Page 532 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
so in front of others. In the atmosphere at that time, the casual request for a backdated instrument raised my antennae even higher than usual when it came to Fred.
Q: Is backdating a document wrong?
A: “Backdating” a note or any other document might or might not be
a bad thing, depending upon the use to which it would be put and upon the extent to which it reflected reality. This was the first such request by Fred, and my visceral reaction was that I did not want to be drawn into something that might in the future be seen as an effort to create evidence that was contrary to the facts. If the borrowing had in fact occurred on or prior to the date of the note (and the borrower was creditworthy when the promise to pay was made), there was no problem, but I had the sense, based on years of experience with Fred, that he might be setting me up.
Q: Setting you up?
A: If things went wrong, Fred loved to put the blame on others, lawyers
in particular. Perhaps this request related to an expected audit, one conducted to test, among other things, whether the Coronet entity had complied with the attorney general’s concerns about the net worth of sponsors.
Q: What did you do?
A: A shiver went through me, and I in effect refused his request. I told
him that I would not draft the note unless Norman himself sent me a memo in which he stated that the obligation had existed in a manner consistent with the terms that Fred outlined. That request obviously communicated my distrust to Fred and, therefore, to Norman.
Q: And?
A: Norman sent me the memo that enabled me to draft the note, which
I did, using an “as of ” date, which shows that it was drafted later • 514 •