ArchivedLogs:Retaining Counsel

Retaining Counsel
Dramatis Personae Matt Murdock, Regan	2014-05-17 '
Location <NYC> The Law Offices of Nelson & Murdock - Clinton
The Law Offices of Nelson & Murdock is a bit of a misnomer: it is really just one office, and it is not so much a real office as a tiny storefront set into one of the many brick buildings of Clinton that has been converted into an office. On entering in through the door, which still has a little bell that chimes merrily whenever it opens, a desk sits directly to the left with the nameplate of Karen Page, the firm's secretary. Past her desk is an open area with chairs where clients can talk with either attorney, and beyond that are two more desks set up for the attorneys, Foggy Nelson and Matt Murdock, themselves. The entire back wall is dedicated to law books, although the keen eye might notice duplicate copies of everything; one set in regular type, and one set in Braille. The office is kept pretty clean, although occasionally a random assortment of items takes up space: cookies, bags of rice, sporting goods, wheels of cheese, just about anything odd one can think of. Though the attorneys might defend their clients as being respectable, upstanding citizens, they can't always pay in cash, and the firm has quite the ebay account to try to make up for it. No doubt most of the white collar workforce in the city is out and about, enjoying a day off in the nice weather of a late Saturday afternoon. This is, however, not the case for a certain blind lawyer, who currently paces (carefully) around his office while chatting on the cell phone, or so it appears, anyway, if you peek in through the windows. At some point, he had been wearing a full suit, slacks and jacket in a nice, neat light gray, shirt crisp and white, and tie a more or less neutral color that Karen probably picked out for him, but the jacket and tie have been shed, draped on his desk chair, and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up a few turns. For the regular passersby, this is really not a surprising sight, honestly. Matt is always working on something, even on the weekends. Ding! The doorchime sounds its cheerful tone to herald Regan's arrival into Matt's office. She's dressed like she's come here straight from work, blue scrubs and sensible sneakers and a grey-and-pink windbreaker over top, her hair tied back off her face in a bun and a work ID still clipped to her shirt from Mount Sinai and jangling against a bunch of keys when she moves. She has a phone in her hand, though she's currently tucking it away into the large purse draped over one shoulder. She pauses in the doorway, glancing around and not yet interrupting, what with the phone in Matt's hand as well. This week's interesting additions to the office decor includes stacked boxes of Girl Scout cookies, some carved wooden ducks, and a grouping of brightly colored pinatas (although not quite enough to be considered a plethora). Matt knows she's there before the doorchime can even ding: the soundwaves from passing cars gave away her general shape as she stopped at the door, then the click of the latch, the very subtle change of air as it first opened. He first tips his head, though, with an ear more to the door once that ding sounds. "--yeah, Foggy, I get it. No working tomorrow. Listen, I gotta go, somebody's stopped in. Okay. Okay, no more pinatas, bye," he says in a rush, before pulling the phone away from his ear and ending the call with a tap of thumb. "Hello?" he offers into the new quiet, more or less turning properly her way. He wears a friendly smile and a pair of dark sunglasses. "Mr. Murdock." Regan's voice is warm enough, though there's a faintly strained sort of urgency to it. There's very slight droop to her posture, steps dragging just a hair; she's had /not/ nearly enough sleep lately and it is starting to show. "Apologies, for bothering you on a Saturday. I've been looking for some help and I've heard you're a good man to come to." "That's okay. If I didn't want to be bothered, I wouldn't be here," he says, quick to assure with a measure of warmth. Matt slips his phone into a pocket and moves the few steps to close the gap. "Please, come in. And, well, I don't know about being a good man to come to, but I try." This last bit is said with a wry touch, one corner of his mouth skewed upwards in a self-deprecatory sort of grin. He holds a hand out for a shake that is mostly lined up with her direction. Mostly. "Matt Murdock, although it sounds like you knew that. And your name is..?" Regan closes the door behind herself, taking a step forward and meeting the handshake with a firm grasp. "Regan Wyngarde." It's not a well-known name by any stretch though to the alert it's not an /un/known one, either, sharing credit in the news as one of the trio who created the cure medicine that ended the zombie plague last fall. "Try is a good start. I have a friend in need of legal assistance and his -- particular circumstances, there aren't many even willing to do that much for him." Matt's shake is firm and friendly, the skin of his palm and fingers maybe a tiny bit more calloused than one might expect from the average attorney. He notes the name, and does recognize it, after spending one of those fleeting moments thinking on why it sounds familiar, though he doesn't say anything about it. Instead, after the handshake, he gestures further within the office, to the small open area with chairs. "Please, have a seat, if you'd like. