While not the normal course for me, this has been a strange week for fees.  A bounced check, a million excuses and a diamond.

It’s not uncommon in criminal defense that clients make promises regarding payment that they can’t keep.  Sometimes it’s a scam, but more often than not it’s a reflection of overly positive thinking.  Criminal defense lawyers are, by nature, vigilant of these issues.  If they aren’t, they go hungry.  It’s just the nature of the beast.  Unlike Biglaw associates making $190,000 out of the box before they are able to correctly identify the various parts of the human anatomy, criminal defense lawyers earn their keep on a day to day basis.

So when a client’s check went south, we had to have a chat.  Despite his assurances of good intentions some day in the future, I was unpersuaded.  Legal fees can very quickly turn into a horrible conflict between lawyer and client at the very moment in time that the two need to work together seamlessly.  This isn’t good for anyone.

So, an offer was made to fulfill the obligation by way of a diamond.  Notwithstanding my general inclination against taking chickens, cars and jewels in lieu of fees, it gave me pause to think.  A diamond?  What’s the point of a diamond?  Have you ever pondered the question?  Well, neither had I until yesterday.

Diamonds cut glass, but I don’t really have any glass that needs cutting.  Some women and rappers like diamonds, but the reason for this is not entirely clear to me.  It’s a rock.  An interesting one, to be sure, but not a lot more than, say, I nice piece of quartz.  Yet it’s deemed sufficiently valuable that men spend huge portions of their income to buy it to give to women to prove their love.  Wouldn’t their love be better proven by a nice condo?  And what’s with the carat conundrum?  Quantity versus quality has long been the dilemma, even though most of us couldn’t tell a real one from a fake if our lives depended on it.  We can, however, discern big from small (most of the time).

And yet, this doesn’t answer the question why.  Why do we care about diamonds?  Well, somebody has done one heck of a job convincing us that they are worth a lot.  And believe me, for something with so little actual utility, this is not easy.  Their rarity is clearly an important factor, though I have some serious doubts that they are anywhere near as rare as we are led to believe.  Walk through the diamond district in Manhattan and you will see enough for every man, woman and rapper to have a dozen.  From what I hear, there even more in the back rooms, being held back to stem a flood of the market with cheap, flawless, huge diamonds. 

Of course, I’ve seen the deBeers ads on TV.  They are terrific.  Every time I see the guy put the diamond necklace on the sleeping woman, I feel like a cad for not doing the same for my beloved wife.  Somehow, the feeling passes.  But diamonds were special before these ads.  Even before TV.  So while these commercials may keep the love alive, they can’t be the cause.

Mr. Freeze needed diamonds to keep his freezing suit cold, but that’s a special use so it doesn’t apply to everyone.  Diamonds are used in cutting blades effectively, but they take the crappy ones that are too visually flawed to prove undying love. 

I remember my sister-in-law informing the family that her longtime boyfriend, who was imminently bound to propose, had better pony up a 2 carat rock if he expected a positive response.  Talk about a couple who really could have used a condo, but this was her priority.  Would she have been ashamed to hang with her engaged friends with some puny stone on her finger?  I guess. 

In the end, I could think of no particularly good reason to want a diamond.  Granted, it might be marketable on eBay if I could somehow prove that (a) it was in fact a diamond, and (b) there was someone out there in the eBay world who would buy a diamond from the likes of me.  But this involved yet further work and risk, and one bounced check was enough of a problem for the day.  So I passed on the offer.  But he was wearing a nice watch.