Advocate for Broken Wings, f/k/a Mr. Lawyerman, Ch. 3

Though lawyers tend to be pack animals, there are outliers.

Thank God.

But with any outlier, there usually is a story

or tragedy.

Mr. Lawyerman had a trial against an outlier last year

and wishes he would have found more about her story before her death.

All we have to work with now are various non-specific clues.

To begin with, she apparently graduated first in her law school class.

No doubt that was quite an honor and certainly would have opened some doors for her in corporate america, wall street, or basically whatever the hell she wanted to do with a law degree if there are things to do with one.

However, thirty years after her graduation, she had a solo practice anchored at times in her apartment, an ever changing office address, and if rumors were true, her car.

Her uniform was strictly non-lawyer (at least out of court).

At depositions, Barbara wore ragged flannel tshirts, jeans, and a red dew rag red bandana covering her long grey hair.

They say she looked the part of the homeless person.  But I never trust mob psychology, especially coming from Judges.

Was Barbara like Dickens' Miss Havisham--a victim of some itinerant suitor?  Some modern day Compeyson?

Could that explain the metamorphosis of the top law student?

If so, that was all she had in common with Miss Havisham.

For Barbara sought to protect all the Pip's in the world--be they human or animal. 

I remember her telling Mr. Lawyerman about the story of a wounded bird, and how upset she was that she could not heal it.   Or of all the cats at her apartment that she was concerned about during her extended out of town trial. 

Her clients likewise involved injured birds of sorts, those who otherwise would have gone without legal representation.  They all, like her, were outcasts from society, usually because of their past misdeeds.

But for the grace of God:

BARBARA JEAN CLINITE, 64 CHICAGO - Barbara Jean Clinite, 64, of Chicago, died Nov. 10, 2011, at Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines, Ill. Miss Clinite was born on Nov. 10, 1947, to Rolland Arthur and Barbara June (Erbes) in Spring Valley, Ill. Survivors include her brothers and sister, Jerald (Judi) Clinite of Gold Canyon, Ariz., Susan (David) Bacher of Middleburg, Fla., David (Jill) Clinite of Winnebago, Ill., and Brian (Matthew Bruehler) Clinite of Atlanta, Ga.; and her many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by both parents. Miss Clinite graduated from Guilford High School (1965) and Augustana College and earned her law degree at Loyola University Chicago School of Law while working full-time as a social worker for the City of Chicago. She was the 1980 recipient of the law school's distinguished Chief Justice Edward D. White award presented annually to the senior with the highest academic performance. A member of the Illinois State and American Bar Associations, she specialized in injury and medical negligence law. She owned her law firm located at 120 W. Madison St. in Chicago. A private family memorial service will be followed by burial of ashes at Greenwood Cemetery, Rockford. Memorials may be directed to Tree House Humane Society, 1212 W. Carmen Ave., Chicago, IL.

Emo, Ch. 1

She was black and immense with peaks, valleys, and alluvial plains.

He was a skinny Asian.

Their first child was beautiful and almost white.

With penetrating blue eyes like his father.

They named him Emmanuel Rights Jefferson.

Just like the city of Jefferson, in what used to be the state of Missouri.


His family called him Emo.

Emo prospered in mind and spirit, but soon discovered he was different from other children.

At school, while the other children had difficulty casting basic spells of transition, Emo found that he could change to a different species with a thought rather than going through the verbose incantation the spell required from other children.

Not wanting to appear different, Emo kept his ability secret. 

And such were the state of events until his thirteenth year when the school was beset with the blight of Crisivaya.  The blight was thought to originate as a practical joke among the students of the high collegueum, but it effects where almost devastating on the students of Emo's class.  For the spell of transition operated under the basic principle of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny--that is if you go through the incantation to change from a human to an eagle, your body form during the spell must first revert to the lowest evolutionary form of the eagle--the embryo in the egg to the smallest eaglet before one can transition into the adult eagle.  


Crisivaya, and its many variations, without application of the proper counter spell, left the fledgling magic user stuck in one of the many precursors of the eagle.  Which was definately a problem given that Jefferson--the town where Emo resided--was stuck within vast predatory laden jungle which now comprised what was formerly the continent of North America.


Emo saved his class who were all stuck in some seminal form of animal, and soon became a living legend.   But that was only the beginning.