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Ahh I'd offer you coffee, but the coffee maker and I don't really get along. I do have some bottled water..?" He heads over to Karen's desk and the minifridge behind it with the cautious step of a man who is familiar with his surroundings, but still wary of tripping on something new or otherwise misplaced. "May I ask why your friend has been having trouble finding legal assistance?" "Water would be excellent, thank you." Regan moves to take a seat, unshouldering her bag and setting it down on the floor beside the chair that she settles into. Her hands fold in her lap, her posture very straight. "You may have heard of him, actually. Are you familiar with the name Ryan Holloway?" When moving around the desk, a testing hand just lightly probes out the edge of it, so that he doesn't stub his toe or knock over anything in the process. The light tap-tapping of his fingers might not be completely necessary, but the faint sounds do give Matt just enough of rough sketch in the tiny area to work with so that he doesn't tip over a pen cup. They have had altercations before, he and the pen cup. He stoops down to open the minifridge, and then pauses overlong at that particular name, out of sight behind the desk and thinking. "Yes, I know the name," he says when he finally reappears, with a bottle of water in hand. Matt isn't some uncivilized brute, though, he feels out a glass on top of the short fridge that he can at least pour full. This he brings back to Regan and offers it with an apologetic, "Sorry I don't have ice." She, uh, shouldn't have to reach /too/ far to take it. "I think I understand why the problems, then." "Thank you, Mr. Murdock." Regan leans forward to curl her fingers around the glass, sitting back in her chair to lift it and take a small sip. "It's not /quite/ hot enough yet to need ice." Her legs cross at the knee with a quiet rustle of fabric. "It's hard enough finding representation for /anyone/ who looks very clearly like a mutant. The fangs don't endear him to most people. But /combine/ looking like a vampire with an accusation that you /might/ have conspired to murder a tenth of New York --" Regan draws in her breath slowly, fingers tapping against the side of the glass. "This city will be a long time recovering from the zombie crisis. There are still a lot of people very glad to pin the blame on -- whoever /looks/ the most threatening. I've heard you don't have those same biases. At least not when it comes to your practice." Once she takes the glass, Matt claims another of the chairs as his own, hand questing for the back of it to properly orient himself (though, truth be told, this isn't entirely necessary for him, but keeping up appearances and all that), before he settles in. He nods along with what she says, brows leveled out and mostly hidden behind the sunglasses as his expression sits serious. "I can imagine," he half-says, half-murmurs, at the idea that it is extremely difficult for her friend. At her finger tapping, he tips his head just so to the side, getting a better angle on the sound with his right ear, crisping up the murky picture each one brings by a tiny degree. "Well, looks don't really come into play with me," he quips, corners of his mouth lifting in something that's halfway between a smile and a smirk. "But yes. Everybody has the right to legal representation. To justice," he says, on a more serious note, and with the fervor of someone who believes it instead of just repeating a line beaten into them during law school. "What does he need help with?" The comment about looks draws a small breath of laughter from Regan, her head tipping downwards for a moment. "No, I suppose not. Once you get past the vampire thing, though, he's really quite --" She trails of, lifting her cup again for another longer swallow of water. "There's a warrant out for his arrest. Aggravated assault. There was a hunter injured up north of the city. In the Catskills. Says Dusk attacked him." Matt shows the inkling of a smile with her laugh, but the seriousness of the conversation soon replaces it with a serious expression to match. He sits back fully in his chair to think about it, leg crossing other the other and a hand resting on his knee. "Has he turned himself in?" he asks, after a longish moment. "Not yet, no. It seemed -- unwise, without getting proper legal counsel first. Mutants in the corrections system have a way of collecting mysterious injuries. Vanishing. Dying in custody. He barely survived his last stint in jail, he has somewhat unique dietary needs and they were starving him." Regan's fingers drum against the glass again, quicker, a sharp staccato beat as she lowers the water to her knee. "Representation first seemed prudent." He drums his fingers against his knee, thinking again. There is one very particular question in Matt's mind at the moment: did he do it? Defense attorneys aren't supposed to ask that sort of thing, though, of course. But then, Matt also operates under this odd code of ethics of only representing people who aren't guilty, which