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He was reviewing documents. The assistant handed him a full stack of orders to sign. Betwixt were a few bench copies for hearings.
Days like these were boring. No hearings, no litigation, just reading and signing. Of course these days were expected. How else was he supposed to sit on the bench with lawyers in front of him putting on a show?
It was boring. Just reading and signing. He’d try to find small things to keep his mind engaged with the case law, the files, the numbers and dates. He’d pick up on the failure of the lawyers’ attention to follow local court rules as far as formatting. He’d wonder if there’d ever come a point where his annoyance was so strong he’d start handing out sanctions.
Jim held an agreed order to his face, his eyes tiring out. It was agreed, but the parties were still noted for hearing on Friday.
“Do they still need time,” he yelled out his chamber door.
“For the two other motions, yeah” the assistant yelled back.
He muttered under his breath.
At least the paper was nice. At least the formatting was correct. Proofread. He flipped to the signatures on the back page double checking both parties signed.
There was Mr. Lorrey the Prosecutor. His signature resembling a star. The defense attorney was a new name; Mr. Spock, so neat and delicate yet written with a strong hand.
He wondered if other judges fell in love with signatures, if they looked forward to seeing them. He’d ask, but maybe he’d get a more relatable answer from the clerks that roamed around the courthouse. They see everything anyway.
The clock clicked, as it did every sixty seconds. The old ways of this 200 year old building still trickling along into the future. His eyes glazed over, a yawn overtook his entire body with a stretch. Despite the overwhelming desire to leave his desk he had to power through the stack. There wasn’t much left as far as case load. But he was severely concerned about a binder clipped stack of paper.
There better be an order to exceed page limits for that stack, he thought, knowing full well there wasn’t.
That stack was from Mr. Spock. Suddenly his signature was less attractive.
“I’m gonna rip this guy on the record. Why have rules when every god damn lawyer in this town deliberately breaks them!”
“Er, maybe you should take a break, judge,” the court reporter poked her head into chambers.
He was about throw an annoyed raise of the brow at her but he thought better of it. “You’re right Nyota. I need lunch. You all want lunch? My treat.”
A couple days later he was in his chambers watching a trial that was happening in a different courtroom. Sure those cameras were supposed to be used as a tool for conducting legal business but drama of trial was more alluring.
He heard some voices outside the closed door, one he hadn’t heard before at all. So he stepped away from his desk and poked his head out, catching a glimpse of the voice’s owner.
That signature embodied him. Everything Jim fantasized about this lawyer being so perfectly composed as that calligraphic script was spot on.
“I just got an order signed in the Ex Parte department. But since the hearing will happen before the order hits the case file, I desired to hand deliver.”
His eyes lifted a bit as he was handing the document to the judicial assistant. Jim folded his arms, pretending to give off a flair of annoyance and not the overwhelming thoughts of desire swirling through his head. This man was beautiful. Truly beautiful. He hasn’t felt this way about anyone in a long time.
“Shouldn’t you have gotten this order BEFORE handing me 200 pages of documents?”
Any other lawyer would have flinched, just waiting for a slew of harsh words. Mr. Spock just stood there, as if he was asking for a beating.
“I apologize, Judge. I was retained only recently in this case and I wished to meet all my deadlin—“
“You’re a new lawyer or are you just new here?”
“I’ve been practicing for quite some time. I did just move here. I—I will do better to inform myself of the local rules.”
Jim closed the gap between himself, his JA, and Mr. Spock.
“I’ll address this at the hearing. Have a good afternoon, Mr. Spock.”
He grabbed the Ex Parte order that said that 200 pages of documents was indeed important to the hearing and needed to be read in full.
“Exceeding page limits my ass,” he grumbled. “150 of them better be god damn text messages and pictures.”
“Have you ever seen someone’s signature and fell in love with it?”
“You’ve been working too much.”
He and Bones were sitting at the bar in some dungy, divey, hole in the wall place. They both liked to be somewhere where their identities were hidden, and if they were known, nobody cared. It was embarrassing actually for Jim to admit what he did for work. Everyone around would start acting weird, thinking anything they were doing was illegal.
So Jim preferred to tell people he was some middle management hack that signed his names on reports all day.
“Remember when we met,” Bones asked.
“You were giving testimony on behalf of the plaintiff. You looked right at me and exclaimed this was all bullshit.” Jim laughed into his drink. “I threw you in contempt right then and there and sanctioned you.”
“Best thing you ever did was ban me from coming into your court ever again. But the point I wanna make is that when we first met, you were still a new judge. You wanted to impress all the DPAs, all the public defenders, the hot shot diva lawyers. Don’t forget what really got you to the bench.”
“Money?”
“Jim Kirk I’m going to make you call out tomorrow because of two black eyes.” He slammed his glass on the bar. “Your humanity, and concern for the human condition. All talk about these activist judges, and I got a real live one sitting next to me.”
“So about this signature,” he ignored Bones’ soapboxing. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Christ,” Bones sighed. “Trust me, there are a few signatures out there that are absolute trash. And there’s even fewer that make me curious about the person.”
“Okay, so now we’re getting somewhere. Cause I might have started looking up all of the cases he’s worked on, just to see his signature and uh…fantasize things….uhm…” Jim bit his lip. “Wow saying it out loud makes it uh very—“
“Like I said, you’ve been working too much.”
He couldn’t help it though. He was fantasizing about running his hands through that silky dark hair. He kept his voice intact within his inner monologue. It didn’t help that he had to review other documents presented by Mr. Spock. Each one was like an audiobook.
“There’s good cause….”
Jim shivered.
He’d been making his breakfast while reviewing his cheat sheets. His morning docket was a mixed bag of motions, and the one he care about most was the one involving Mr. Spock. By the looks of it, the case was going to get even more complex and it was going to take years to knead out the worst of it unless both lawyers were incredibly talented at negotiating.
The one thing that worried him was this fixation. He can’t be fixating. Not now. Not when there were intricacies he had to understand. Not when he had to understand more than Mr. Spock’s body language.
It came time for him to take the bench. He never got nervous anymore when the “all rise” rang out, but at 10:34 am he heard the words and his heart started beating faster and faster.
“Good morning,” he said as he sat down. “It is 10:34 am and Today is the time and place set for the matter, ‘State v Stalway.’ Mr. Spock this is your motion, please introduce the matter.”
Jim hid his sigh of relief when he realized his voice didn’t crack while addressing the lawyer. He hid the fact that he was barely paying attention to the introduction and focusing solely on Spock’s choice in suit. Dark blue, dark brown shoes, a light grey tie.
He imagined himself grabbing that tie and pulling the man along.
Books falling off the shelf because he threw himself against the lawyer, hitting it.
He realized he was not going to be able to hear this case or any other that included Mr. Spock.
Jim pretended he was being consulted via instant message from his judicial assistant. All totally fake, his assistant was probably texting his girlfriend wildly at this very second.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Jim cleared his throat. Of course NOW he was sounding nervous. He was becoming disturbingly aware of the real-time transcript of the hearing updating on his secondary monitor.
He couldn’t do it. Not if he was going to battle his mind over information while it would rather imagine romantic encounters with a litigant.
“I’m striking this hearing and setting it with another judge. I have to recuse myself.”
He liked giving warning to the clerk before he made for his chambers, but he was too embarrassed to be caught outside his office.
The “all rise” and “court is in recess” was delayed, but this time it didn’t bother him. He was glad he was wearing robes.