Accidental Lawyer by Kim Hamilton

Author:Kim Hamilton [Hamilton, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-14T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sal brought over lunch from Sabatino’s. He must be flush with all the commercial production work we’d been giving him. Over pasta and salad, we hammered out the details of the thirty-second toilet-explosion spot. Sal took the lead. “We need to keep it short and factual. Because the issue involves a toilet, the image can make people uncomfortable. It will conjure up pictures of people flying through their bathrooms with their pants down. To some that’s a comical image.” He paused while we chuckled. “But to those who have been injured, it’s embarrassing. So we set out the facts about the faulty toilets and we detail our contact information. Also, we squeeze in a word about the recall and suggest that people check their toilet’s manufacturer before their own toilets explode.”

“Sound’s kind of boring,” Dawson said.

“It is, but it will be effective. Trust me. You may even get a tax break because we can claim it as a public-service announcement. I suggest we put Jess’s name up there, as well as one of you two. That way we have both genders covered. A woman with a lacerated backside is not going to want to talk to either of you,” Sal said, pointing at Dawson and Marty. “And a young man with a punctured penis is not going to want to talk to you,” he said, pointing to me.

“So no live shots of me?” I asked.

“No. We can use the stock photos we have on hand and add some new graphics. Do you have any photos of the exploded toilets?”

“I’ve got photos from my one client, and I’m hoping to sign up a second. Either way, I would have to get their permission.”

“Get me whatever you can as soon as possible. We want this in production by the end of today and on the air tomorrow.”

I had to hustle. There was a lot to do before my interview with Wagner & Beam later this afternoon.

First, I called Marshall and asked if we could use the images of his bathroom in the commercial. He consulted Lucy, then gave me the verbal okay. I needed it in writing to protect us from the remote possibility that Marshall would deny his consent and come back to sue us later, but time was of the essence. I emailed Sal the photos so he could get them in production, then I worked on drafting the consent form. The short and practical version would be, “I, Marshall Ball, give Dawson Garner & Associates permission to use images of my bathroom, post-explosion, in their future commercials and all visual media.” Period. But the law doesn’t make things so simple. You have to throw in some fancy words such as irrevocable, inclusive, fiduciary, and in perpetuity, to construct a tangled and verbose document that no one understands, yet attorneys pretend they do.

I did my best to use the proper language to protect DGA within the constructs of two long, torturous paragraphs. I titled it “Consent to Utilize Specific Photographs in all Visual Media.

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