The Real Wizard of Oz..
Anyone who knows anything about the legal system will tell you the most powerful people in the system are not the judges, but the clerks. The judges clerks can keep you miles away from justice if they don't like you, and the clerks in the office can reject your paperwork indefinitely keeping you and your spouse legally wed into the next millennium. Hence, everyone knows you have to be nice to the judge and even nicer to his "people."
I consider myself always nice and respectful, and usually I do not get the hard times many attorneys who are full of themselves get from these "masters of the universe."
A week or so ago an adversary and I settled a rather messy divorce case and we had our documentation signed, initialed and notarized and were anxious to get it into the court for filing. We had asked that the judge "so order" it a rather unusual step, but one sometimes utilized when attorneys fear that either client may try to undue what has been done and this step takes the stipulation from mere contract to court order. We had faxed the requisite letter advising the court of the settlement and attached the appropriate pages and in that I was going to court that day I thought I would drop off the agreements to chambers.
A phone call was from the clerk of the chambers indicating that he needed to speak with myself and my adversary on a conference call sometime that day involving the settlement. Of course it is difficult to track down lawyers on any given day due to our in and out schedules. My adversary was finally tracked down by her office and we thought we would meet up at the courtroom and see what the problem was.
In that I arrive myself earlier than other counsel, I knocked on the locked courtroom door. It was odd that the door was locked in the first place, but that reason became when I called chambers and they told me the judge was on vacation. I asked to speak with the clerk who called and asked him to come to the locked door to speak with me in that I had the signed stipulations. The secretary, while being incredibly polite advised me almost apologetically that the clerk would not come to the door. She claimed he insisted that my adversary and I do a conference call with him later that day.
Now this felt like OZ. I was knocking at the gates of the Emerald City and was being told that the great and powerful Oz would not grant me an audience! As I attempted to myself with this my adversary happened by to ask me what was going on. I told her what had transpired and after a few unkind words about the ridiculousness of it all, we tried calling chambers again. Of course this time we asked for the audience on behalf of both of us who were now knocking on the other side of the locked courtroom door.
Reluctantly the clerk came out to speak with us. It seems his concerns about our agreement were unfounded in that we had the stipulation in the right format and complied in advance with all of the requirements for so ordering such a stipulation.
Now jokingly my staff refers to me as the Great and Powerful Oz because I make them vet each phone call and not let just anyone through to me, but this takes it all to a new height. Thankfully, another client was at the courthouse with me that day and witnessed this situation. He nodded his head and acknowledged to me that he now understood why I demanded the hourly rate I charged and why the wheels of justice turned as slowly as they did.