Rudy Baylor–Deck Shifflet partnership

The Rudy Baylor–Deck Shifflet partnership turns two men with little money and sharply different legal credentials into the operators of a small independent firm. Rudy Baylor supplies the license and appears in court; Deck Shifflet finds clients, handles much of the office labor, and pushes the business toward whatever might keep it alive. Their arrangement helps carry the Great Benefit case through trial, but the same imbalance that makes the firm possible also shadows its success: Deck cannot practice without a licensed lawyer beside him, while Rudy is uneasy with the tactics that keep their doors open.

The Decision to Start a Firm

Deck proposes that they leave Bruiser Stone’s operation before its troubles engulf them. He believes Bruiser is about to fall hard and warns that they could be caught in the crossfire without anyone to protect them. Rudy has reason to take the warning seriously: Deck has been Bruiser’s loyal employee, and his willingness to leave is itself alarming. The plan is also a bid for independence. Rather than continue working under someone else and surrendering much of the fee, they could keep the money their own cases earned.

Deck has already worked out the basic numbers. Each man has $5,500, giving them $11,000 between them; they would contribute $2,000 apiece, rent modest offices, and try to survive for six months on a shoestring. Deck would hustle for cases, Rudy would make court appearances, and fees, expenses, work, and profits would be divided equally. They initially expect rent of about $500 a month, another $500 for phone service and utilities, and total overhead below $2,000. They plan to do without a secretary, answer the phone themselves, and type their own documents. Deck presents the venture as a practical alternative to leaving a fee behind, not as a grand legal institution.

Rudy recognizes a professional problem beneath the arithmetic: lawyers are ethically prohibited from partnering with nonlawyers. He suspects Deck will find a way around the restriction, but does not pursue the objection. Instead, Rudy sets a limit on the commitment, proposing a one-year agreement with a thirty-day exit clause if either partner becomes dissatisfied. He imagines that he can gradually restrain Deck’s appetite for chasing emergencies, encourage him to study for the bar, and build a respectable practice through careful client service. His confidence is qualified from the outset; he knows that keeping Deck away from hospitals and accident scenes will be difficult.

An Office Built on Unequal Strengths

The partners locate four rooms in an old building on Madison, above an antique store and halfway between the city jail and St. Peter’s. The rent is cheap, the space needs paint, and there is a restroom. The location suits the firm’s limited means and the kind of work Deck expects to find. Rudy agrees to the arrangement, and Deck responds with visible excitement. Their handshake marks a major moment for Deck; Rudy is more cautious, already thinking about the rules and habits he will have to impose.

The first month makes the gap between their hopes and their income unmistakable. The firm collects $1,200: $400 from a shoplifting case Deck brings in at City Court, $200 from a DUI matter acquired through a method Rudy does not understand, $500 from a workers’ compensation case Deck takes from Bruiser Stone’s office as they leave, and $100 for wills Rudy prepares for a couple who wander into the office. That last fee matters to Rudy because he reports it honestly to Deck, who keeps the books. Their total expenses reach $4,250, including rent, business cards and stationery, phone equipment, desks, a fax machine, a computer, bar dues, and smaller costs. Deck calculates each expense to the penny and estimates continuing monthly overhead at about $1,900.

Their division of labor is both intimate and lopsided. Deck types better, answers the phone, gets coffee, sweeps, makes copies, and offers to handle Rudy’s letters and documents. He spends mornings making calls and leaves for unexplained business, while continuing his hospital rounds at night. He does not study for the bar, despite Rudy’s hope that he will eventually qualify. Deck regards himself as expendable and accepts the grunt work in exchange for half the money; Rudy understands that the firm is not an equal partnership in practical power, because only one of them has a license. Deck needs Rudy to appear in court, and Rudy needs Deck’s energy and ability to locate clients.

Different Ideas of How to Find Work

Deck believes a young firm cannot wait for good cases to arrive. He wants Rudy to patrol the courts and actively seek clients, and grows frustrated when Rudy questions the ethics and tactics involved. Deck is prepared to chase ambulances, wait around emergency rooms, and pursue other leads that Rudy regards warily. His repeated faith that one major case can change everything becomes the partnership’s entrepreneurial creed: a single large fee, in his view, could make the risks and indignities worthwhile.

