The Law Firm, The Finale: The Verdict is (Finally) In

Wow…what a long road to get to this episode huh?

First and foremost, my thanks to the three people (also the size of the Bravo viewing audience for this show) who wondered where I have been for the past three weeks. As Sandy politely pointed out, I was on the RNO lecture circuit which had me in Italy for two weeks. Sadly, RNO Editor David Bloomberg neglected to tell me that I was hiking from city to city for the first week and despite my pleas, he turned down my request to rent a cute little Vespa to get me around the Tuscan countryside. However, thankfully he hasn’t said anything about the numerous bottles of wines on the dinner expenses I submitted last week.

And, oddly enough, last week’s episode involving Outsports.com turned out to be an RNO first – a writer having a conflict of interest with one of the participants in the show. As I’m currently in business negotiations with Outsports.com, I didn’t think it was right for me to talk about the show or the people involved so I graciously thank Sandy for not only taking the two weeks during my Italian tour, but last week’s episode on short notice.

So here we are. We heard about this show last summer and kinda knew that it went into production last fall. Of course it took a year for the show to finally air because NBC kept pushing back the start date until it was nearly one year after the show was originally taped that we finally get to see who won. That’s right. One year. The episode involving Outsports.com was filmed around September 12, 2004, so I guess it’s OVER a year since the show taped. Wow. And I thought Average Joe was bad.

Last week we bid farewell to Aileen. However, in talking to the people at Outsports and reading their message boards, they actually liked the work that Aileen did and felt that it should have been Olivier that was given the axe. In fact, unless Roy Black saw outtakes from the trial, according to the Outsports.com guys, he was nowhere to be seen during Jim’s testimony and therefore could not accurately comment on Mike’s examination of him as a witness.

Oh, but that’s all for last week’s episode. This week we FINALLY have a winner. It will either be Michael, the recently outed, hard as nails, not afraid to fight and challenge everyone on the show, and definitely not afraid to say he’s better than someone. Then there’s Olivier, who has thrown temper tantrums, jeopardized a case by marginalizing one of his fellow lawyers, swooned over a dominatrix, and pretty much been a cad this entire show. In fact, he went four episodes without winning a case if I am not mistaken.

This week’s case is a doozy. I mean we’ve had everything from a dog mauling another dog to a coroner posing as a cop to a dominatrix’s website to everything in between, and now we get the big enchilada. This is the case of Denise Patterson v. Day Care Center. I note that they just call it “Day Care Center” throughout the court case because I do wonder if it was a state agency or if they just wanted to protect the real name of the center.

Deontae Shaw was a 21 year old man who was diagnosed as being schizophrenic and lived at a home for disabled adults. Each day he was taken by a private bus to what was politely termed as an “adult day care” facility. Following a fight at the day care center (and trust me, I don’t like having to call it a “day care center,” but that’s the phrase they used so work with me here), Deontae was told that he would not be allowed back on the premises again. A couple days later, Deontae returned to the day care center via the private bus where he was told he was not welcome and he would have to take public transportation home. Later that same day Deontae was found dead, having been shot by an unknown killer. Denise Patterson, Deontae’s mother, is suing the day care center for negligence and wrongful death.

Already I can tell you that this is going to be an extremely emotional case. I’m not even sure how I feel about the case but I do know that there’s going to be more than a few tears shed.

At this point, Michael and Olivier are asked to pick two of their formerly departed competitors to assist them on this case. Think of this as sort of what was done in the first two editions of The Apprentice before Trump decided to just assign people to Kendra and Tana. Michael opts to take Aileen and Barrett. Okay, I can understand Aileen, but I was never really impressed with Barrett, to be honest with you. Maybe he liked her research or interviewing skills, but she really didn’t do anything for me that made me go, “Wow! Someone has to take Barrett!” In fact, in taking Barrett, he bypassed a lot of people who left after her – Keith, Deep, and Chris to be exact. I thought Chris was a better than Barrett, but who am I to judge.

As for Olivier, he opts to take Keith and Regina. Just kidding! Wouldn’t it have been a scream to see him pick Regina to help him on the case? Oh yeah, those two would really get along well. Actually, Oliver picks Keith and Jason to be his assistants on the case. Keith is someone I can live with as a pick. Jason, though, is more of a question mark since he was eliminated in the first round of competition and I have to admit I don’t know if I would have gone with that much of a dark horse lawyer. If I had gotten to see a bit more of his depth of knowledge then I would feel comfortable making that pick. Then again, maybe Jason slipped Olivier a note in the schoolyard that says, “I like you. Do you like me? Check yes or no.”