My Beloved World Part 24

All that remained to be seen was how far along the next step would take me.

CHAPTER Twenty-Seven

SHEA STADIUM, the 1986 World Series. The Mets and the still-cursed Red Sox are tied in a tense tenth inning of play that has the crowd on their feet cheering, first for one side, then the other, like kids on a wild seesaw ride.

The real drama, however, is happening in the parking lot, where I'm on the back of a motorcycle, wearing a bulletproof vest, a walkie-talkie screeching in my ear, in pursuit of a truck full of counterfeit goods. We're doing fifty, then sixty, circling the lot like a racetrack, when the truck dodges around a corner. It's a dead end, a concrete cul-de-sac, and in just a moment he's spun around and is barreling straight for us. My driver's about to bolt, but I tell him, "Stay put, he won't hit us. We'll stop him right here." This guy's not crazy, I'm thinking. But he could be, or maybe just panicked. Whatever the case, he's speeding up. Next thing I know, he's got half his wheels up on the concrete wall beside us, like a stuntman riding the wall of death-can you even do that in a truck? Before I know it, he's slipped past us, doing almost ninety in the opposite direction. Enough. Does someone have to die for a load of fake Mets caps, cheap shirts, and souvenirs?

What am I even doing here?

Good question. After I worked through the cases that Bob Morgenthau a.s.signed me as inducement to remain at the DA's Office, it was finally time to leave. Believing that economic development was the only real cure for so many of the ills plaguing poor communities, I thought commercial law would prove useful. I was also open to something in international law, an interest since my days at Yale. One thing I knew for certain: I wanted to continue doing trial work, having learned to love my days in the courtroom.

I also knew very well what I didn't want: the life of a cubicle-encased cog in the machinery of a large firm. The practice that kept a.s.sociates in the library for years, hoisting papers up the layers of organization to a partner at the apex of responsibility still appealed to me about as much as working in a coal mine. As I had when looking at opportunities after Yale, I would aim for a smaller firm where I might grow more quickly into a substantial role. But as I interviewed, I found that size was no guarantee of ethos. Small firms were often spin-offs that not only poached clients from but also reproduced the culture of the larger firms where their partners had started their careers.

One that stood out as an exception was Pavia & Harcourt, a tiny firm by New York standards, barely thirty lawyers when I was interviewing in 1984. Its founder, a Jewish refugee from Italy during World War II, had built its reputation on representing elite European business interests in the United States. Much of the firm's work related to finance and banking, to licensing of trademarks and distribution of products, and the diverse range of legal tasks attending international trade and business operations.

Arriving for my first interview, I was struck by the aura of the place-a midtown oasis of restrained elegance. George Pavia, the founder's son and now managing partner, was said to be fond of continuity, and the decorum of the offices befitted a roster of clients whose names were synonymous with European luxury and high style: Fendi, Ferrari, Bulgari ... Conversations shifted constantly between English, Italian, and French. It was hard to imagine an atmosphere more remote from that of the DA's Office.

In spite of the old-world ambience, the firm was ahead of its time in welcoming women. There were two among the nine partners at a time when it was rare to find even one in the upper echelons of big Manhattan firms. This one was exceptional in its organization too: a.s.sociates worked directly with partners in two-person teams that made mentoring natural. It was a situation where I could learn quickly and, I hoped, quickly advance.

I interviewed many times over, meeting with each of the nine partners and all of the litigation a.s.sociates. The positive impressions I was forming seemed to be mutual. It was clear that my trial experience appealed greatly and would fill an immediate need. A degree from Yale didn't hurt. But at some point my progress seemed to lose momentum inexplicably, and I found myself waiting for a call that didn't come. Meanwhile, interviews with other firms only made it clearer where I really wanted to be. Pressing the headhunter who had connected us, I learned that George Pavia feared I would quickly get bored with the work of a first-year a.s.sociate-the position they were hiring for-and move on.

Be diplomatic but direct, I told myself. I don't tend to bang people over the head, but some situations require a bit of boldness. I asked for another meeting and once again found myself ushered into that serene nest lined with Persian carpets and delicately etched views of old Genoa.

"Mr. Pavia, I understand that you have some hesitations about hiring me. Are you comfortable talking about it?"