many of his lawyer friends are just baffled by. So it goes. "Do you know what kind of evidence he's facing?" he asks instead. There's a very small twitch at Regan's lips, a quiet exhale before her next sip of water. "Among the man's injuries were bites consistent with his fairly unique bite pattern. I'm presuming when the testing is though they'll find plenty of his DNA. There was a lot of blood --" She swishes the cup restlessly in one hand, watching the water slosh against its sides. "But the man shot him. Shot him, then stabbed him. Would have killed him, if he hadn't defended himself. It was hardly a vicious unprovoked attack -- at least," she says, dryly, "not on /his/ part." Matt does his best to conceal his displeasure at that evidence, considering how damning it sounds. His concern isn't so much for the court room, but for that actual innocent or guilty question he'd rather have answered. He tips his head slightly for a better angle against that water swishing, and then the frown he was doing so good at hiding finally shows itself at the mention of shooting and stabbing. "So you're saying that your friend was attacked first?" "He was. He's had something of a rough time lately. There was a kidnapping --" Regan hesitates, finally knocking back the last of the water in her cup. The drumming of her fingers doesn't stop even once it is empty. "He was just looking for some quiet. Peace. To recover in. It can be unfortunately hard to find that when you look like he does." The frown remains. "I'm assuming there isn't a warrant out for the hunter, is there?" Matt assumes. He is not cynical about how the justice system has been treating mutants or anything. "I'd like to meet with your friend, if that's possible right now. I don't know how much I can help him, exactly, without first talking in person." "No. None for the hunter. But Dusk hasn't exactly told many people what actually happened, yet." Regan tips her head in a small nod, pausing before backing up this reflexive gesture with actual words aloud: "Of course. When is a good time for you to meet with him? I can make sure he's here. Or wherever. I should let you know, he's been through some -- very severe trauma recently. Ah, /prior/ to being shot. He might not be at his most comfortable in the city." "The longer he goes without turning himself in and sharing his side of the story, the worse it looks for him, you know," Matt says, sounding mildly troubled about this, himself. "It always makes it look like the person has something to hide, or is trying to get a story together." He takes a moment to try to think of his schedule for the coming week. "I'm in and out of court this next week. It'd probably have to be in the evening sometime. If he'd be too uncomfortable coming here, I'm fine with meeting somewhere else. I'd just need to make some travel arrangements." "And I'm sure turning himself in /without/ having any legal representation would have gone excellently for him." Regan's voice is very dry. "Whatever works for your schedule is fine. Are you familiar with Westchester at all? It's a good deal less crowded than Manhattan. Say, around Salem Center, perhaps." "Yes. I've been out that way before," he says. Matt keeps the fact that one of his more important clients is there very close to his chest, of course. That's not information you should ever share lightly as a respectable attorney. "Is there a way I can contact your friend, so that we can schedule a time? Or should I go through you..?" "He doesn't have a phone just now." Regan leans down to extract /hers/ from her purse. "I can deal with scheduling, though. If you give me a number I'll call you so you have mine." "Sure," Matt says. And he waits a moment until rattling off his work number, presumably to give her enough time to actually have her phone in hand and ready to enter a new number. "That usually goes straight to me, by the way, although Karen, our secretary, can also access the voice mail if you have to leave a message or anything." Regan taps the number into her phone, hitting save before she dials it; she only lets it ring once before hanging up. "There. That missed call is me." She rises, picking up her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. "Where would you like me to put this glass?" Her fingers tap against it again. "And thank you. At least for hearing me out. He deserves better than he's been getting, lately." He twitches, just slightly, in reaction to the phone vibrating at the call. He keeps the ringer off, since the vibration is all Matt needs to realize he's receiving a call. At the question of the glass, he rises as well and says, "Oh, here, I'll take care of it," and holds out a hand to claim it. "Of course. I'll try to help him. And if I can't, I'll send him to somebody else who can do better." Regan presses the glass into Matt's hand, before taking a step back. "Thank you again. I hope I'll be hearing from you soon as to your schedule, then, Mr. Murdock. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday." She slips her own phone back into her purse, turning to head for the door. "You will," Matt promises. He accepts the glass, and then follows her to the door to see her out properly. Well, not see, exactly, but... anyway. "Try to enjoy yours, too, Ms. Wyngarde."