Last month, when the far­ri­er lift­ed Wilson’s right back hoof to shoe him, the twen­ty-year-old thor­ough­bred lost his bal­ance and almost fell. Hav­ing seen this before in old­er hors­es, the far­ri­er ran his hand along Wilson’s neck and back, and as he expect­ed, he flinched and nipped at him.

We called the vet. He stood beside Wilson’s hindquar­ters and pulled his tail toward him. Wil­son swayed, then stum­bled. “The nor­mal reac­tion,” the vet said, “is for the horse to brace against the tug­ging force and hold his posi­tion. Wil­son can’t do that because he’s not sure where his back legs are.”

Arthri­tis in his neck had dam­aged nerves run­ning down his spine to his legs. Arthri­tis is incur­able and relent­less­ly degen­er­a­tive. “All we can do,” the vet said, “is slow down the skele­tal deterioration.”

He pre­scribed pred­nisolone. “If the drug works,” the vet said, “Wil­son should be able to car­ry a rid­er bare­back or with a sway­back cush­ion under the sad­dle for a few more years.”

The next morn­ing, I dis­solved 400 mil­ligrams of the drug in water, mixed it with oats and molasses, and spread it over Wilson’s alfal­fa. Lat­er in the day, Janet, my train­er and good friend, rid­ing her horse, Jesse, ponied Wil­son while I fol­lowed on Marge. Wil­son strug­gled, espe­cial­ly on the down­hill slopes. When we fin­ished up, he was sweat­ing; his head was down; and he was drool­ing. Even a rid­er­less walk had bro­ken him down.

That was a water­shed moment for me. I knew then that I would nev­er again allow any­one, includ­ing me, to climb on Wilson’s back. Even if the drug worked, I wouldn’t take the chance of inflict­ing more pain on him.

It’s the right deci­sion, but I’ll miss my rides with Wilson.

I first saw him almost four years ago on a home-made sales video. A young woman lunged a hand­some, glossy bay in a dirt cor­ral in Bak­ers­field, then rode him on a bare­back pad over a dusty road. Doing his best to ignore a trio of mutts scur­ry­ing around his feet, Wil­son fol­lowed the young woman’s cues, care­ful­ly back­ing up, stand­ing still, and mov­ing for­ward, to enable her to open a gate with­out dismounting.

I liked his demeanor. The way he held his head and the look on his face gave me the sense he was a good soul, try­ing hard to do his job well. The ask­ing price was low and the young woman agreed to trail­er him to Hid­den Hills with­out charge, so I bought him.

She deliv­ered him on a cool, clear Feb­ru­ary evening, and Janet and I walked him up the hill on Clear Val­ley Road toward my barn. A big, tall horse, a lit­tle under six­teen hands (about five feet four inch­es from the ground to his with­ers, the spot where his neck joins his back), his dark brown neck and head framed by a peach sun­set, his black mane and fore­lock rif­fling in a light breeze, his head held high, his eyes alert, he looked around anx­ious­ly at the res­i­den­tial homes and man­i­cured lawns.

When you buy a horse like Wil­son, with no papers or pedi­gree, you know noth­ing about his his­to­ry, what he’s been through, or how he’s been treat­ed. More than like­ly, Wil­son passed through many own­ers’ hands, some who were good to him and oth­ers who were cru­el. Jane Smi­ley, the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning nov­el­ist, wrote that such a horse’s life is like “twen­ty years in fos­ter care, or in and out of prison, while at the same time chang­ing schools over and over and dis­cov­er­ing … that what you learned at the old school hasn’t much appli­ca­tion at the new one.”

