When Troubles Come Courting, This Lawyer’s Kindness Can Restore Faith

Marvin Cook winces and groans as he tries unsuccessfully to rise to his feet. “I’ve got this stupid cancer in my back,” he says. A few feet away, his wife, Susan, sits at the dining table. She has multiple sclerosis but has greeted me at the door of their mobile home, straining against her walker with every step she takes. To go much farther than that, she needs a wheelchair. It is 15 minutes into my conversation with them before I find out she’s been legally blind since birth.

We in the news business hear a lot of sad stories.

This, however, is not one of them.

The starting point is late 1996, when Marvin, bald from a fresh round of chemotherapy, must have cut quite a figure as he stood in front of a bankruptcy court judge. A successful electronics engineer for most of his working life, he also had a law degree but had failed the bar exam and never practiced. After losing a judgment in a business matter, though, he was facing a run on his dwindling assets and couldn’t afford an attorney to plead his case.

So, prostate cancer and all, there he stood. Right behind him in court, in her wheelchair, sat Susan.

Marvin Cook stumbled through his remarks that day, and the judge grew impatient. Cook could see his assets sailing out the window.

Catching bits and pieces of this unfolding drama was a tall, dark-haired attorney who was in court waiting for the clerk to prepare an order on his own case. When Cook sat down, the lawyer walked over and handed Cook his card. He introduced himself as Bill Halle and told Cook it sounded as if he could use some help. He suggested that Cook phone him.

That was nearly two years ago. Since then, Halle has gone to court numerous times with the Cooks on the bankruptcy and a related matter. He has coached Marvin Cook on how to write briefs and how to make effective arguments. On occasions when Cook either faltered in court or was too sick to appear, Halle intervened on his behalf. He has met with the Cooks at 6 a.m. on weekends, when that was the only time he could squeeze them in. He continues to call the Cooks every so often just to see how they’re doing.

Most important, Cook says, Halle successfully argued that the victor in the civil suit Cook had lost could not claim the Cooks’ retirement benefits. Without Halle’s intervention on that issue, Cook says, he and his wife might be destitute today.

How much has Halle charged you in the two years? I ask the Cooks.

“Not one cent,” Cook says.

What Halle has meant to the Cooks, however, transcends money, a point that is underscored as Marvin wrenches in pain and Susan sits at the table, not able to walk without help or see me clearly from 5 feet away.

What Halle did was rescue the Cooks from fear. In the moment that it took him to decide to help and ask nothing in return, he transformed two lives.

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“Don’t ever tell me there’s no God,” Marvin, now 62, says.

“We’ve been touched by an angel, 100%,” Sue, 54, says. “When I call Bill’s office, I say, ‘I want to talk to the angel.’ ”

Despite his infirmity, Marvin has kept his amusing, if sometimes profane, sense of things. When I ask how Halle has affected him, he says, “He changed my life completely. Oh, Jesus, back to church, for one thing. Christ, I haven’t been to church in 40 or 45 years. I’ve finally figured out, wait a minute, this is no colossal accident he showed up. There’s a reason for it.”

Marvin recounts how rock-bottom he and Sue had sunk. He was about to lose everything, hesays, and would have killed himself if not for Susan. What are the chances, he says, of Halle being in court that day?

Instead of sinking, Marvin, who says his cancer diagnosis is terminal, says he is a man at peace. He can die, he says, knowing Susan will have enough money to get by on.

This story belongs to the Cooks. It required one more interview, though.

Bill Halle is 35 and a lawyer in the Irvine firm of Hewitt & McGuire. He is married with two children and a third on the way. He is touched by the Cooks’ feelings toward him but jokes that he doesn’t want the burden of sainthood.

As a commercial litigator, Halle spends most of his time settling disputes between competing business interests. His normal rate is $195 an hour, and his clients typically have deep pockets.

“It sounds self-serving, but it looked like he really needed help,” he says of Marvin Cook. “I just feel like I have to give something back. They needed help, which is a coward’s way of saying I wish I could have done more.”

My spin is somewhat different.

What Halle saw was a layman lost in the specialized world of the courtroom. He saw two people--one racked by cancer and the other wheelchair-bound--and, instead of just feeling sorry for them and going home, he offered to help.

Then, instead of bailing out as things dragged on, he stayed.

I try to convey to him how he has affected the Cooks’ lives. What I don’t have the courage to tell him is how tears welled in my eyes for several minutes after I left the Cooks’ Irvine home.

Not a single tear was in pity for their physical plights. Indeed, what I saw were two people at peace. What moved me was the utter purity of Halle’s generosity and its reminder of the therapeutic power of simple human kindness that comes with no strings attached.

“I’d do anything for him,” Marvin Cook said of Halle as I left. “There’s got to be a special place for someone like that. There’s just got to be something for them.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com