Upon walking into a courtroom in a courthouse, I saw the judge and several people standing behind a counter. Just after the judge (a fellow about 30 years old) had taken off his black robe, I walked up to him and spoke with him about a divorce case I was handling which had a hearing scheduled for today. The couple getting the divorce had children and the party which I represented was seeking to have the parental rights of the other party terminated.

The judge wanted to know where I got the case. I started to tell him the truth, that Bernard West del Val (who was working as a legal assistant for a Dallas attorney named Kowalski), had sent my client to me, but I refrained from telling the judge that, realizing that I had been paying Bernard half the fee I had been receiving in the case, and that such a fee-splitting arrangement wasn't permitted by the ethical rules which governed lawyers.

The judge spoke about the case, and he seemed to think terminating the parental rights might not be a good idea in this case. Actually, this case wasn't going to be tried by this judge, but was set to be heard today by another judge in another court. However, in about a month, I was going to have another civil case before this judge. Since I had never had a civil case in front of a judge before, I was unsure just how it was going to work out.

The judge suggested that today I make a motion for continuance in my divorce case and that I reset the case for some other day.

I noticed Ron Hurley walking out of the room. Apparently he was also a lawyer. It seemed as if he might have been helping me some on the divorce case. I didn't think he was a good lawyer and I didn't want to have much to do with him.

Some jurors walked into the room for a trial apparently about to begin. As the judge put his black robe back on, I headed out the door. If it were possible, I was going to try to take care of the divorce case now.