Rudy develops a contrasting source of work. He visits the municipal courts of small towns around Memphis and asks to be appointed to represent indigent defendants charged with misdemeanors. Six appointments result, each paying no more than $100 and expected to conclude within two months. The work is modest, but it fits his willingness to build a practice through formal court appointments rather than rely solely on Deck’s more aggressive client hunting. Their firm therefore runs on two different theories of survival: Rudy accepts small, limited assignments, while Deck searches for the case large enough to transform their fortunes.

The Great Benefit matter gives their fledgling firm a case of a different scale. Rudy had learned that low-income purchasers of debit insurance often faced denied claims and rarely sued; even when an insurer refused legitimate medical expenses, conservative juries could award little beyond the claim itself. The Black family’s claim was especially grave because Donny Ray Black needed a bone marrow transplant. As evidence later established, Great Benefit had adopted a policy of initially denying claims during 1991, with large claims particularly unlikely to be paid unless an insured obtained a lawyer. The case joined Rudy’s courtroom role to Deck’s support as the firm’s partner, even though Rudy carried the formal responsibility of advocacy.

Trial Work and Shared Achievement

The partnership’s practical cooperation becomes clearest as Rudy prepares to argue the case. After the trial, he and Deck eat sandwiches and drink soft drinks at the office while Rudy rehearses his closing argument. Rudy uses a small chalkboard to organize the figures and asks Deck to listen; Deck interrupts, challenges him, and argues about the presentation. Neither has made a jury closing before, but Deck has watched more trials, and he considers himself qualified to advise. Rudy is sometimes confident enough to feel invincible, and Deck punctures that confidence by reminding him that the verdict can still go either way.

Rudy’s final argument turns the company’s own figures into a plain account of scale and responsibility. He explains that Great Benefit had $475 million in available cash, reserves, and undistributed surplus, alongside an admitted net worth of $450 million. He asks the jury to consider how a punishment that might change an ordinary person’s conduct would have to be measured against a corporation’s resources. The argument draws on the testimony about the denial scheme and the fate of Donny Ray Black, making the firm’s trial work more than a dispute over one policy payment. Deck’s help in rehearsal does not make him the courtroom advocate, but it makes the preparation a shared labor.

After the defense rests, Rudy and Deck stay late at the office and work on the closing. Rudy knows the case can still be lost; Deck’s mixture of practical skepticism and confidence keeps the stakes present. The next morning, Rudy delivers the argument and the jury returns a verdict that makes the small firm briefly famous. Deck saves a newspaper account of the result, and the two partners return to the office grinning, relieved that months of pressure have ended. For Rudy, the victory belongs to both of them, even as his courtroom performance and law license make their roles unmistakably different.

Separation and the Partnership’s Limit

The public triumph does not produce a stable future for the firm. Six months after its founding, Rudy and Deck sort through a practice with few cases and clients, $3,400 in the bank, and outstanding bills. They make the business side of their separation straightforward: Deck receives the files he wants, Rudy is to receive $2,000 within ninety days, and unwanted active matters will be farmed out or returned to other lawyers. The Ruffins’ collection cases, for example, are to go back to Booker Kane.

The personal division is harder. Deck cannot pass the bar exam and has no independent professional destination; he can clean up Rudy’s files for a few weeks, but he cannot operate without a licensed lawyer such as Bruiser Stone or Rudy. He also tells Rudy that gambling at casinos has left him broke, in contrast to Rudy, who has saved $2,800 by living frugally. The legal and financial asymmetry that had been present at the partnership’s beginning has become decisive. Rudy can leave with his license and savings; Deck has little beyond the work and relationships attached to the practice.

Their last conversation also exposes a temptation the partnership cannot resolve. Bruiser Stone, now in the Bahamas with Prince Thomas, wants Deck to retrieve $4 million in cash hidden in a Memphis warehouse and promises him ten percent if he can get it to Miami. Deck describes a small U-Haul, a short loading job, and a two-day drive, while Rudy warns that he will be caught and sent to jail. Rudy refuses to join him. Deck appears intent on trying anyway, but their firm no longer binds their choices together.

They say goodbye after moving a few of Rudy’s clothes. Deck tells him that he made history; Rudy answers that they did it together. They embrace awkwardly, nearly choking up, and Deck’s eyes are wet as he leaves with Butch. The partnership ends without erasing the intimacy of their work or their shared achievement. Its defining contrast remains: Deck’s hustle helped make the firm possible, and his companionship helped Rudy survive its most important case, but only Rudy could carry the license that gave their enterprise legal form and a route onward.