Law Office Management
Jun. 2, 2008
Representing Reality
After producing three failed television shows, I dived into a midlife crisis and resolved to do what I never did during my ten years as a lawyer: I would represent a human being.
They canceled my first television show. Then they canceled my second television show. The third television show I wrote and produced, surprisingly, was not canceled. They refused to even film it.
Hollywood is in the business of failure. Most actors are out of work, most movies land in the red. The successful players take this endemic rejection as achallenge. "Not entertained, America? I'll show you bastards entertainment!" I took a more nuanced approach. I quit.
Others fall into a midlife crisis; I dived into mine. They say that when a man my age hires a personal trainer, it means one of two things: He is having an affair, or he is having a gay affair. I hired a trainer anyway, and decided to improve myself in other ways too. I began piano lessons. I baked bread. And I re-solved to do what I never did during my ten years as a lawyer: I would represent a human being.
So I called Dan Grunfeld, who at the time-November 2006-was CEO of Public Counsel Law Center in Los Angeles. A few days later a file arrived at my house. It was a political-asylum case. The client was an Ethiopian Muslim who had fled to the United States after being imprisoned and tortured for his political beliefs. If he lost his case and was sent back, he could lose his life.
I tried to return the file. "Who needed this?" I thought. I was hoping for a landlord-tenant case, maybe a nice unlawful detainer. On the phone and via email, Dan assured me that the client would be better off with me than without me. I disagreed. But Dan urged me to meet with the client anyway.
Let's call him Abraham. Central casting could not have done a better job. Soft-spoken, college-educated, and rather bewildered, he described how, early one morning, soldiers came to his home in Addis Ababa. His crime was handing out leaflets for an opposition political party, and coordinating the activities of a small number of lower-level party members. He was jailed, interrogated, beaten, and denied food as well as access to friends and family. Six weeks later he was released on the condition that he stop his political activity. That he wouldn't do. Instead, with a valid visa obtained before his arrest, he arrived in the United States and applied for asylum the day he landed in Washington, D.C.
Did I believe him? I'm a former federal prosecutor and newspaper reporter-I don't believe anyone. But I believed every word Abraham said. He never claimed to be an important political figure, never dramatized his plight, never wavered in telling the details of what happened to him. He admitted to what he couldn't recall, and would not be budged off what he could remember. I also noticed he broke into a sweat every time he saw a uniformed guard.
Over the next 13 months, Abraham taught me a lot about human clients. They ask a lot of questions. They want answers, too, and assurances-no matter how often they're told you don't know how things will turn out. In time, their problems become your problems. TV ratings didn't keep me up at night anymore. Abraham's case did.
The morning of his January merits hearing, Abraham was rested, confident, and ready. I, on the other hand, hadn't slept in two days. He testified in a clear, straightforward manner and then withstood a withering cross-examination with courage and consistency. He won his own case.
A week later, Abraham insisted on taking me to lunch at a restaurant in the "Little Ethiopia" neighborhood of L.A. It was on Fairfax Avenue, just down the street from Canter's Deli, near where my grandfather Abraham had lived. He had fled Poland before World War I. In the 1920s he went back and tried to convince the rest of his family to join him. They refused. They were afraid because America was such a Christian country. Abraham returned to America alone. His family ended up in Auschwitz.
Over a platter of injera and sega wot, I toasted my client and tried to make him promise to vote Democratic when he became a citizen. He frowned and said he'd think about it. This is not a guy who likes being told how to vote. All in all, I'd say Ethiopia's loss is America's gain.
Did Abraham's saga have a Hollywood ending? No-it was too perfect. Who would believe it? If I hadn't been there, I wouldn't believe it myself.
So, as my wife and agent both predicted, I went back to writing for TV
Jonathan Shapiro is a Los Angeles-based co-executive producer of the NBC drama Life, and a former federal prosecutor.
Alexandra Brown
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