That pas­sage ran through my mind as I watched Wil­son prance ner­vous­ly up the street. Ear­li­er that after­noon, he stood on a drought-parched farm where every­thing was famil­iar to him. With­out warn­ing, the young woman came along, put a hal­ter on him, and loaded him into a small, cramped tin box. For the next two and a half hours, he jounced around inside the metal­lic stall, as it rocked and swayed over free­ways at sev­en­ty miles per hour, speed­ing him away from every­thing he’d ever known. When the trail­er final­ly stopped, the young woman clanged open the rear door, backed him down a ramp, and hand­ed his lead line to peo­ple he’d nev­er met in a place where all the sights, sounds, and scents were com­plete­ly for­eign to him. Head­ed up the hill toward my barn that evening, he had to be lost and fright­ened by the sud­den, rad­i­cal change we’d forced upon him, and yet I sensed he was try­ing hard to adjust to this new world.

We led him into his stall. He walked around appre­hen­sive­ly, check­ing out the gray stuc­co walls and the wood shav­ings on the floor. He drank from the water buck­et, then looked out the Dutch stall-door, tak­ing in the street below, the val­ley, and the oppo­site ridge. We gave him orchard grass and alfal­fa, and he attacked it like he hadn’t been fed for days. When I left him an hour lat­er, he’d calmed down a lit­tle and seemed to be set­tling in.

His name on the bill of sale was Chip­py. It didn’t fit. I’m not sure why, but the name Wil­son came to mind when I was with him that night in the barn. I went with it, and it took hold.

A few days after Wilson’s arrival, we put him in the cor­ral with his sta­ble­mate, Mar­garine, a lit­tle sor­rel alpha mare. She hates most oth­er hors­es. She tol­er­at­ed Wil­son for about an hour before attack­ing him. I ran a fence down the mid­dle of the cor­ral to keep the peace and called the vet to tend to Wilson’s bruis­es. For a more detailed account of their dust-up, see Ani­mal Pharm.

The vet said Wil­son was phys­i­cal­ly sound, but old­er than we thought. The young woman said he was twelve. The vet said he was six­teen or old­er. I didn’t care. I want­ed a trail horse who would be good with my grand­kids, and he fit the bill.

Janet spent the next few weeks train­ing him, and he adapt­ed to the neigh­bor­hood streets and trails quick­ly. I first rode him that spring. He wasn’t a com­fort­able ride. His walk­ing gait was irreg­u­lar, chop­py, and bumpy, and his trot was like sit­ting on a jack­ham­mer, but I liked rid­ing him anyway.

Horse­back rid­ing presents a thrilling para­dox. When you climb in the sad­dle, you must take a mea­sure of con­trol over your mount, but sit­ting on a twelve-hun­dred-pound ani­mal, you give up a lot of con­trol at the same time. Wilson’s tall frame and big bar­rel encase extra­or­di­nary pow­er, and his speed lives up to his breed. My aware­ness of his pow­er and speed made rid­ing him excit­ing each time we went out. He turned out to be a gen­tle giant, though. He was always a safe ride except once when he reared for rea­sons beyond his con­trol. See For the Love of Hors­es for a descrip­tion of that incident.

Janet deter­mined ear­ly on that Wil­son was “cold backed” (sen­si­tive to weight on his back until he was warmed up). We lunged him for a long time before each ride to com­pen­sate for that, but the steep down­hills still seemed to strain his back, so we rode him on flat­ter trails.

Look­ing back on it now, I feel guilty about some of those rides. He must have been suf­fer­ing, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the more recent out­ings, but he did what­ev­er I asked of him, always giv­ing his best effort, nev­er balk­ing or faltering.

About five days into Wilson’s treat­ment with pred­nisolone, the drug worked its mag­ic. When I arrived at the barn that morn­ing to feed him, he ran up the hill to his stall like a young horse. When we ponied him that day, the pain seemed to be gone, but I haven’t changed my mind. I know too much about arthri­tis. It crip­pled my knees until they were replaced, and I still have it in my fin­gers. Med­ica­tion eas­es the pain for a while, but it always returns. Wilson’s been through enough. His rid­ing days are over.