"Yes, of course." He explained his concerns. They were valid, I acknowledged, and then laid out my own position: Never having practiced civil law, I had a lot to learn. As long as I was learning, there was no chance of boredom. As I became more familiar with the work, one of two things would happen. Either I'd still be struggling to keep up-still no chance of boredom, although I probably wouldn't last at the firm. Or else they would recognize what I was capable of and give me more responsibility. I didn't see how they could lose. I made clear that I had no reluctance about accepting the starting salary of a first-year a.s.sociate-a fraction of what I could expect from a large firm-as long as he was willing to increase it when my work warranted it.

The bonus and raise that followed my first year-end review were huge, and by the second review my salary was up to standard.

MY FIRST CASES at Pavia & Harcourt involved customer warranty disputes and problems with real estate leases. The work of a beginning a.s.sociate typically involved eclectic and sometimes marginal legal work for clients the firm represented in more crucial aspects of their business. It did, however, draw on skills that were second nature to a prosecutor. Within my first couple of days on the job, a colleague who sat within earshot of my phone calls let it be known to another litigation a.s.sociate, who then spread the word, that I was "one tough b.i.t.c.h" who could not be pushed around by an adversary.

I was shaken to hear myself so harshly categorized. Trying case after case by the seat of your pants at the DA's Office, you develop a bravado that can seem abrasive to lawyers who have no acquaintance with that world. It was a kind of culture shock in both directions. The great distance from the grimy halls of Centre Street to our genteel bower on Madison Avenue made itself known in other small ways, too. A gift from a grateful client, for instance, did not have to be returned in the presence of a witness-a nice perk I didn't expect.

"You're in private practice now, Sonia. There's no threat of corruption," counseled David Botwinik, the partner I turned to-indeed, we all turned to-for advice on any question of ethics. I called him the Rabbi. It was okay to accept a gift, he said, though allowing that "in the ten years I've had them as clients, they never gave me a gift."

The more I observed Dave in action, the more profoundly his sense of integrity, fairness, and professional honor impressed me. Just as I had done with John Fried at the District Attorney's Office, I turned to Dave instinctively as a guide. His presence was comforting, avuncular, and expansive in a way that suggested a hearty appet.i.te, though his greatest interests were more of the mind than the body. Blinking owlishly behind his gla.s.ses, he stuttered slightly. The hesitation only made his words seem more thoughtfully considered.

In the practice of law, there are rules that establish a minimum standard of acceptable conduct: what the law permits. This is the floor, below which one can't go. There are other rules, not formally encoded, which set the higher bar that defines what's ethical behavior, consistent with respect for the dignity of others and fairness in one's dealings with them. There is no law, for example, saying you can't serve someone court papers at five o'clock on the Friday evening of a long holiday weekend. On the other hand, it's no way to deal honorably with an adversary, who is also a human being, with family, plans, and a personal life outside business. Some lawyers might argue that you owe your client any advantage you can squeeze out of a situation. But underhanded moves invite retaliation in kind, and then both sides end up grappling in the mud. Concerning the intersection of common decency and professional honor, Dave Botwinik's instincts were flawless.

It was through his instruction, too, that I became versed in a complex and little understood area of the law. Dave had specialized for thirty years in representing foreign commodity traders who bought in the American grain markets. He had worked hard to inst.i.tute more evenhanded arbitration practices that tempered the influence of the big grain houses. Observing how I prepared witnesses and conducted cross-examinations, he asked me to a.s.sist him in grain arbitrations, which, though less formally structured than a trial, involved similar strategies.

"I'm too old for this now, you can do it," he said, but I could never have managed without his vast knowledge. He could read between the lines of any contract and see immediately why it was drafted as it was, what issues were important, respectively, to the parties involved. He knew all the players in the industry, which was a man's world entirely. Having begun as the scene of actual farmers bringing grain to market in the nineteenth-century Midwest, the game had evolved into an arcane trade of financial instruments conducted by roomfuls of traders working the phones. Even with my knowledge of admiralty law, I struggled at first to grasp the logic of the business. Finally, it clicked, though it took a late-night cry for help to cut through the Gordian knot of interwoven contracts: We were not actually tracking shipments of grain. The ephemeral exchange of contract rights that began with grain futures intersected with physical reality only at the end of a long chain of transactions.

