of school he could have half of whatever he recovered. Lake remembered this. The biker kept his word. Lake walked away with one point three, according to legend.
Me, I’d be off to the Caribbean with my one point three, sailing my own ketch and sipping rum punch.
Not Lake. He built an office, filled it with secretaries and paralegals and runners and investigators, and got serious about the business of litigation. He put in eighteen-hour days and was not afraid to sue anybody for any wrong. He studied hard, trained himself and quickly became the hottest trial lawyer in Tennessee.
Twenty years later, Jonathan Lake still works eighteen hours a day, owns a firm with eleven associates, no partners, tries more big cases than any lawyer around and makes, according to the legend, somewhere in the neighborhood of three million dollars a year.
And he likes to splash it around. Three million bucks a year is hard to hide in Memphis, so Jonathan Lake is always hot news. And his legend grows. Each year an unknown number of students enter this law school because of Jonathan Lake. They have the dream. And a few graduates leave this place without jobs because they want nothing more than a cubbyhole downtown with their name on the door. They want to starve and scratch, just like Lake.
I suspect they ride motorcycles too. Maybe that’s where I’m headed. Maybe there’s hope. Me and Lake.
I CATCH MAX LEUBERG at a bad time. He’s on the phone, talking with his hands and cursing like a drunken sailor. Something about a lawsuit in St. Paul in which he’s supposed to testify. I pretend to scribble notes, look at the floor, try not to listen as he stomps around behind his desk, tugging at the phone line.
He hangs up. “You got ’em by the neck, okay,” he says rapidly to me as he reaches for something amid the wreckage of his desk.
“Who?”
“Great Benefit. I read the entire file last night. Typical debit insurance scam.” He lifts an expandable file from a corner and falls into his chair with it. “Do you know what debit insurance is?”
I think I do, but I’m afraid he’ll want specifics. “Not really.”
“Blacks call it ‘streetsurance.’ Cheap little policies sold door to door to low-income people. The agents who sell the policies come around every week or so and collect the premiums, and they make a debit in the payment books kept by the insureds. They prey on the uneducated, and when claims are made on the policies the companies routinely turn them down. Sorry, no coverage for this reason or that. They’re extremely creative when conjuring up reasons to deny.”
“Don’t they get sued?”
“Not very often. Studies have shown that only about one in thirty bad-faith denials ends up in court. The companies know this, of course, it’s something they factor in. Keep in mind, they go after the lower classes, people afraid of lawyers and the legal system.”
“What happens when they get sued?” I ask. He waves his hand at a bug or fly and two sheets of something lift from his desk and drift to the floor.
He cracks his knuckles violently. “Generally, not much.
There have been some large punitive awards around the country. I’ve been involved with two or three myself. But juries are reluctant to make millionaires out of simple sorts who buy cheap insurance. Think about it. Here’s a plaintiff with, say, five thousand dollars in legitimate medical bills, clearly covered by the policy. But the insurance company says no. And the company is worth, say, two hundred million. At trial, the plaintiff’s lawyer asks the jury for the five thousand, and also a few million to punish the corporate wrongdoer. It rarely works. They’ll give the five, throw in ten thousand punitive, and the company wins again.”
“But Donny Ray Black is dying. And he’s dying because he can’t get the bone marrow transplant he’s entitled to under the policy. Am I right?”
Leuberg gives me a wicked smile. “You are indeed.
Me, I’d be off to the Caribbean with my one point three, sailing my own ketch and sipping rum punch.
Not Lake. He built an office, filled it with secretaries and paralegals and runners and investigators, and got serious about the business of litigation. He put in eighteen-hour days and was not afraid to sue anybody for any wrong. He studied hard, trained himself and quickly became the hottest trial lawyer in Tennessee.
Twenty years later, Jonathan Lake still works eighteen hours a day, owns a firm with eleven associates, no partners, tries more big cases than any lawyer around and makes, according to the legend, somewhere in the neighborhood of three million dollars a year.
And he likes to splash it around. Three million bucks a year is hard to hide in Memphis, so Jonathan Lake is always hot news. And his legend grows. Each year an unknown number of students enter this law school because of Jonathan Lake. They have the dream. And a few graduates leave this place without jobs because they want nothing more than a cubbyhole downtown with their name on the door. They want to starve and scratch, just like Lake.
I suspect they ride motorcycles too. Maybe that’s where I’m headed. Maybe there’s hope. Me and Lake.
I CATCH MAX LEUBERG at a bad time. He’s on the phone, talking with his hands and cursing like a drunken sailor. Something about a lawsuit in St. Paul in which he’s supposed to testify. I pretend to scribble notes, look at the floor, try not to listen as he stomps around behind his desk, tugging at the phone line.
He hangs up. “You got ’em by the neck, okay,” he says rapidly to me as he reaches for something amid the wreckage of his desk.
“Who?”
“Great Benefit. I read the entire file last night. Typical debit insurance scam.” He lifts an expandable file from a corner and falls into his chair with it. “Do you know what debit insurance is?”
I think I do, but I’m afraid he’ll want specifics. “Not really.”
“Blacks call it ‘streetsurance.’ Cheap little policies sold door to door to low-income people. The agents who sell the policies come around every week or so and collect the premiums, and they make a debit in the payment books kept by the insureds. They prey on the uneducated, and when claims are made on the policies the companies routinely turn them down. Sorry, no coverage for this reason or that. They’re extremely creative when conjuring up reasons to deny.”
“Don’t they get sued?”
“Not very often. Studies have shown that only about one in thirty bad-faith denials ends up in court. The companies know this, of course, it’s something they factor in. Keep in mind, they go after the lower classes, people afraid of lawyers and the legal system.”
“What happens when they get sued?” I ask. He waves his hand at a bug or fly and two sheets of something lift from his desk and drift to the floor.
He cracks his knuckles violently. “Generally, not much.
There have been some large punitive awards around the country. I’ve been involved with two or three myself. But juries are reluctant to make millionaires out of simple sorts who buy cheap insurance. Think about it. Here’s a plaintiff with, say, five thousand dollars in legitimate medical bills, clearly covered by the policy. But the insurance company says no. And the company is worth, say, two hundred million. At trial, the plaintiff’s lawyer asks the jury for the five thousand, and also a few million to punish the corporate wrongdoer. It rarely works. They’ll give the five, throw in ten thousand punitive, and the company wins again.”
“But Donny Ray Black is dying. And he’s dying because he can’t get the bone marrow transplant he’s entitled to under the policy. Am I right?”
Leuberg gives me a wicked smile. “You are indeed.
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