There’s a mys­ti­cal com­mu­nion between a horse and a rid­er. I had that with Wil­son. Although that part of our friend­ship is gone, our bond remains strong. I can still pony him, walk him on a lead line, groom him, give him car­rots, and talk things over with him, just like before.

I’m told that some own­ers would dis­pose of an old­er horse in Wilson’s con­di­tion, dump him on a res­cue orga­ni­za­tion, or send him to a kill-pen. I can’t do that. Wil­son did his job well for as long as he could. Now I’ll do mine. I’ll keep him healthy, hap­py, and safe for the rest of his life.

Post Script: “Take care of your hors­es and trea­sure them.” Jane Smiley

We were horse­back rid­ing on a shady trail. Janet, my train­er, rode her horse and ponied Mar­garine, a lit­tle sor­rel mare. I fol­lowed, rid­ing Wil­son, a tall bay geld­ing. A half-mile into the ride, Wil­son and I moved up close to Marge. He tensed up and began toss­ing his head, then sud­den­ly crow-hopped and reared. I leaned for­ward and held on. He came down, reared again, and came down again.

“Get off of him,” Janet said in a calm voice.

In the emer­gency dis­mount tech­nique, you free your boots from the stir­rups, lean for­ward, swing your right leg over the horse’s hindquar­ters, and push away to land on your feet, but I wasn’t con­fi­dent my knees could with­stand a hard, awk­ward fall. So I stayed put.

After pranc­ing around ner­vous­ly for a while, Wil­son set­tled in one place for a split sec­ond, and I was able to dis­mount in the nor­mal way. Cri­sis averted.

Although we didn’t know it when we left the barn, Marge was in sea­son (at the point in her estrus cycle when she was ready to mate). Sur­pris­ing­ly, one-third of all ful­ly cas­trat­ed geld­ings can still become aroused. When Wil­son came with­in range of Marge’s sexy vibes, we found out he was one of them.

I was for­tu­nate to be rid­ing Wil­son when this hap­pened. A gen­tle giant, he didn’t try to buck me off, and when he reared, he only went up about halfway, but it was still a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion for some­one like me, a begin­ning rid­er in his sev­en­ties with tita­ni­um knees. If my knee sur­geon had found out about it, he would have filed com­mit­ment proceedings.

Two years ear­li­er he’d warned me that my deci­sion to become a horse­man posed an unrea­son­able risk of seri­ous injury to a man my age in my con­di­tion. “Don’t do it,” he said. “Keep your feet on the ground.”

His advice was rea­son­able giv­en my his­to­ry. I’d enjoyed good health most of my life, but as I neared the end of my sev­enth decade, my body seemed to be wear­ing out. I’d come through five surg­eries to repair or replace fail­ing body parts, and arthri­tis had eat­en away all the car­ti­lage in my knees. Bent over and list­ing to one side, I could only walk fifty yards before the pain broke me down. I felt old. Real­ly old.

At that least oppor­tune moment in my life, when I was star­ing down the gun bar­rel of dou­ble knee replace­ment surgery, a sud­den ambi­tion to ride hors­es came to me out of nowhere and grabbed me by the throat. It made no sense to me, and I didn’t under­stand it.

My only expe­ri­ences with hors­es were min­i­mal and so far back in my past I had for­got­ten about them. There’s a pho­to of my dad steady­ing me in the sad­dle on a paint horse in 1948 when I was fif­teen months old. My moth­er wrote on the back of it, “You fell in love with hors­es on this vis­it to Paris, Ken­tucky.” I don’t remem­ber the hors­es or the trip.

There’s a lat­er pho­to of me at a pony ride. I was four years old the day Dad pulled our Hud­son off Route 60 into a dirt lot beside a field of tall grass where an old man lift­ed me onto the back of a tired pony and led us around a well-worn quar­ter-mile loop. Mom’s cap­tion on that pho­to says, “You had to ride this pony every time we went near Rich­mond.” I rode that pony four times, all told.

