Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [7]
Earlier that year, A&E had hired powerhouse San Francisco–based attorney James Quadra and another lawyer named Lee Levine, who specialized in First Amendment law, to represent the network and us in a lawsuit that had been filed by a small group of people from the Hawaiian Islands who didn’t like the way their heritage was being represented on our show. Lawsuits that have no merit are a part of fame and stardom, so the nature of this particular suit didn’t surprise anyone. Even so, the network hired two top-gun attorneys to handle the case and make it quietly go away.
I didn’t know anything about either man before the network hired them. When I met Lee for the first time, I understood exactly why he was considered the very best. He is an honest and a straight-to-the-point type of guy. After that meeting, Lee sat down with me for a few minutes.
“I want to talk to you, Duane. In your world, you are considered the greatest. In mine, so am I,” he said.
I told him I had heard that from several people we knew in common. He wanted to lend me his support in my pending case against the Mexican government and offer me some professional advice.
“You can win this case. You have to persevere and fight as hard as you can,” Levine said.
The reality was that I had been seriously considering surrendering because the stress and lack of progress in my case was wearing me down. I had been contemplating going to the border and turning myself in. I didn’t tell anyone what I had been thinking, because I knew they would try to talk me out of it. I also knew that if I did go back, I’d have to capture my surrender on tape so there would be no confusion about what I chose to do. I didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to say they caught The Dog. I privately shared my thoughts with one of the producers of my show and my most trusted cameraman, who both agreed to meet me on the border when and if it ever went down.
Lee’s words were heaven-sent. It was divine intervention to have such a powerful man like him tell me not to surrender to Mexico. God knew I’d listen to a guy like Lee. I’m not sure a man of lesser stature would have had the ability to convince me. Of course, I wanted to hire Lee on the spot to be my own lawyer. I told him a little about my case and my growing concern about the legal advice I’d been receiving. He listened closely.
“You know that James Quadra speaks fluent Spanish, right?” I had no idea Quadra was bilingual. Lee told me how much we’d like James Quadra and that we ought to discuss our case with him to see if he could assist.
“He’s the best I know. He’ll like you a lot. And more importantly, Beth will like him.” He was right. My Beth has to get along with whoever is in our life or they won’t be in it for very long.
With Lee’s endorsement, and since Quadra had done such a great job for us in quickly settling the lawsuit in San Francisco, we thought we’d meet and tell him about our case. I wanted to get his professional insight on what he thought we should do regarding our case in Mexico.
When we finally had our first conversation with Quadra, the chemistry was there from the start. He was one of us and immediately became my brother. He never tried to push his way into the Luster case. Never. We told him that we had been working with a lawyer named Bill Bollard and shared our concerns with the way things were going. He wanted us to tell him everything.
We explained that Bollard was calling the shots every step of the way. I told Quadra that I was worried that the criminal case in