Lawyers in Guate Part 2

If you remember from Part 1, I had just been referred to a new attorney by my friend Santiago, who was raised in Guate but is actually from the UK.  He spent his childhood here, about 30 years back in Britain, and then returned here 5 years ago.  Not only is he married to a local, but he’s done business here and ‘knows the ropes’.

I met with the attorney (who I’ll call ‘Tony’), he recommended and was, finally, assured that this was no big deal, my needs were simple, and that everything would work out fine.  He was going to contact the other party, set everything up, and we would arrange another meeting.

A few days later Tony calls and says that he’s had some conversations with the other party, everything is going to be fine, but we need to get together and discuss the details.  I tell Tony that I’d like to bring Santiago and discuss strategy before we meet with the other party.

You see, in the intervening days Santiago had been giving me little tips and secrets from his experiences doing business here, particularly warning me about how locals will take advantage of expats in business deals, owing to the substantial difference in standard business practices and naive expat expectations about things like honesty, transparency, disclosure, etc.

So Santiago and I show up at Tony’s office for a meeting and are surprised to find seven other people in the office waiting for us.  The seven people included the opposing party, her brother and brother’s wife, their attorney, a friend of the attorney, someone who apparently wanted a commission on the transaction, and that person’s attorney.

Santaigo was as surprised as I and so we had to pull Tony outside to let him know this wasn’t what we had signed up for.  He assured us this was a friendly chat and so against our better judgment we step back into the room and a free for all begins.

First up, the attorneys for the other side start slinging accusations around and materially misstating basic facts about the agreed-upon transaction (remember people, the total deal value here is less than $3,000).  At the same time they’re moving around the room, edging closer to where I am sitting in what would be a menacing way if it weren’t so humorous, and if I didn’t think Santiago and I couldn’t take all comers if GuateChaos broke out.  For a moment I thought I was watching one of those National Geographic documentaries where they hide in the bushes and watch the daily life of a pack of hyenas or wolves.

The pack-like behavior was extraordinary; one attorney would lurk in the corner sheepishly while the ‘bully’ would rant and rave and make gestures in my direction, then the sheepish one would appear to have been inspired and would interrupt and begin wandering around the room.  The rest of the group thought nothing of this and was happy to talk over one another, first at Santiago, then at Tony, finally at me.  I assumed the posture of being bored to death and began inspecting my fingernails, trying to keep up with the conversation with the 50% of it I could follow.

Watching this unfold I had missed what was going on at my side of the room, viz., Santiago was slowly getting worked up, or what in the Old South would be called ‘getting his gander up’.  Maybe he recognized the pack signals better than I, or simply is fluent and was getting 110% of what was being said while I was missing half.  He started in on the assembled group, referring to them in the collective and telling them that we weren’t going to do business this way.  You didn’t have to be fluent to understand what was said next…the attorney for this ‘commissionista’ of sorts told Santiago to f!@# himself and go back to his own country.

Now, I was still trying to figure out who this person was when this came up.  Santiago smiled, lowered his voice and began to characterize what had just been said in ways that the assembled Chapines had probably never heard a gringo speak before, not knowing beforehand that this Gringo had literally grown up on the streets of Antigua 50 years ago.  Santiago let them know, among other things, that we weren’t scared and wouldn’t do business with racists and that perhaps denuncias were in order and that we expected to be paid for the time we had sat there enduring their insane rants.

The result was that the seven assembled people were told to go stand out on the street (literally), in front of the office while Santiago, Tony and I talked.  Santiago took his time instructing me that getting control of a situation like this is critical in this culture, that negotiating from a position of strength is far more important here than in the US or UK, and that dividing up the ‘pack’ makes them easier to manage.  Tony seemed irritated by the whole development; I’m pretty sure he wanted a quick and easy meeting and a paycheck.

After a few minutes Tony went back outside; Santiago insisted that the pack not be let back in until new ground rules were agreed on.  They weren’t happy with what they were being told, there was lots of gesticulating and raised voices, but finally the principal to the transaction intervened and agreed to our terms.  What this meant was that the principal and her attorney would be allowed back in, but no one else.

You could see how this infuriated the other pack members, and insults were hurled across the street in our direction.  The presumed ‘commissionista’ was even stopping people on the street, pointing and gesturing across the street towards our office.  I wish I could have videotaped the whole thing, it was that entertaining, and would have merited inclusion either on ‘Antigua’s Funniest Home Videos’ or ‘Man vs Wild:  Guatemala Uncensored’.  However, back inside the conversations were cordial and efficient.  It helped that I had all the records I needed and so very little was left to guess at.

After two hours (!) we had agreed on the final terms and would meet the following day to sign the paperwork.  I bought Santiago a few drinks and thanked him for the mentoring.  Little did I know that the deal was not yet done.  To be continued…