In my teen years, we moved to White Hall, Vir­ginia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Moun­tains, big-time horse coun­try, hunters and show jumpers. While we lived there, I nev­er rode and had almost no con­tact with hors­es, but a vivid mem­o­ry of a par­tic­u­lar horse and rid­er from those years stayed with me.

I worked a few week­ends one sum­mer as a handy­man for Pete and Phyl­lis Jones, who owned Small­wood Farm where Phyl­lis trained hors­es and rid­ers. On a hot day I was stand­ing on the roof of the main house replac­ing worn-out tiles when a pick­up truck pulled a horse trail­er into the barn­yard. Pete helped an elder­ly man back a big, high-spir­it­ed, roan stal­lion out of the trail­er. When the stal­lion cleared the ramp, he screamed, bucked, and reared.

“I know you said your wife would train him,” the old man yelled to Pete as he strained to hold on to the wild stallion’s lead rope, “but he’s too much for a woman to handle!”

“She’ll ride him,” Pete said.

“But look at him, Mis­ter Jones! Ain’t no woman alive can ride him! He needs a man’s strong hand!”

“If he can be rode,” Pete said in a steady voice, “she’ll ride him.”

And ride him she did. The next Sat­ur­day, I looked down from the roof to see the big roan prance out of the barn with five-feet-three-inch Phyl­lis Jones in the sad­dle. She guid­ed him on a tight rein through the yard into the pas­ture. He broke into a trot and then a can­ter. About halfway across the field, Phyl­lis urged the roan into a con­trolled gal­lop, mov­ing with his action seam­less­ly, as if she was part of him. It was a vision of spec­tac­u­lar beau­ty, grace, and grandeur.

For a while after that I dreamed about rid­ing, but when I went back to school in the fall, I for­got about it.

Maybe it was those three long-ago mem­o­ries step­ping for­ward out of the dark mist of the past that inspired me to turn to hors­es more than a half-cen­tu­ry lat­er. Maybe it was the lit­tle boy at the pony ride knock­ing on the door of my con­scious­ness. “Hey! Remem­ber me? Remem­ber that time before you had to grow up when we loved horses?”

Or maybe it was the teenag­er on Small­wood Farm call­ing out to me from way back before all the years at UVA, teach­ing, law school, Lath­am and Watkins, and Safe­way piled up on top of his dream and buried it.

Or maybe the past had noth­ing at all to do with it. Maybe it was the unhap­py present, a rebel­lion against my advanc­ing age and all the phys­i­cal prob­lems I’d come through. Maybe it was an attempt to reverse the clock, to rewrite the lat­er chap­ters of my life to replace pain and frus­tra­tion with vibran­cy and vigor.

I don’t know, but what­ev­er my moti­va­tion, I didn’t heed my doctor’s warning.

In my six­ty-ninth win­ter, I broke ground on the con­struc­tion of a horse barn. The fol­low­ing June, the sur­geon replaced my left knee. My sev­en­ti­eth birth­day rolled by in July. In August, I got a new right knee. For the next four months, I worked hard in rehab, focus­ing on leg strength, core devel­op­ment, and balance.

In Jan­u­ary, on a cold crisp morn­ing, I climbed a mount­ing block and threw my leg over the sad­dle while Janet held Marge in place. Sit­ting astride a thou­sand-pound ani­mal, the ground looked hard, unfor­giv­ing, and a long way down. For a few dis­con­cert­ing moments I thought I might be as crazy as my osteopath claimed. Light-head­ed and dizzy, I swal­lowed hard.

“You okay?” Janet said.

I touched Marge’s mane and stroked her neck. The dizzi­ness passed. “I’m okay,” I said.

Janet ponied Marge and me away from her barn, and we rode the trails in Hid­den Hills for an hour. We rode again the next day. And the next.

Grad­u­al­ly, my strength came back and my mood lift­ed. For the first time in years, I felt good. Real­ly good.

