Did you really think that it was all about selling hot dogs boiled in water from the men’s room? Come on. As a defendant’s family walks through the courthouse doors, wondering where to turn for trusted advice, who can be trusted more than the guy selling frankfurters?
The Houston Chron takes this dirty little secret public
Defendants heading to Houston’s criminal courthouse every morning can stop at Mark Lynch’s hot dog cart for a sandwich, cold drink, maybe even a shot at deferred adjudication.At $350 a month, that’s a lot of hot dogs. And if you think this is just a Houston phenomenon, do you notice how many hot dog carts are around 100 Centre Street in Manhattan? Is it because criminal defendants love hot dogs more than anyone else?
Snacks and drinks may pay the rent, but for the past five years, Lynch has had another steady stream of revenue — signs advertising lawyers who “are in the courthouse this morning.”
“It’s a prime location,” Lynch said of the food cart-cum-billboard, a courthouse fixture since 1997. At capacity, the cart can support six signs at $350 to $375 a month. It rarely is full.
Of course, putting a sign up on the umbrella stand has its down side as well. It’s as certain a way of letting the rest of your fellow lawyers know how desperate you are for business, and how low you’ll go to get it. It’s, well, embarrassing. Do you really want to broadcast to the world that you’re the sort of lawyer who does misdemeanors for $99? But for those who do, and are unashamed of doing anything and everything to make a quick buck, it’s definitely a high exposure location.
Of course, there’s one point that the Chron missed in its article, an even dirtier little detail than paying to put your name on the hot dog cart. With a bunch of signs competing for defendants, how is a defendant to tell which lawyer, amongst the various bottom feeders, he should select? For this, they turn to the only person they can trust at the courthouse, the hot dog vendor.
Aha. That’s where the big bucks come into play. For an extra $50 per case, the hot dog guy whispers the secret answer into the ears of the hungry defendant. It’s a dog eat dog business, you know.
For those of you who are busy spending big bucks trying to spam the internets to get your website on the first page of Google, or hiring newly minted experts to teach you how to twit your way to wealth and success, maybe you would do better to think with your stomach. Have you ever wondered why the hot dog guys are always smiling?
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