I represented one client who was, shall we say, less than honorable and decent. It was an administrative law case, and he had been pretty well shafted incorrectly by the agency involved. The matter involved was an approval that should have been a simple ministerial function, but because the agency didn't like him, they tried to screw him on it. I talked to the enforcement people at the agency, and they agreed that their behavior had been out of line. They asked us to come to a simple evidentiary hearing where we would read a few facts into the record and they would pass it along for approval.

So I show up in Austin with my client for a hearing where the agency staff attorney and the ALJ were both good friends. The hearing commenced at 10 AM. As my client was the moving party, I put him on the stand first, introduced his application as Exhibit A, and asked if that was his application. As I had instructed him, he answered yes. I passed the witness. The staff attorney asked one question, and my client goes off on this lengthy tirade about matters totally unrelated to the case, about half of which was at best questionably true. Every attorney's worst nightmare, your client is lying on the stand.

The staff attorney looked at his watch, turned to the ALJ and said, "Your it's about 10:15. I'm kind of hungry. Why don't we break for lunch?" The ALJ said, "Sounds good to me, we're adjourned until 1 pm." She then looked at me and said, "You know what you need to do." And I gave her a cheery aye-aye.

Took my client to lunch, woodshedded him pretty good, and back to the hearing at 1. Staff attorney had two more questions, and we were done by 1:30. The only reason it took that long was because one of the questions was one that the agency's staff accountant wanted the attorney to ask, and while he was a good attorney, he was no accounting expert, and he kept screwing up the question. Finally, I said, "Why don't we just let the accountant ask the question directly?" Staff attorney asked, "Can we that? The rules don't allow it." I said, "You can if I don't object. I want to get back to Houston by supper time." So the accountant asked the question, it was answered, and we were out of there finally. Something that should have taken 30 minutes took half a day.

Two days later, I got a letter from the client, firing me because I was too friendly with the agency staff to be able to represent him properly. And he never paid my final bill.

Taught me my lesson about representing scuzzy people.