I bought Marge from Janet. A month lat­er, we found Lily, a speck­led gray mare. Wil­son, a thor­ough­bred now twen­ty years old, came next. Jack­son, a pedi­greed Amer­i­can Paint quar­ter horse, round­ed out the herd.

I’ve been rid­ing for four years, four to five days a week. I’m not a great rid­er, but I do okay. I go easy, at a walk or a trot, some­times a can­ter. I play it safe, but no horse is bomb-proof. Hors­es think any­thing they don’t under­stand is a preda­tor and they run from it. Large­ly because Janet’s pri­or­i­ty is safe­ty, close calls have been rare for me, the most dan­ger­ous being Wilson’s “Hi Ho Sil­ver” imi­ta­tion. So far, I’ve nev­er been thrown or injured.

But the thrill of rid­ing is not the main rea­son my mind and body healed. It’s the horses.

A poster hangs in the tack room of my barn. Beside an artis­tic ren­der­ing of Secretariat’s pro­file etched in hand­writ­ten script are the words, “God made the horse from the breath of the wind, the beau­ty of the earth, and the soul of an angel.”

This is true.

A horse’s heart is about twen­ty times the size of a human heart. Some peo­ple claim hors­es can feel your heart­beat when you approach them, and they syn­chro­nize the beat of their heart with yours. I’m not sure about that, but this much I know. There’s a benign sym­bio­sis between each of my hors­es and me. When I’m stressed, they calm me down. When I’m trou­bled, they soothe my soul. Always.

I can point to a basis in log­ic and rea­son for all the big deci­sions I’ve made in my long life. Except for this one. This one time I closed my eyes and took a blind step for­ward. And to my great sur­prise, I stum­bled upon a mirac­u­lous gift, the love of horses.

Twen­ty years old, she’d worked as a sec­re­tary for Cam­bridge, Inc., a small mort­gage bro­ker­age firm, for only a month when she claimed the CEO sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her. He insist­ed he nev­er touched her.

“It’s a he-said-she-said sit­u­a­tion,” the office man­ag­er told her. “There’s noth­ing I can do.”

A few days lat­er, Cam­bridge fired her.

She filed suit, alleg­ing sex­u­al harass­ment, gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion, and wrong­ful ter­mi­na­tion. My law firm rep­re­sent­ed Cam­bridge and I was assigned to defend the case.

Mar­garet, the office man­ag­er, in her for­ties, tall and thin with short coal-black hair, dressed in a dark blue skirt and match­ing jack­et, escort­ed me into the CEO’s office.

We sat down across the desk from Ted, in his mid-thir­ties, aver­age height with an ath­let­ic build, close-cropped brown hair, and a con­fi­dent demeanor. “I bare­ly remem­ber her,” he said. “We had no con­tact oth­er than the few times she brought me doc­u­ments to sign. I don’t even know when she claims I harassed her.”

“The morn­ing of July 12,” Mar­garet said.

“I under­stand she report­ed the inci­dent to you,” I said to Margaret.

“That’s cor­rect. She told me she was stand­ing beside Ted at his desk while he reviewed let­ters she’d typed when he grabbed her around the hips and shoved his hand up under her skirt.”

“Ridicu­lous,” Ted said.

“Any wit­ness­es?” I asked.

“They were alone. She said Ted told her to close his office door when she walked in.”

“That’s a lie,” Ted said. “She closed it on her own.”

Inter­est­ing, I thought. Ted doesn’t remem­ber when she claims the inci­dent took place, but he recalls she closed the door that morn­ing. “Did any­one see her when she came out of Ted’s office?”

“My office is across the hall,” Mar­garet said. “I saw her come out and run down the hall. She was sob­bing hys­ter­i­cal­ly. I found her in the women’s restroom. It took her a long time to calm down enough to tell me her ver­sion of what hap­pened. She was so upset I sent her home for the day.”