Only once did I even see the grain. Our client had sent a sample for tests, and it was clear to me that the lab results had been falsified. I knew that a sealed plastic pouch from a private laboratory is no guarantee of a chain of custody when anybody can buy a heat-sealing kit for plastic bags at the supermarket. So I did. During arbitration, at the end of my cross-examination, I asked the witness to open the supposedly inviolate sample of grain. He tore the seal off the plastic bag and found inside it a note in my handwriting: "Bags can be tampered with."

I had learned over the years never to reveal that I could type. In the days before everyone had a personal computer, it was a sure way for a young lawyer to find herself informally demoted to secretary, and I stuck to that rule rigidly. Only once, in the wee hours approaching a morning deadline, did I ask Dave Botwinik to cover his eyes so I could type a final draft. Dave I could trust. He had a deft way of turning aside other lawyers' requests for the only woman in the room to get coffee.

Fran Bernstein, on the other hand, was far above this fray in the gender wars. She could sit for unbroken hours at her Smith-Corona while it rattled like a machine gun, as if her brain were plugged directly into the machine. I was astonished by her writing process, how the pages of elegant prose in no apparent need of polishing just rolled off the typewriter. But it was only one of her remarkable qualities. When she spoke, the flow of her ideas was just as irrepressible, as was the smile that lit up her dimpled face. As a law student, Fran was one of the first women to edit the law review at Columbia, where she later became a lecturer. She had also been among the first women to clerk for a judge on the Second Circuit. Having left work for several years to raise her children, she had returned only part-time. If that had put a crimp in her career, she didn't seem to mind. Though I was at first intimidated in her presence, she would become a true friend and another of my mentors at Pavia & Harcourt.

Fran's effortless eloquence so humbled me that when she first asked me to write a brief, I was paralyzed. For all my success in the courtroom, writing still terrified me. At the DA's Office, I had often volunteered for the overspill of appeals work that the trial bureaus were obliged to help with, just for the chance to work on my writing. Working on Fran's brief, I stayed up all night, my brain contorted in uncomfortable positions, suffering flashbacks to that traumatic summer at Paul, Weiss. The draft that I managed to finish past dawn was subpar. But when I confessed how utterly incompetent I felt, Fran was more than gracious. As a professor, she noted, she had been writing prolifically her whole career. The same role furnished her an instinctive sense of how to encourage someone trying to learn.

The one corner of my life in which I resisted Fran's influence was politics. She earnestly counseled me to join the Republican Party, though not so much for reasons of ideology. Reagan was running for president. Joining the party, she said, was a matter of affiliating oneself with where power in our society was headed, a necessary qualification for the kind of advancement I ultimately sought. I was historian enough to know that the GOP was the party of Lincoln, a connection that once held real meaning. And I was enough of a fiscal conservative to appreciate what Fran admired about Republican economic policy. But I couldn't see why those ideas had to be wed to the social views the party was now espousing. New York had produced some exceptionally progressive Republican leaders, Nelson Rockefeller having enacted some of the boldest social reforms the state had seen. At any rate, I felt no need to find a label that covered all my opinions, so I registered without any party affiliation. Contrary to Fran's careful calculations, that nonalignment served me well when I later joined the Campaign Finance Board, and in other political encounters since then too.

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW about handbags?" Fran asked me one day.

"Nothing. What's to know?" I was about to become an expert. To start with, Fran explained, a Fendi bag sold for eight hundred to several thousands of dollars. That deserved a double take. My cash, keys, and cigarettes were stashed in a bag that cost all of twenty dollars. She showed me one of the legendary pocketbooks, explained the finer points of st.i.tching technique, how to recognize the quality of the fabric and the hardware-all the details that distinguished the real thing from a knockoff.

Fran had been tracking the development of intellectual property law for several years. It was a new field, as yet barely mentioned in law schools. Although patent and copyright laws were a well-established area of practice, trademarks drew less attention in those years. Meanwhile, fake Gucci and Fendi handbags, counterfeit Rolex and Cartier watches, and gallons of faux Chanel No. 5 were an exploding business on the sidewalks of Manhattan.

