Mrs. Elsie Zimmerman's predicament started with her realization that desertion was not a basis for divorce in New York where she lived, but was in New Jersey, where she did not live.  Her New Jersey lawyer attempted to resolve the predicament by giving her a New Jersey address.  This deception ended with her and a witness of hers, "Merrick," pleading guilty to criminal contempt of court consisting of perjury, and with another witness of hers, "Thomas Rady," being tried and convicted of same.  Of particular interest here is Mrs. Zimmerman's lawyer who also was summarily convicted of a contempt which in substance amounted to subornation of perjury, and who appealed his conviction before the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division, which appeal is quoted from below.

Mrs. Zimmerman's lawyer is referred to here as the Anonymous Lawyer because he is never identified by name, but rather is variously referred to as the "appellant," or Mrs. Elsie Zimmerman's "attorney," or her "solicitor," and once as a "counsellor at law."  The story of the Anonymous Lawyer of Very Good Reputation runs as follows:

Each of the witnesses for the State had either pleaded guilty or been convicted of a contempt which was in substance wilful perjury.  While they were not thereby disqualified from testifying against appellant [Citations], the weight to be given their testimony was seriously impaired.  Put against that the obvious interest that appellant had in denying the charge. When Mrs. Zimmerman, in August 1948, first called on appellant at his law office, she had no previous acquaintance with him and was not introduced by a third person.  She consulted a New Jersey attorney because she was aware that adultery was the only basis for divorce in New York, while in New Jersey a divorce could be obtained for desertion.  She knew that in order to get a divorce, the law required her to be a resident of the state in which she sued.  Yet the first time she called upon appellant, she says she frankly told him that she lived in Bellerose, Long Island, and "He said you have to be a resident, but he would take care of it.  * * *  He'd give me an address."  So he drew the petition for divorce and inserted in it the statement that she resided at 40 Harding Road in the Borough of Glen Rock and County of Bergen.  She testified that he "gave me Glen Rock. I don't know where Glen Rock is to this day." Merrick had been acquainted with Mrs. Zimmerman four or five years, and had called on her at her home on Long Island.  She asked him to testify in her behalf.  "I didn't have any more idea of what I was going to testify to except that I was going to be a witness.  * * *  All I knew was Mrs. Zimmerman had required witnesses."  So she took him to appellant's office where appellant gave him his instructions.  But Merrick's testimony is so incoherent, and the passages in his testimony which inculpate appellant are so at variance with the sworn statement made by him in jail, that very little weight, if any, can be given to his evidence. Although Rady was a witness for the State, his testimony supported the defense.  At least it shows that appellant did not teach him what his evidence in the divorce case should be. Appellant testified in full denial of the charge.  On the record before us, he had a very good reputation before the present accusation was brought against him.  He has been a member of the Bar since 1918 and has served as Recorder and as City Attorney of the municipality in which he has resided all his life.  What was his interest in the matter that such a man should concoct perjury and jeopardize everything that he must hold dear?  He was paid a retainer of $100 at the outset, another $100 just before the hearing, and expected a final $150 at the completion of the divorce case.  The money seems an inadequate motive.  But assuming for the moment that appellant procured the perjured testimony, he must have anticipated, after his years at the Bar and extensive practice in divorce matters, that there would be some questioning of Mrs. Zimmerman and Merrick by the court.  Yet he gave them no preparation for even the simplest questions.  And it taxes our credulity to believe that appellant, the first time he saw Mrs. Zimmerman, when he knew nothing of her, told her unreservedly that he would participate actively in her fraudulent design  "He'd give me an address."  If appellant is a knave, he is still more a fool. •   Zimmerman v Zimmerman, 79 A2d 59 at 63-64 (New Jersey 1950)

Reading the above is capable of occasioning several reflections:

1. Liars are disbelieved.  Zimmerman v Zimmerman supports the thesis of the Lubomyr Prytulak letter above — that someone caught lying in court will tend to be disbelieved afterward, which was the unhappy fate of the three State witnesses accusing the Anonymous Lawyer of Very Good Reputation of suborning perjury.
   
   

2. Both sides had convictions for perjury-related crimes.  The appellate court chose to view the three State witnesses as having impaired credibility because of their trial-court convictions for perjury, but did not choose to view the Anonymous Lawyer as having impaired credibility because of his trial-court conviction for suborning perjury, which smacks of inconsistency and bias.
   