“The dis­charge let­ter says you fired her for insubordination.”

“Work­ing with Ted is a job require­ment. She refused.”

“Who made the deci­sion to fire her?”

Mar­garet looked at Ted.

“Mar­garet and I made the deci­sion togeth­er,” he said.

“What was the qual­i­ty of her work?”

“Excel­lent,” Mar­garet said. “She was fresh out of a good sec­re­tar­i­al school. Inex­pe­ri­enced, but high­ly skilled.”

I stud­ied Mar­garet. She returned my stare evenly.

“Give us a minute alone,” I said to her. She left the office.

“A pack of lies,” Ted said.

“She’s a good liar,” I said. “In the few sec­onds it took her to reach your office door, she burst into tears and kept it up until Mar­garet sent her home.”

“All part of an act designed to hit the law­suit lottery.”

“An Oscar-win­ning per­for­mance on the spur of the moment.”

“She prob­a­bly rehearsed it.”

“Twen­ty years old. First job after sec­re­tar­i­al school. Not the typ­i­cal pro­file of a con­niv­ing fraudster.”

Ted paused. “You don’t believe me?”

“I’m giv­ing you an objec­tive assess­ment of the facts. Margaret’s obser­va­tion of her behav­ior sup­ports her story.”

He gave me a blank stare.

“Tell me what real­ly hap­pened,” I said.

More of the blank stare. Then, “You can’t tell any­one what I say, right?”

“This is an attor­ney-client priv­i­leged con­ver­sa­tion. I can’t tell any­one with­out your permission.”

He smirked. “She’s got a killer body, and she knows it. When I walked by her desk in the sec­re­tar­i­al bay that morn­ing, she gave me a smile and a fetch­ing look. Ten min­utes lat­er, she showed up at my door wear­ing a short skirt and a tight blouse and stood right next to me while I reviewed her work. Her hip brushed against my shoul­der. It was an obvi­ous come-on, but when I tried to pull her down into my lap, she went crazy. Screamed and ran out of here like I’d tried to rape her or something.”

“Did you put your hand under her skirt?”

“I might have. I don’t recall. It was all over in a cou­ple of sec­onds. It was no big deal.”

“It seems to have been a big deal to her.”

“What did she expect? Dress­ing like that. Flaunt­ing it.”

I searched Ted’s face. Indif­fer­ence, with a hint of defi­ance. No shame. This is not going to be easy, I thought.

“She’s got a strong case,” I said. “We should set­tle it before her lawyer digs into the facts.”

Ted looked shocked. “She can’t prove any­thing. It’s her word against mine.”

“Your sto­ry isn’t cred­i­ble. Margaret’s putting up a good front, but she believes the plain­tiff. It took me less than ten min­utes of ques­tion­ing to see through your denial.”

“Okay. Let’s work on my sto­ry. Shore up the weak points.”

“That’s not an option. You’ll have to tes­ti­fy under oath.”

“So what? No one will know I’m lying.”

“You’ll know. I’ll know.”

“Well, I sure as hell won’t tell any­one and you can’t tell because you’re my lawyer.”

“If you get caught, you’ll face per­jury charges. It’s not worth the risk. Besides, the jury will like­ly believe her even if you lie. She’ll get back pay, com­pen­sa­tion for emo­tion­al dis­tress, puni­tive dam­ages. The judg­ment could reach six fig­ures, but if we don’t fight her claim and set­tle the case quick­ly, she’ll prob­a­bly walk away for a small pay­ment and a writ­ten recommendation.”

“How small?”

“Ten thou­sand. Maybe less.”

“Ten thou­sand dol­lars! For a two-sec­ond grab that went nowhere!”

“You’ll spend a lot more in court costs and legal fees defend­ing the case.”

“Fine. At least we’ll get some­thing for our mon­ey. I’m not pay­ing her a dime.”