Fran presciently understood that the ultimate danger of not defending a trademark was loss of the precious rights to its exclusive use. She set about educating our clients, many of whom were in the business of fashion, creating luxury products whose worth was as tightly bound to the prestige of a name as to the quality of production. Fendi was the first to appreciate the importance of what Fran was trying to do. Cheap knockoffs of Fendi handbags were being sold not only in Chinatown and at flea markets all over the country but on the shelves of a reputable retail chain. Eventually, they showed up on the sidewalk right in front of Fendi's Fifth Avenue store.

Fran decided to educate me as well, because she wanted my help in taking that big retail chain to court. She was handing me books, and we discussed cases that we read together. When the Fendi case came to trial, we were excited to learn that it was a.s.signed to Judge Leonard Sand, who was reputed to be brilliant. He had tried a very contentious case against the City of Yonkers over desegregation-a case that would eventually stretch over decades but was then fresh in the public awareness and especially familiar to me from my work at PRLDEF.

Leading up to the trial, I was in the conference room watching Fran prepare a witness when she was called away to the phone. She asked me to continue in her stead. The Fendi fashion house was very much a family business. Candido Speroni, our expert on the intricacies of Fendi's production processes, was married to one of the five Fendi sisters, each of whom was responsible for a different aspect of the business. Candido's nephew Alessandro Saracino, a young lawyer himself, was acting as interpreter.

Preparing witnesses is an art form. As a prosecutor, you learn that you can't tell witnesses what to say or not to say: they will blurt out the d.a.m.nedest things when they're put on the spot in court. Instead, the purpose of coaching is to help them understand the reason behind each question so that you're working as a team to communicate their relevant knowledge to jurors. I was deep in the process with Candido, completely focused on the task at hand, when I looked at my watch and realized that Fran had been gone for a very long time indeed. I wondered aloud what had happened to her, and she answered from the corner by the door, "I'm here. I've been watching." After suggesting that we break for lunch, she said to Alessandro, "Please talk to your uncle and ask if he'll agree ... Sonia should be the one to take this to trial, not me. It will cost you much less, but ultimately it's not the money. She's just that good at it!"

And so began my friendship with the Fendis, and the unlikely experience of going to court in front of the esteemed judge Leonard Sand as the only young a.s.sociate calling the office at the end of each day to tell a senior partner what papers I needed prepared for the next morning.

Fran's handing me the Fendi case as my first crack at civil litigation was a tribute not only to her personal generosity but to the nature of Pavia & Harcourt, where freehanded collaboration was ingrained in the culture. The people I worked with were comfortable enough in their own skin to share clients and knowledge easily. That spirit of transparent teamwork was a joy to me, and I strove to be as open and helpful to others as Fran and Dave were to me. One young a.s.sociate who struggled with dyslexia was as awed by my reading speed as I was by Fran's rapid-fire writing skills. "Sonia, you just inhaled that article as fast as you could turn the pages!" he moaned. But he had a reliable knack for spotting what was likely to be most useful, and so we often worked in tandem hacking through the dense undergrowth of required reading, swapping observations and ideas.

In this comradely environment, I learned to be more attentive to how I was perceived by colleagues. That initial impression of "one tough b.i.t.c.h" had mostly faded with experience but would resurface now and again when someone new joined us. Theresa Bartenope was hired as a secretary for a different department on the far side of the building, but I lured her into becoming my paralegal in the intellectual property practice. That meant I was often calling over the crackly intercom, "Theresa, I need you in my office." She would appear at my door a few minutes later, panting from the sprint, hands shaking, hives spreading up her neck. What's with her? I wondered. After she'd withdrawn to her side of the building, people in the hallway burst out laughing at the spectacle. Finally, someone clued me in, and I called Theresa in again, this time more gently: "Theresa, why are you so scared of me? I don't bite."

When I'm focused intensely on work, I become oblivious to social cues, or any cues for that matter. I block out the entire universe beyond the page in front of me or the issue at hand. Colleagues who knew me well didn't take it personally. In fact, they sometimes found it convenient. Hallway conversations could be carried on right outside my door, because I was the only person impervious to distraction, completely unaware. The same tendency as a prosecutor gave me a reputation-undeserved, I believe-for ruthlessness in cross-examinations. It's not how I mean to be; when I'm concentrating hard and processing information quickly, the questions just shoot out unceremoniously.

