Sometimes the most intense and passionate relationships occur between a lawyer and his clients. Bob Marrow tells the story of how he met and became friends with the Lums.
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In 1975 I was assigned to represent an indigent defendant in United States v. Tutino, the first mass trial of alleged members in a drug importing and distribution conspiracy. The alleged head of the conspiracy was Frank Lucas, best known to the general public as the lead character played by Denzel Washington in American Gangster.
Martin Schmukler was a former ADA in the office of the famed Manhattan District Attorney, Frank Hogan. He was now a well known and well compensated criminal defense attorney representing one of the major defendants in this case. Martin was also an investor in Oh Ho So, a trendy Chinese restaurant on West Broadway “south of Houston” which served elegant meals on antique but sturdy wooden tables, each a work of art, purchased during forays in Pennsylvania Dutch country by Kwong and Mary Ann Lum, the proprietors.
Oh Ho So and the Lums had been sued by Ron Lusker, the contractor who built the restaurant which included a large entrance-bar, an enormous ground floor with no partitions, a very high ceiling and a balcony that covered the rear portion of the space. It was an amazing venue, not just a restaurant. Lusker was suing Oh Ho So for “extras.” This is a common and often unscrupulous tactic employed by construction contractors who claim that work done during the job was not included in the original plans. Therefore, the claim goes, the owners must pay “extra” for the additional work. The owners defend by asserting that the work was contemplated in the plans and included in the original contract price.
The Lum’s original attorney in the Ron Lusker “extras” case had been disbarred and they needed a new lawyer. Schmukler knew that I was not a criminal trial lawyer, which became obvious during the Tutino case (although my client and all of the defendants were acquitted), and that I specialized in commercial disputes that ended-up in court. He recommended that the Lums retain me to defend themselves and Oh Ho So against Ron Lusker.
Backing up for a moment – many of my clients were Jewish businessmen in the garment or textile businesses, an important source of commercial litigation in New York City. Typically their cases involved claims that “the goods were not as ordered.” The counter argument was that the goods were fine but the buyers simply could not sell them and wanted to avoid paying by getting out of their contracts. Clients would appear at my office with large red-weld folders full of purchase orders, invoices, statements, swatches, drawings, photos, correspondence, etc., in no particular order, which were dumped on my desk or floor with the indignation that usually marks the demeanor of an innocent victim wrongly accused. It was then my job to organize the documents and somehow make them fit with the story of my client so that the case could be presented coherently.
This was not what happened in the “extras” case of Lusker vs. Oh Ho So Restaurant. Mary Ann Lum appeared at my office alone. Her husband was in Vancouver, Canada, on business involving a movie theater owned by his extended family along with a string of bakeries serving the extensive Chinese population there. Mary Ann was, as always, dressed stylishly. Her wardrobe, I later learned, was sewn by her talented mother-in-law (who lived with them in an enormous loft near Oh Ho So) based on designs found in leading fashion magazines. Mary Ann’s appearance was matched by her direct conversational style and the way in which her case documents were presented. The construction contract was marked with color coded stickers which corresponded with stickers on Lasker’s Bill of Particulars, proving with unerring accuracy that every one of his claims to “extras” was bogus because the work was described in the original contract as part of the job he undertook to perform. I have practiced law since 1965 and the organization of this client file by Mary Ann Lum is unprecedented. It saved time in preparation and resulted in a quick settlement of the case during trial when my cross-examination of Lusker based on the color-coded evidence destroyed his case in less than an hour.
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This was the beginning of a wonderful friendship, based on mutual success. Sometimes winning cases is a matter of luck, sometimes a matter of preparation, and less often the result of being on the side of Truth. However, success is often the result of some mysterious chemistry that binds the relationship of a lawyer to his client so that every effort is rewarded. One example of this is the Mimi Sheraton controversy. Mr. and Mrs. Lum expanded on the reputation of Oh Ho So Restaurant into Rockefeller Center with Dish of Salt. This was a restaurant like none other. Its windows rose three stories from the sidewalk on 47th Street, revealing an interior which featured incredibly tall bamboo plants, gracefully hanging fabrics and again individual antique tables surrounded by comfortable chairs. There was a movie-like stairway ascending from the center of the space to a balcony overlooking the main floor. Features of Dish of Salt included a platform stage from which a pianist played tastefully and a bar which invited everyone from finance based millionaires to scruffy artists, foreign dignitaries, mere tourists and an assortment of “beautiful people”.
The Chinese speaking chef from Oh Ho So was recruited to head the kitchen at Dish of Salt. Then came Mimi Sheraton’s restaurant review in the New York Times, a make-or-break event for any eating establishment. Sheraton savaged Dish of Salt, not only disliking everything she tasted but also going so far as to label the décor “Las Vegas Chic.” The Lums wanted to take the unprecedented step (since copied) of buying space in the following week’s restaurant section to answer Sheraton’s review in an open letter. They brought a draft of their letter to me at 5pm on a Wednesday for libel evaluation. The Times’ deadline was Thursday. I thought the letter was not defamatory, but neither was it persuasive. I offered to revise it and sat down at my IBM Selectric (state-of-the-art at the time). Soon the revision was finished. It was published that Friday stating boldly that Ms. Sheraton was more interested in entertaining her readers with flippant cruelty than in informing them with valid opinions, and that she actually wrote about a dish (Peking Duck) which she never tasted. The Lums knew every customer for whom Peking Duck had been prepared up to that time and Sheraton was not among them.
Early the next week I was called by Ms. Sheraton’s attorney from a major NYC law firm who said the review was defamatory because it said that she had written about a dish she had not tasted. This was tantamount to trade libel when published about a restaurant reviewer. My response was something like this; “My clients welcome your lawsuit. They will prove the truth of the statement as a complete defense. However, let me tell you what happened the night that your client’s review appeared in the Times. The chef is a Chinese man who knows little English. He is the same chef who Ms. Sheraton praised when she was reviewing the Lum’s other restaurant, Oh Ho So. He was in the kitchen when the newspaper was brought to him. As the owners’ son translated your client’s review into Chinese, tears streamed down the chef’s face. If your client thinks there is any further damage she can do by bringing a lawsuit, let her try.” That week Time magazine contained a full page article about the power of restaurant reviewers in The New York Times, and quoted from the review of Dish of Salt as well as the Lum’s published response just as I had written it. The Lums had Time Magazine article photographically enlarged to about five feet in height and placed in the window of Dish of Salt. I was again called by Ms. Sheraton’s lawyer. Her claims were withdrawn in exchange for our taking the enlarged Time Magazine article out of the window. The restaurant not only survived but flourished for the entire 25-years of its lease, and only closed a year early because Fox News wanted the space for its flagship TV station and paid handsomely for the Lums to surrender the premises before the lease expired.
I am now a semi-retired lawyer and the Lums are more prominent than ever. Kwong Lum’s legendary collection of Chinese art, assembled over forty years, as well as the works he created in his studio, are the center pieces of a gallery in Manhattan. A museum bearing his name has been constructed in China by the Peoples’ Republic.
This story has no end because there is none to our friendship. It has survived through five separate decades and three of my marriages. When I met the Lums their children had not been born — now a grandchild is the center of their lives. Yet these descendants of distant families — theirs from Asia and mine from Europe — have created a bond on this continent which endures through the mystery of mutual affection and respect.
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photo: jenny pics / flickr