I argued long and hard, but Ted wouldn’t budge, which put me in a tight spot. The canons of ethics pro­hib­it a lawyer from pre­sent­ing false evi­dence to the court, so I couldn’t know­ing­ly allow Ted to lie under oath. But the rules also pro­hib­it­ed my dis­clo­sure of his con­fes­sion to any­one, includ­ing the court. Under Cal­i­for­nia law, there was only one way to pro­tect both con­flict­ing inter­ests. I with­drew from the case with­out telling any­one what Ted had told me, and he hired a dif­fer­ent firm to defend the lawsuit.

I changed a few details and the names of the com­pa­ny and exec­u­tives, but oth­er­wise this nar­ra­tion tracks the fact-pat­tern of a case I worked on in the 1980’s.

I like this sto­ry. It makes me look good for doing the right thing, but the truth is it was an easy call. The fee to defend the case amount­ed to less than a drop in my firm’s buck­et of rev­enues; the client was a small com­pa­ny whose ongo­ing busi­ness was mean­ing­less to us; and Ted made my skin crawl. With­draw­ing required no real sac­ri­fice and no courage.

About the time I with­drew from rep­re­sent­ing Cam­bridge, a lawyer in my firm draft­ed opin­ion let­ters con­cern­ing the like­li­hood of lia­bil­i­ty and poten­tial dam­age awards in cas­es she was han­dling for one of our biggest clients. Finan­cial laws required the client to dis­close the attorney’s esti­mates to cred­i­tors and share­hold­ers. Its Gen­er­al Coun­sel dis­agreed with her opin­ions. He demand­ed that she change them to down­play the risk of loss and reduce the poten­tial damages.

Eth­i­cal canons and fed­er­al laws require an attor­ney to ren­der hon­est and accu­rate opin­ions about such mat­ters. She gave the Gen­er­al Coun­sel the back-up data sup­port­ing her esti­mates and told him she couldn’t change them. He became bel­liger­ent and threat­ened to fire the firm from all his company’s legal mat­ters. She was shak­en but stood her ground.

Soon after­wards, the com­pa­ny declared bank­rupt­cy. Its debts and poten­tial lia­bil­i­ties far out­stripped its assets. We learned then that the Gen­er­al Coun­sel had pres­sured all its out­side law firms to change their opin­ions so it could take on more debt in a des­per­ate attempt to sur­vive. Some lawyers had com­plied. Their firms faced poten­tial fraud charges. Mine did not.

In pub­lic opin­ion sur­veys, lawyers rou­tine­ly rank at the bot­tom in pub­lic trust. There are good rea­sons for this. Sleazy lawyers abound and they tend to gar­ner a lot of pub­lic­i­ty, but I worked with legions of attor­neys of the high­est eth­i­cal char­ac­ter whose courage and con­vic­tion went unno­ticed in the pub­lic eye. My for­mer part­ner was at the top of that list.

I’d like to believe I was in her league, but I’ll con­fess I’ve often won­dered what I would have done if the con­text of my with­draw­al had been dif­fer­ent. Sup­pose Cam­bridge had been a For­tune 500 cor­po­ra­tion and one of the firm’s largest clients. Sup­pose Ted had threat­ened to fire my firm from all legal mat­ters if I with­drew. I’d like to think I would have been as strong as my part­ner, but I don’t know for sure. I wasn’t put to the test. She was, and her per­for­mance under immense pres­sure earned my ever­last­ing admi­ra­tion and respect.

Post Script: A year after I with­drew from the case that inspired this post, the plaintiff’s attor­ney told me my suc­ces­sor set­tled it on the eve of tri­al. He said the terms were con­fi­den­tial, but the huge smile on his face leads me to believe the com­pa­ny paid big bucks to get out of that mess.
The real Cam­bridge even­tu­al­ly filed for bank­rupt­cy. The CEO was the major­i­ty own­er, so the real Ted may have gone down with the ship. I hope so.