Member-only story
The Client Who Gave Away Her Inheritance
Generosity is more complicated than I thought.
Newly divorced and unemployed, I opened a solo law practice in a two-story lime green house on the edge of Portland’s industrial district. I slept upstairs and practiced law downstairs. My long-term goal was to build a trusts and estates practice, but until that happened I did whatever small-time pickup work I could talk other lawyers into giving me.
The first client of my very own with a case of any value, was a woman named Tashi. She’d heard my name mentioned by someone I knew from AA, and while taking a walk one day, saw that name on the sign I’d planted in the front yard of my combination office and home. To her, it was a sign from God that I should be her lawyer. She was the only walk-in client I ever had at the green house.
Tashi was a Buddhist. She was about sixty years old, Caucasian, shaved-head, and, although I never put a tape measure to her, couldn’t have been over five feet tall. Her Buddhist uniform, which she wore all the time, consisted of sandals, a burgundy robe, and beads. Most of the time, she lived near my office in a commune populated by other Buddhist women, but she also maintained a government-subsidized Section 8 studio in a large apartment building across town.