"Undertone" - September 6

The lawyers enter the firm and select teams randomly from a box. 1=window side, 2= reception side.

After the random draw, Aileen, Regina, Olivier, and Keith will face off against Michael, Barrett, Deep and Chris. Here’s the case.

Davis v. Garcia & Martinez

Lee Davis, an African American woman, claims that neighborhood kids have damaged her house, car and yard. thus she is suing the parents. The defendants, Garcia and Martinez, two Hispanic women, claim that neither they nor their children are responsible for the damage.

The teams draw closed portfolios to choose sides, and Team Aileen draws the prosecution, while Team Michael draws the defense.

At first glance, Team Aileen (the prosecution) realizes that they may be in trouble as Lee Davis is apparently not liked very much by the neighborhood. In fact she has filed numerous claims against different neighbors. Of course, the defense is very happy with all of this and is looking to exploit the fact by finding neighbors that can possible attest to this in person.

In organizing the defense, Michael decides that he needs to take on the leadership role before anyone else on his team botches things and Deep contests this. To this, Michael responds that Deep trying to be a leader is like a Midget trying to be tall. Zing!

The prosecution visits Lee Davis to survey the damage and finds that the damage is mostly wear and tear. Worse yet, Lee can not affirm that she saw any of the vandalism being committed. Needless to say the prosecution is worried as to the strength of their case.

The defense meeting with Garcia and Martinez finds that there isn’t much to defend other than “they didn’t do it.” They did receive a tape of a phone message received by another neighbor, but we’ll give you more on that later.

Then the bomb is dropped. Lee Davis tells us that the defendants have used racial epithets toward her. Olivier quickly realizes that this is not a case of vandalism but rather one of harassment and hate and his team begins to adjust accordingly.

Back on the Defense side, Michael and Barrett who had gone to visit the defendants are now returning to the firm in the van to consult Chris and Deep. Michael begins to plan who should make what argument at trial, but little does he know that Chris and Deep are doing the same thing back at the firm. In fact once everyone is together we find out that both Mike and Deep want to do the opening statement, and Michael in insistent on getting his way. Boom! The Lawyers begin to verbally berate each other like they are petty contestants on a reality show. Wait… Eventually Deep subsides and gives Michael his way. That makes Michael happy and the team is back on track. 

Harassment and emotional distress become the goal of Team Aileen, but Regina has been pushed to the outside. She is pissed that the rest of the team does not want to work with her but she realizes this is a game and prepares herself anyway.  

Now back to that audio tape. Wanna hear it? Of course you do! Here you go! 

“Hey Del, Lee Davis down the street. I am so disappointed in your position because you are black. It seems like your support should be right here. Not anyplace else. No way a Hispanic man would side with me regardless of the issue against those Hispanic women. They would stick together. Which we’re not.” 

Now that race relations have been set back ten years, Michael lets his team know that he doesn’t think it is relevant and that they can’t get it in. What!? Barrett point out that it affirms a racial bias, to which Chris and Deep agree, but as Barrett put it “Mike is the POTUS (President of the U.S.) and his decision sticks. I know the elections were confusing and all with chads, Florida and Ohio, but I’m pretty sure Michael isn’t President. Michael nonetheless is confident they will win. 

Team Aileen meets with Lee Davis in order to make their plan clear to her. Aileen tells her that the best chance of winning is through the harassment claims and Lee Davis wants to stick to the fact that balls and poop are on her lawn. Keith tries to reason with Lee and Olivier back up Aileen, but Lee tells them to be quiet. 

She proceeds to point out that Hispanic women use intimidation tactics to scare black people out of their neighborhoods so that their friends can move in. On this note Regina storms out of the room and Keith follows her. Regina is Mexican and takes offense to all that is being said and Keith tries to calm her down reminding her of their responsibility to the client. Regina eventually re-enters the room, but is visibly shaken. 

Court Time! 

Keith opens and sets the tone of the case as being one of racist insult and harassment by using the N word to stir the court. The Defense begins shuffling papers and Michael rises to open. Michael questions how to solve a problem like Lee Davis that insult the legal process and suggests that Davis is the racist. Both open were clean, but the flubs are yet to come. 

Aileen begins her direct examination of Lee Davis and Lee starts off on her “Balls and Poo” routine. When asked to identify threats, Lee mentioned insult but never threats until after Aileen dragged out of her the fact that the defendants threatened to “off” her. 

Chris crosses and points out that none of these racist comments were in the forms for the restraining order that Lee Davis had filed on Mrs. Garcia. Further he cleared that Mrs. Martinez never made a threat. 

Deep examined Mrs. Garcia and clarified the details of the restraining order and painted Valeria Garcia as a fearful mother. He details cause for damages including that Garcia has covered her windows and has become a prisoner in her home. 

Regina begins her cross like the Micro-Machines man questioning if Garcia ever called Davis cruel names. Further, she got Garcia to verify that police visited Davis’ house. Wait… Regina’s on the prosecution why did she do that. As Olivier puts it, she made Garcia seem like a choir girl when she needed to look like a liar. 

Chris examined the neighbor receiving the telephone message and got the witness to spell out the contents of the tape. Chris then attempts to play the tape to jog the recollection of the witness, but in reality, the witness already proved the recollection of the tape and thus playing the tape was overruled. 

In close, Olivier steals a page from Michael’s book and suggests that there is no problem with Lee Davis as she straightens out her difficulties in court. He suggests that the defendants have mistreated Davis and as a result Davis should be compensed, cut and simple.  

Barrett closes err… umm… tries to close and says that “this is despicable” and that Lee Davis has issues” She then proceeds to trip over her words and not utter another meaningful statement. 

The Decision 

Yeah, no suspense here. Lee Davis and the Prosecution lose for having not met the burden of proof and as a result Davis is ordered to pay $10,000 to each Garcia and Martinez. It’s a sad, sad day in lawyer-land. Especially because Lee believes Barrett’s close was better than Olivier’s (Trust me, Lee is REALLY wrong on this one). Keith feels bad for Lee, because she really doesn’t get “it.” Anyone watching this would whole-heartedly agree. 

The Verdict 

Black points out the flaws of Chris, Regina, Barrett and Aileen claiming that Chris should not have had such difficulty getting the tape entered into evidence, Regina needed to control her emotion, Barrett could not afford to flub so severely on her close, and Aileen needed to better control her witness. Keith joined in on the harping with Olivier, attacking Regina to the point where Regina blamed it on the egotistical men on her team. I’m sorry dear, you made mistakes because of you and only you. For that reason the Verdict is in and Regina, you are out. Additionally, I have a second verdict. The Verdict is in and Barrett you are out (See, I told you her close was worse than Olivier’s). With that 6 lawyers remain and with any luck, we’ll actually finish this show before it goes the way of The Will or Playing it Straight. See you next time.