Halbertism #18

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

Once upon a time, my son, Kevin, got into a

 fender bender accident with a car full of

 Mexicans in Los Angeles...

The accident was entirely the fault of the Mexicans. In spite of that, they got a sleazy lawyer who began making "shake down" calls to my son trying to milk some money from him. The calls got more and more obnoxious and Kevin finally asked me to help. I told him it would be a snap to solve this problem... but... he had to say exactly what I wanted him to say the next time the dirtbag lawyer called. I was so adamant about this, I actually wrote him a telephone script and told him he had to follow it... word for word.

He did and the problem was solved immediately. Here is the script I wrote for him:

Dirtbag Lawyer:      "Mr. Halbert, this is Dirtbag again. I'm calling about the car accident and..."

Kevin:                      (butting in and interrupting the Dirtbag:) "Mr. Dirtbag, please hold on just a moment and I'll get right back on the phone."

                                 (Then, he puts Dirtbag on hold. After about two minutes he picks up the phone again:)  "Mr. Dirtbag, I needed to get off the phone long enough to set up a tape recorder to record this call. It's recording now. The reason I did this is because of one of your previous phone calls to me. I believe you are trying to extort money from me and I want to send the tape of this call... and any future calls from you... to the Bar Association. Now, you go ahead and tell me what you're calling about."

Dirtbag Lawyer:      "Turn that damn thing off! It's illegal to record telephone calls!"

Kevin:                      "No it's not illegal... just as long as you let the other party know you are recording the call. And I told you I am recording this call."

Dirtbag Lawyer:      "Turn that damn thing off!"

Kevin:                      "No."

Dirtbag Lawyer:      (ballistic babble and gobbledy gook)

Kevin:                      "Hey, you got anything to say or not?"

The dirtbag lawyer hung up and never called back.

MORAL: People always act differently (VERY differently) when you let them know they are being recorded and/or video taped. This is a GREAT "lawyer taming" tool.