Читать книгу Vicarious Healing - Cathy L. Bagley MD - Страница 5

D-Legal was in no way a run of the mill law establishment. Firstly, the company's title, D-Legal & Associates, LLC, always elicited jaw-dropping responses upon explaining its origins. Secondly, their attorneys represented an unusual family of professionals whose mottos were cohesiveness, honesty and discretion. And thirdly, the law firm's modest, grass roots beginnings caught many off guard considering the three founders' hailed from families whose combined net worth nickels nickels to just under half of the world's gross national product!

The practice's founders and subsequent partners possessed unique three lettered surnames all beginning with D's: Dut, Daw, Dyl, Due, Dul, Doe, Dua, Del, Daw. "Coincidentally," attorney Dut would say, "it's all incidental; God knew what he was doing aligning us in this fashion!" The first three partners, Dut, Dyl, Daw, met as law students in Charleston having eerily much in common: escape from aristocratic, doting, opinionated, controlling families towards rebellion's sweet lure.

Relatives offered no financial gestures towards investing in their purchase and renovation endeavor having long dismissed them as pariahs. Their families acquired respective fortunes utilizing neurosurgical, aeronautical and agricultural pathways. Each Dut, Dyl or Daw child was expected to selflessly choose professions in ways contributing to their family's bottom line. What a disappointment were the three budding attorney's to their parents. In the words of old and older man Dut and his dad, "How dare they serve personal agendas choosing law and in ways incongruous to family interests!" Ironically, as Attorney's Dut, Dyl and Daw grew closer towards achieving their goals and each other and further away from castrating families, their families grew closer rallying behind the common cause of either disinheriting their kids or enticing them back into the fold.

That being said, after sailing through law school almost entirely on academic scholarships and research grants, they hustled practicing law here and there, peddled various insurance policies, prepared individual and small business tax returns, in effect and much to the dismay of parents, they unabashedly did anything to raise enough start up capital for a group practice. The dilapidated mini-mansion purchased soon became their practice after much bartering. According to Dyl, Old Southern Belle needed both superficial face-lifts and deeper surgical improvements.

The attorneys quickly exercised their mental muscles and beautification began. Dyl consulted general contractors who supplied him with lists of items needed, labor costs and project completion times. He and his colleagues then brilliantly bartered offering up legal services to general contractors, their skilled laborers and families in exchange for labor costs. Of course, they'd purchase all materials at cost taking full advantage of the contractor's discount advantages. Within six months, Attorney Dyl dropped the old prefix from the building's name. Southern Belle became a rather stylish debutant courtesy of hard work and ingenuity.

Attorneys Dut, Dyl, Daw disbelieved how their minds accomplished so much in their states of chronic depravity in areas of sleep and nutrition. One or the other would nod off either on a toilet, against a wall or worse yet, on a bike at a stop light! That these few men had so many legal issues amongst them, was unbelievable! Thankfully, their combined talents and in differing, yet often overlapping aspects of law, proved adequate enough to manage legal woes placed on their bartering tables.

As for the old adage of sound diets leading to sound minds, that must have been mere conjecture. The young attorneys subsisted on Oriental noodles, canned tuna, saltines, applesauce, bottled water, energy drinks and carbonated beverages for the project's duration; hardly the soundest of diets! Yet, their legal eagle minds managed. Attorney Daw commented over and over again that if they could have afforded foie gras, caviar, truffles, ceviche and other such touted epicurean delights, imagine what they could have achieved!

Excommunicated from familial tribes, budding legal eagles Dut, Dyl and Daw braved the harsh realities of a postgraduate brave new world as a threesome vowing not only to establish a firm in record time but also, to build its house and contents out of brick smartly akin to that of the third of the three little pigs coincidentally, their favorite childhood fairytale! Its reputation would traverse continents, galaxies and so on... They also shared vastly imaginative minds with hyperbolic tendencies. By the third year into practice, they were on a roll: for three consecutive years, they each happened upon high profile cases with landmark outcomes catapulting their law firm into legal notoriety. Continental reputation attained... check! As for the otherworldly one, who knew?

