Buying Time follows the twists and turns of a crisis between
two factions inside a law firm in the western United States.
The firm is a real one, based on a partnership not widely known
in eastern legal circles, but which has done landmark legal
work, creating laws so widely known that one has become a household
word.
I have named the firm Dunne & Russo (a pseudonym), and placed
it in a fictional Western city called Mesa (also invented),
but the events shown are all based in fact. Even the final ironic
dénouement is taken from life. Indeed, I have neither the legal
knowledge nor the dramatic daring to invent such a weirdly appropriate
twist of fate as the one provided by real life.
People often ask writers where they get their ideas. In the
case of Buying Time I did not chose this story, it chose me.
Some years ago, while eavesdropping on a telephone conversation
between my wife and a friend of hers out west, I heard snippets
about some dramatic crisis in the law firm where her husband
worked. Partners were threatening to quit, secret late night
meetings were called in local fast food eateries, documents
were impounded by a client, there was a fist fight during a
strategy session, a marriage nearly blew apart...
It sounded like nothing I had ever heard or imagined about
lawyers. The crisis, as best I could make out, involved one
of the law firm's large mining clients, who were demanding that
the firm drop a small environmental group they were representing
on a pro bono basis - that is, for free. It looked at first
glance like a straightforward case of dollars vs. legal ethics.
But, oddly, the mining client had no direct legal conflict with
the environmental group - which, in the play, I call LivEarth.
Pressure was being applied for what seemed arbitrary reasons.
The mining company simply disliked tree-huggers. Or was it that
simple? And why would a law firm tolerate such meddling from
any client.
It was this initial mystery that drew me to the idea for this
play. Our family friend was kind enough to arrange introductions
to senior partners and various other personnel of the firm where
he worked out west. And by one of those miracles of timing that
too rarely attend our lives, I arrived on the scene just as
the crisis was reaching a head.
I was thus able to witness, or hear about many events shown
in the play first hand. The firm provided me with a storage
room where I could withdraw between interviews and write up
my notes, and the partners willingly, even eagerly shared their
passions, confusions and fears as the crisis deepened. One turned
to me in the middle of my interview with him and asked in genuine
anguish, "What would you do in my position?"
I came away very impressed by the moral passion and the powerful
sense of mission I witnessed among this particular group of
attorneys.
Several of the lawyers I met back then became friends. A few
were generous enough to read drafts of the evolving play, catching
errors and suggesting valuable improvements. A small group of
them even traveled a fair distance to see a performance of an
earlier version of the play out-of-town, and afterwards drank
late into the night trying to dull the pain they felt at reliving
these events.
Knowing the firm was still very much in business ("bigger and
better than ever" one partner insists), I was moved to ask one
of them who remained at the firm what it feels like to practice
law there nowadays. "It was the most exciting legal culture
I'd ever encountered when I began my career," she told me. "Now
we're just another bunch of suits for hire."
Buying Time is the story of how this happened.
-- Michael Weller, September 27, 2000
[back to "Buying Time"]
