“Go hang out at the courthouse and you might learn something,” as I have often said. This is advice that I give to all my readers so as to familiarize themselves with the system that will take much of their time and money.
When I arrived this morning, I got my Starbucks coffee and headed inside to be greeted by my dear friend Debra Opri. Ms. Opri commented that I should work for her. I reminded her that her clients cannot afford me and then she recalled and said, “Oh thats right, I use someone else.” A strange encounter, but then again, look who I am dealing with… Larry, is that you? Oh, I won’t go there right now. So there you have it, a great start and then I got “Opried.” All right, what else can go wrong? Then I walk over and who else do I run into? Phil Kaufler, he was with another attorney who looked just as cheap as he did…his concern was, was I working for the other side who is about to kick his ass and any hope of getting paid right to the moon! “Phil, you are not going to get paid, this guy did not pay Trope and Trope and he sure the hell is not going to pay you.” He walked away talking to himself…all right, “Opried” and “Kauflered,” all within 15 minutes or less.
By this time my coffee was cold and I sat in Judge Donna Goldstein’s courtroom, Dept. 63 and watched a lawyer that I had never met before. Crystal Boultinghouse, an incredibley talented lawyer with three years of handling divorce cases under her belt. She is with the Law Offices of J. Michael Kelly, someone else that I had never heard of before today. Ms. Boultinghouse had three cases going on today and she was going full steam ahead with her assistant giving her water by the bottle. For any firm out there looking for talent this is one very big rising star, and you heard it here first! Three years at the Divorce Game and she can handle going up against much seasoned lawyers, today it was Patrick DeCarolis of Trope and DeCarolis, then her second case was an older gentleman and the third I think that I could have handled.
Crystal attempted to get the attention of Judge Goldstein, and she did, and she soon realized that was a mistake when Her Honor told her in a very legal way to be quiet. But no pain no gain! This is the stuff good lawyers get paid to do. If Mr. Kelly has a couple more lawyers of Crystals calibre hanging around the office I would be surprised. You don’t see this very often, or at least I don’t, and who knows more about this than me? Oh, and how about this, she was not hanging around the office, she was handling her business in a courtroom. It does seem sad that many firms have lawyers that can do well sitting at a desk, and annoying people like me, but the art of speaking and practicing law in a courtroom is an art that many in the big firms will never get a chance at. Why you ask? Because they either don’t have the ability or they lack the power and knowledge that it requires to take the shots of real lawyering. Great job Ms. Boultinghouse, I was impressed, unlike my first 15 minutes of entering the building. Law Offices of J. Michael Kelly, 429 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 120, Santa Monica, California 90401 310-393-0236 (note: I know nothing of this firm other than that of Crystal Boultinghouse, Esquire)