   

3. A 1950 lawyer could not have been running a paperless office.  Whereas the appellate court discounted the testimony of the three State witnesses in part for being muddled, the reason at hand for discounting the testimony of the Anonymous Lawyer was much stronger than that — his actions point not merely to incoherence, but rather point overpoweringly to guilt.  Specifically, although the second and third of the weaknesses — itemized below — in the lawyer's story can't be evaluated without reading the original trial, the first weakness is understandable and it is damning:
   
   

   We realize that weaknesses in appellant's case, such as the odd fact that during the 15 month's period Mrs. Zimmerman's case was pending, he never communicated with her by mail; the curious tone of the letter he wrote her immediately after the hearing; the puzzle of the color of the ink with which she signed sundry papers.  Yet, after a full consideration of these circumstances and of the entire case, we do not find that the evidence establishes the guilt of the appellant. •   Zimmerman v Zimmerman, 79 A2d 59 at 64 (New Jersey 1950)

   
   The Anonymous Lawyer of Very Good Reputation failing to write Mrs. Zimmerman even a single letter over the 15 months of her litigation need not be considered inexplicably "odd" when in fact it points unequivocally to guilt, calling as it does for the interpretation that the Anonymous Lawyer couldn't write Mrs. Zimmerman at her New York address because his letters would become evidence that he knew she lived in New York, and he couldn't write her at the New Jersey address because either there was no such place, or else the occupants of that address could be envisioned as someday testifying that the Anonymous Lawyer had asked them to forward Mrs. Zimmerman's mail to her.  If there were any innocent explanation of why the Anonymous Lawyer never wrote Mrs. Zimmerman even a single letter (or, presumably, any acknowledgement of receipt, or statement of account, or announcement of a hearing date, and so on), then surely the Anonymous Lawyer himself would have presented that explanation to the trial court, and the appellate court would have recited that explanation rather than registering puzzlement over the thing that had been explained.
   
   On top of that, two witnesses testified to the Anonymous Lawyer's having suborned their perjury, and their motivation for implicating him as their seducer would have been the weak one of hoping to only trivially attenuate their own culpabililty; whereas on the other side only the one Anonymous Lawyer testified to his own innocence, and his motivation would have been the powerful one of hoping to entirely wipe away his culpability.
   
   Why, then, did the New Jersey appellate court side with the Anonymous Lawyer? — Perhaps it was precisely because he had a Very Good Reputation, and because he held high public office, and the appellate court decided to side with a distinguished member of its own fraternity in preference to siding with undistinguished members of the laity.  In other words, perhaps Themis peeked from underneath her blindfold.
   
   

4. Recklessness toward uninvolved parties.  Whereas Mrs. Zimmerman merely offered a phony address for herself, Plaintiff lawyer Gary Kurtz in collaboration with Plaintiff Steven Rambam offered a phony address for Defendant Mordechai Levy of New York (they offered the address of a real Mordechai Motty Levy of California), the result of which promised to be (if the Rambam suit succeeded) that Mordechai Motty Levy of California would be burdened by a judgment that could be interpreted as having been entered against him.  Thus, the Kurtz-Rambam scheme was by far the more reckless, exposing as it did an innocent and uninvolved third party to the risk of needing to litigate in order to clear his name of, and unencumber his assets from, a false judgment.
   
   

5. A deception with no chance of success.  Whereas Mrs. Zimmerman's scheme had some chance of success, the Kurtz-Rambam scheme had none whatever, as any early judgment in their favor would be sure to ultimately come to the attention of Mordechai Motty Levy of California, who would be sure to complain of, and to expose, the theft of his identity.  Thus, the Kurtz-Rambam scheme is symptomatic of a foresight deficit so extreme as to result in moral and ethical incapacity of crippling proportions.
   
   

6. A question of leniency.  The contrast, then, between the comparatively strict treatment meted out to the Anonymous Lawyer of Very Good Reputation and the indulgent treatment meted out to Kurtz-Rambam is stark.  That is, we see on the one hand that the Anonymous Lawyer's crime was the smaller of the two, and that he had higher professional standing — and still he was subjected first by the trial court to a conviction for criminal contempt, and later by the appellate court to an excoriation which included the words "knave" and "fool" — though admittedly aimed not at him directly, but only indirectly through the personage of anybody who might be guilty of such misconduct as was being imputed.  And then we see on the other hand that Kurtz-Rambam were guilty of the greater crime, and that neither of them have the professional standing of the Anonymous Lawyer — and yet Kurtz-Rambam were subjected neither to convictions for criminal contempt, nor to any imputation that they might be knaves or fools.
   
   All this is on top of the Anonymous Lawyer, who received sterner treatment than Kurtz-Rambam, nevertheless being acquitted where he was plainly guilty.  A juster world might have seen criminal contempt convictions entered and upheld against not only the Anonymous Lawyer, but against Gary Kurtz and Steven Rambam as well, and might have seen Gary Kurtz disbarred.
   
   Perhaps one reason that Steven Rambam finds advantage in lugging his litigation from his home in Brooklyn New York to far-away Los Angeles California is precisely because of the indulgence with which the Los Angeles Superior Court gazes upon his irresponsibility.