dig ditches, said my mother. I stayed, laid low in every class, not wanting to be noticed or asked a question. Perhaps the only memorable words I uttered in a classroom during my three years in law school were when evidence professor Michael Sovern – later dean of the law school, then president of Columbia University – asked how certain evidence might be discovered in a case involving The Green Giant Company. Take a deposition, someone offered. Yes, the professor answered, but whose? No one answered. Reaching back to whom I had once been and obviously still was, I broke the silence when I quietly, I thought, stage-whispered the Jolly Green Giant’s Ho-Ho-Ho (I knew how to Ho-Ho-Ho). Some nearby chuckles spread through the large classroom as if on a wave. The professor just smiled.

Monrad Paulson, later dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, taught Torts in my freshman year. (I had never heard the word tort) Before the first scheduled class, he posted on a board the cases we were to read and be ready to discuss on day one. About a hundred and fifty of us took seats. In he walked, this big, tall, blond man who looked like Joe Palooka, a popular comic strip character at the time. He stepped onto the raised platform. Laying the course book on the podium before him, in his substantial voice, he simply said William Smith. Smith replied, Present. Mr. Smith, the professor said, Your classmates will never forget your name. This didn’t sound good.

Tell us about the first assigned case. Smith began talking about the major issue but didn’t get far. No, start from the beginning, demanded the professor. Smith tried again. Sounding impatient, Paulson interrupted him again. No, the case starts with its title. What’s the title of the case? Smith offered something like, "John Jones, ex rel State of Colorado versus Richard Roe. He then was asked, And what does that mean? John Jones sued Richard Roe, Smith answered. Now, acting really annoyed, Paulson boomed, And what does ex rel mean? Smith didn’t know. Probably none of us knew. The professor slammed his book shut and said, in a threatening tone, When I assign a case for you to read, I suggest you read all of it carefully and be prepared to discuss every aspect of that case when you walk into my classroom the next day." Then he turned, stepped down from the platform, and left.

All first-year courses were mandatory. Thereafter, electives were allowed. One freshman class, we learned, was specifically designed to terrify us. An upperclassman told me that the purpose of the seemingly sadistic professor Julius Goebel was to get us ready for the real world. He believed that if we survived everything he threw at us, we would be ready to handle whatever difficulty we would face as practicing lawyers. It was probably no coincidence that about one third of our class of three hundred, all of whom had experienced and watched Goebel’s onslaughts, didn’t return to school after the first winter break.

Professor Goebel would assign us twenty or so pages in the course book to read and prepare for the next scheduled class. If you could read and were fluent in Old Latin, Old English, or Old German, you might have a chance to survive his attack. Each day, at the start of class, the tyrant would randomly call the names of three people and invite them to sit in the four seats directly in front of his raised desk. (On the birthday of the first Queen Elizabeth, he invited only female students to sit in those seats, …to celebrate…, he said, the birthday of the Virgin Queen.) He would then verbally abuse, insult, ridicule, and totally embarrass each one of the day’s poor four. On my lucky day, he called Rubin. I shudder as I write this. Matt Rubin, sitting next to me, and I both shrank in our seats, hoping they would appear empty and hoping, too, that the other Rubin was his target. Both of you, he added. With the other two victims of the day, we walked to and sat down in the dreaded seats, mine the furthest from him. Starting with the poor soul seated closest to him, the professor efficiently chewed up and spit him out in obvious