I should have gone to law school.

In the midst of a complicated real estate closing which had ownership interest vested in three separate estates, the boyfriend of one of the estate representatives sought to counsel her .  His counsel had nothing to do so much with the transaction, but rather dealt with the cut she was to receive from the proceeds.  He proceeded to upbraid all assembled in a loud and obnoxious way , refusing to accept any explanation as it did not comport with his expectation of recompense.  Of course he wanted to do away with the realtor commission, the taxes due and more to the point the legal fees.

Of course , it was not stated that she had lived in the premises rent free for years, until the other estates got their act together and forced a sale by which she would be ejected from the premises.
She was a fairly benign personality  , but sufficiently aware that rent free is personally gratifying. She also lived there with her beau and her brother, neither of whom had any identifiable means of support
beyond that which was supplied by lady.  Brother was sufficiently in her debt to renounce any share in the Estate, which probably saved him the step of having to avoid myriad creditors.

Boyfriend was tagging along as the lady was sufficiently wise to take the lump sum and put it down as down payment on a new abode.  Yikes, mortgage tax and insurance after years of  nothing is a severe form of sticker shock.  I hope the three have a long and prosperous life together and that the burdens of homeownership are lightly shared among them.

But be that as it may the other Estate Owners wanted it sold so that they could obtain closure of their relatives estate and  could use their modest sum for their own purpose.

But boyfriend, thought he was coming to the closing table to negotiate the split.  Usually , I would say something like  "You have no place here so get out",   but I must be mellowing so I entertained his questions.  When he persisted, I simply said:  "Don't Close,it is that simple"  sort out the split and come back later, what difference did it make, she had stalled the closing for a year, until she was confronted with no choice. So a few more weeks were of no moment.

It was decided that in some form  that the proceeds of sale  would come through my office and they would pick up the split later.  The buyers attorney was good with this as he was tiring of the boyfriends demands for explanation .   The lawyer, an older Jewsih man of older Jewsih  sardonic view was tolerating  the situation much better than I, who still rales at stupidity and injustice.  The older man having seen it all is not easily riled.

But at one point in the process, the boyfriend  offered up the statement:  "I should have gone to law school, I would have been good at it"  My older colleague at the bar replied:  "Yes, you among many should have gone to law school, but the idea of working hard  at it for 3 or 4 years is off putting to  many who think they would have been good at it, and those are usually the types who actually would not be good at it"

The boyfriend had no idea that he had just been quietly insulted , for the Lawyer had quickly assessed him as a loud, lazy freeloader and was giving him his due. The boyfriend I suspect today he is telling his Doctor that he should have gone to medical school, which he should have, that way he would not be freeloading off his girlfriend.

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