Family pride's a tricky thing; no one wanted to swallow it welcoming them back into the fold. Hence, the three unanimously agreed to grow a new family, that of D-Legal, in substitution for bloodlines failing to thrive. Their staff grew by two associates in the following year who coincidentally, remarried just before coming aboard. They assumed surnames of Due and Dul. The founding attorneys looked upon them proudly as if they'd just given birth to twins. Attorneys Due and Dut proved worthwhile additions pleasing their parents in unimaginable ways by earning their keep and making partner within record time!

Three years later with five oddly named reputable lawyers now established, came the final batch of associates to sign on with D-Legal & Associates, LLC: Doe, Dua, Del and Daw. They were enthralled by company origins, credentials, philosophy and most importantly, their eclectic collection of D-named professionals making them certain shoe-ins for available positions. Indeed, they were! Each one contributed much back-breaking work in climbing the ladder to reach partnership status in a race, one against the other. Hands down, a lean, stylish, comical, studious and prompt one by the name of John Percival Doe won!

As no good parent exalted the accomplishments of one child over another, his proud corporate parents tried their utmost to dampen their excitement over their prodigal son, John's rapid achievements. The firm's motto of cohesiveness, honesty and discretion was exemplified best by him in the new crop of legal eagles D-Legal groomed. The hardest requirement was to excel as "siblings" without back-biting while aiding colleagues along the way. Attorney Doe was always first to arrive, last to leave despite his newly wedded soon-to-be-OB/GYN shapely wife who was in her last year of residency training. How either found time to nurture any relationship was a mystery to all given their dedication to occupational commitments. When work spilled over, it was John who mopped it up either with or for his colleagues. He even sacrificed Sundays and holidays to complete briefs, research precedents and so on... Dua, Del and Daw couldn't always make necessary time commitments due to more pressing first loves: families, hobbies, church, etc.

Despite being the last associate hired, stellar work ethics awarded him collegial respect and a major corporate battle in record time. Attorney Doe's path to partnership came years before his comrades. What a success he became in Low-country and beyond's corporate legal circles! Some thought he came off at times, cocky and over confident in his youth. The brand-spanking-new attorney joked in lectures to budding law students about how he'd victoriously made out like a bandit in the acquisition of the wonderful spoils he enjoyed applying only modest efforts. Years later taught him better spanking him along the way with each new success added to his bag of looted goods.

Long walks often served as temporary panaceas for what ailed Attorney Doe on numerous occasions. He took many therapeutic head-clearing, life-organizing, nature-acquainting excursions throughout life. Shouldering more leadership responsibilities, his sessions grew more frequent and longer evidenced by how often he replaced gym shoes. This, he perceived as one of many examples in which life simultaneously offered nickels and plug nickels at every turn and event: he visited local sportswear chains so frequently, many owners later retained his firm exclusively for corporate legal dealings! He thought life tossed solid nickels in this regard.

But oh, plugged ones were well-represented and disguised in this lot of silvery coins! His highly anticipated, sociably light-hearted patronage trips to trendy jock stores once filled with manly discussions of sports, women, politics, women, cars, women, electronics, women, etc... reduced to board table, heavy-headed conversations about expansile projects, contract negotiations, tax evasion. In other words, it provided as much escape from work's stress as taking a back stairwell down to the first floor to confer with one of his partners in the lounge with walls flanked by sixty-inch flat screen TV's projecting court television, financial news, and programs in the like; hardly the getaway from he'd ever imagine to serve as a panacea!

One ordinary summer's eve while on a usual pedestrian-friendly scenic marshland route home after ping-ponging between court-office-court all day long, he experienced an extraordinary encounter. He didn't initially know how his coin analogy applied because its end results made him face the reality that up until then, he existed in a long anesthetized slumber. The needed an awakening. Little did he know it would be a rude one forcing him to face the indisputable reality of unrecognized failure. He discovered that a mere pebble cast by performing one selfless impromptu "natural" act could trigger a "supernatural" tsunami with far reaching and long lasting ramifications. What ensued many rumored ended some lives, jump started others, revived hearts and opened minds to the possibility of miracles in South Carolina's Low-country. Those directly involved abandoned, forgot and never strove for same again; they were undoubtedly better off!