Theresa, thank heaven, overcame her fear, and she has since accompanied me on every step of my career. She remains my right hand and protector, the dearest of friends. When I miss something, she's the one who sees it. She's the one who holds a mirror up when she notices me getting intimidating or too abrupt, an effect only amplified by the trappings of my current office. When I am too wrapped up in something, she pulls me up for air and reminds me to be kind.

AS IT HAPPENED, the case I argued against the big retailer was settled mid-trial, but I would continue working closely with Fran Bernstein on intellectual property cases for the Fendis, as well as other clients. Litigation, however, was not an effective remedy to the problem of counterfeit goods sold on the street and in Chinatown; there was no point bringing petty vendors to trial. Instead, trademark owners decided to join forces in applying for a court order permitting us to confiscate the goods and the records related to their production and distribution. In building the case for a seizure order, we worked with private investigators to track down the suppliers funneling knockoffs into New York from several manufacturing points in Asia as well as moonlighting craftsmen in Italy. Investigators would purchase items from vendors at different locations, and we could map connections by matching hardware or fabrics from different lots. Keeping an area under surveillance, they could often identify a warehouse by spotting the runners who moved between that location and the vendors. If we could intercept the contraband at that distribution point, we might even find customs and shipping doc.u.ments that would lead further up the supply chain.

I showed Fran how to work up an affidavit. She wrote most of the briefs. I loved the investigative work, the challenge of the puzzle, and the thrill ride of the seizure operations. Together we were Cagney and Lacey.

Dempster Leech, our private investigator, had a rumpled little absentminded-professor aspect and hesitant way of speaking that belied his own love of the chase. Through the pungent streets of Chinatown, he led a posse of burly sidekicks, most of them retired or off-duty police officers from beyond the five boroughs. They had to be armed: the street trade in knockoffs was controlled by gangs who, in addition to dealing drugs and whatever else, extorted protection money from the vendors. At a seizure, lawyers for each of the trademark holders were needed on hand to monitor the operation. It was our job to examine the goods and ensure that only counterfeits were taken, that papers were served properly, and that receipts were given for inventory seized. Normally, anyone involved vanished the instant our presence was detected. At the slightest hint of trouble, the glint of a weapon, Dempster would evacuate us quickly. No one wanted heroics. But a few times we brushed too close for comfort.

I was the lead lawyer one afternoon when I saw Dempster running toward me in the hubbub of Ca.n.a.l Street. His lookout had spotted someone leaving a building, pushing a hand truck loaded with boxes. One had fallen off the hand truck, spilling what looked like Fendis. Dempster's men were staking out the building. No windows, but he put his nose to the ground on a loading dock and peeked under the rolling gate that was left open a crack. In the shadows of the room, strewn all over, were hundreds and hundreds of counterfeit handbags. I phoned the judge, and minutes later we had a seizure order.

The place was so full of fake Fendis that after loading up all of Dempster's jeeps, we still had to bring in a trailer truck. Each time we thought we'd cleared the whole lot, another trail of stray bags would lead like bread crumbs to a further stash. The interior of the building, like that of many in Chinatown, was a labyrinthine warren of rooms that connected behind several separate storefronts. What had from the outside looked to be a small stand-alone structure actually stretched across most of the block.

Typically, a few days after a seizure, I would have been back at the courthouse to file an affidavit for the inventory. But on this occasion I had to be elsewhere, and so I sent a young a.s.sociate who had been with us on the raid. When Tony walked out of the subway stop at Centre Street, a circle of young Asian guys with ominous tattoos closed in around him. "Where's the black-hair lady? Tell her we're looking for her. Tell her we know who she is." Tony wasn't the only one shaken that day. The entire litigation department at Pavia & Harcourt was called to a meeting, the partners aghast. The judge, when informed, was no less horrified, and marshals were dispatched to accompany me whenever I came to the courthouse ...

The irony was not lost on me: I was now apparently in greater danger representing luxury brands at a genteel law firm than I had ever been prosecuting armed thieves and murderers. Dave Botwinik and some of the other partners argued that we should quit the seizures entirely, and right away. I, like Tony, understood that the risks were very well managed and that the value to our clients was huge. Perhaps we were also enthralled by the excitement: I wasn't ready to retire my bulletproof vest just yet. The debate within the firm was resolved with a lawyerly compromise that made explicit the full extent of risks on any specific operation and ensured there'd be no pressure to partic.i.p.ate on anyone who might not care to take them.