Page 429 - WhyAsInY

WitHout reCourse: Harvey, tHe real estate laWyer
I were to leave big firm litigation practice and hang out my shingle as a sole practitioner, I would be leaving without the knowledge and skills that people might pay for. I couldn’t very well sell my services as, say, an antitrust lawyer, but, if I were to learn about real estate, I could at least buy and sell one-family homes in the suburbs. Finally, although the liti- gation work was gratifying in a number of ways, there remained the all-important problem of the Max factor—you should pardon the expression (kids, ask your folks why I said that).
Max stood at about five feet six inches with ramrod posture. He was at one point president of the Harmonie Club, at another, president of Sunningdale Country Club, both famously home to very wealthy Ger- man Jews. He refused to concede a point at tennis or, for that matter, at anything else. He always ordered fish for dinner, he saw Paris—all of it—in two hours, he never smiled, and he really didn’t get the joke. Nei- ther was he any kind of teacher, except, perhaps, by example. No one would have called him warm or cozy. He was foreign to me; I had never met anyone like him, professors included. I just couldn’t see continuing to work with, or rather work for, a powerful, but mercurial, often irratio- nal and incomprehensible, and sometimes tyrannical boss who was known more for his tenacity than for his brilliance, more for his argu- mentativeness than for his ability to orate or write. And he was not a trial lawyer, which I might have wanted to become. His forte was grinding the opposition down during the pretrial phase of a case, with unyielding depositions and a myriad of motions, almost always from the defense side of the case. (I had already learned that skill from attempting to deal with my mother in my youth.) George Gordon, the real estate partner with whom I had worked on the Mattison appeal (see Chapter Twenty- Two), was different from Max. He seemed to be very approachable and considerate, receptive, generous in his praise, easy to work with, and willing, even eager, to teach me.
So it was that I made my decision, gathered myself, and went to Max’s office to have a very difficult discussion. The die was cast. I didn’t know what would happen if he said no. But, to my surprise, Max said that he would reluctantly permit me to make the change. He told me that he
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