WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE A HAMMER, everything looks like a nail.

This is something my father, the first Campbell Alexander, used to say; it is also in my opinion thecornerstone of the American civil justice system. Simply put, people who have been backed into a corner willdo anything to fight their way to the center again. For some, this means throwing punches. For others, itmeans instigating a lawsuit. And for that, I’m especially grateful.

On the periphery of my desk Kerri has arranged my messages the way I prefer—urgent ones written on greenPost-its, less pressing matters on yellow ones, lined up in neat columns like a double game of solitaire. Onephone number catches my eye, and I frown, moving the green Post-it to the yellow side instead. Your mothercalled four times!!! Kerri has written. On second thought, I rip the Post-it in half and send it sailing into thetrash.

The girl sitting across from me waits for an answer, one I’m deliberately withholding. She says she wants tosue her parents, like every other teenager on the planet. But she wants to sue for the rights to her own body. Itis exactly the kind of case I avoid like the Black Plague—one which requires far too much effort and clientbaby-sitting. With a sigh, I get up. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.” She sits a little straighter. “It’s Anna Fitzgerald.”

I open the door and bellow for my secretary. “Kerri! Can you get the Planned Parenthood number for Ms.

Fitzgerald?”

“What?” When I turn around, the kid is standing. “Planned Parenthood?”

“Look, Anna, here’s a little advice. Instigating a lawsuit because your parents won’t let you get birth controlpills or go to an abortion clinic is like using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. You can save your allowancemoney and go to Planned Parenthood; they’re far better equipped to deal with your problem.”

For the first time since I’ve entered my office, I really, truly look at her. Anger glows around this kid likeelectricity. “My sister is dying, and my mother wants me to donate one of my kidneys to her,” she says hotly.

“Somehow I don’t think a handful of free condoms is going to take care of that.”

You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of youlike a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you’ve got your eyes on the other the whole time,certain that you’re making a mistake? Kerri approaches, holding out a strip of paper with the number I’veasked for, but I close the door without taking it and walk back to my desk. “No one can make you donate anorgan if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, really?” She leans forward, counting off on her fingers. “The first time I gave something to my sister, itwas cord blood, and I was a newborn. She has leukemia—APL—and my cells put her into remission. Thenext time she relapsed, I was five and I had lymphocytes drawn from me, three times over, because thedoctors never seemed to get enough of them the first time around. When that stopped working, they tookbone marrow for a transplant. When Kate got infections, I had to donate granulocytes. When she relapsedagain, I had to donate peripheral blood stem cells.”

This girl’s medical vocabulary would put some of my paid experts to shame. I pull a legal pad out of adrawer. “Obviously, you’ve agreed to be a donor for your sister before.”

She hesitates, then shakes her head. “Nobody ever asked.” “Did you tell your parents you don’t want todonate a kidney?”

“They don’t listen to me.”

“They might, if you mentioned this.”

She looks down, so that her hair covers her face. “They don’t really pay attention to me, except when theyneed my blood or something. I wouldn’t even be alive, if it wasn’t for Kate being sick.”

An heir and a spare: this was a custom that went back to my ancestors in England. It sounded callous—having a subsequent child just in case the first one happens to die—yet it had been eminently practical once.

Being an afterthought might not sit well with this kid, but the truth is that children are conceived for less thanadmirable reasons every single day: to glue a bad marriage together; to keep the family name alive; to moldin a parent’s own image. “They had me so that I could save Kate,” the girl explains. “They went to specialdoctors and everything, and picked the embryo that would be a perfect genetic match.”

There had been ethics courses in law school, but they were generally regarded as either a gut or anoxymoron, and I usually skipped them. Still, anyone who tuned in periodically to CNN would know aboutthe controversies of stem cell research. Spare-parts babies, designer infants, the science of tomorrow to savethe children of today.

I tap my pen on the desk, and Judge—my dog—sidles closer. “What happens if you don’t give your sister akidney?”

“She’ll die.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Anna’s mouth sets in a thin line. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are. I’m just trying to figure out what made you want to put your foot down, after all this time.”

She looks over at the bookshelf. “Because,” she says simply, “it never stops.”

Suddenly, something seems to jog her memory. She reaches into her pocket and puts a wad of crumpled billsand change onto my desk. “You don’t have to worry about getting paid, either. That’s $136.87. I know it’s notenough, but I’ll figure out a way to get more.”

“I charge two hundred an hour.”

“Dollars?”

“Wampum doesn’t fit in the ATM deposit slot,” I say.

“Maybe I could walk your dog, or something.”

“Service dogs get walked by their owners.” I shrug. “We’ll work something out.”

“You can’t be my lawyer for free,” she insists.

“Fine, then. You can polish my doorknobs.” It’s not that I’m a particularly charitable man, but rather thatlegally, this case is a lock: she doesn’t want to give a kidney; no court in its right mind would force her togive up a kidney; I don’t have to do any legal research; the parents will cave in before we go to trial, and thatwill be that. Plus, the case will generate a ton of publicity for me, and will jack up my pro bono for the wholedamn decade. “I’m going to file a petition for you in family court: legal emancipation for medical purposes,”

I say.

“Then what?”

“There will be a hearing, and the judge will appoint a guardian ad litem, which is—”

“—a person trained to work with kids in the family court, who determines what’s in the child’s bestinterests,” Anna recites. “Or in other words, just another grown-up deciding what happens to me.”

“Well, that’s the way the law works, and you can’t get around it. But a GAL is theoretically only looking outfor you, not your sister or your parents.”

She watches me take out a legal pad and scrawl a few notes. “Does it bother you that your name isbackward?”

“What?” I stop writing, and stare at her.

“Campbell Alexander. Your last name is a first name, and your first name is a last name.” She pauses. “Or asoup.”

“And how does that have any bearing on your case?”

“It doesn’t,” Anna admits, “except that it was a pretty bad decision your parents made for you.”

I reach across my desk to hand her a card. “If you have any questions, call me.”

She takes it, and runs her fingers over the raised lettering of my name. My backward name. For the love ofGod. Then she leans across the desk, grabs my pad, and tears the bottom off the page. Borrowing my pen, shewrites something down and hands it back to me. I glance down at the note in my hand:

24“If you have any questions,” she says.

When I walk out to the reception area, Anna is gone and Kerri sits at her desk, a catalog spread-eagled acrossit. “Did you know they used to use those L. L. Bean canvas bags to carry ice?”

“Yeah.” And vodka and Bloody Mary mix. Toted from the cottage to the beach every Saturday morning.

Which reminds me, my mother called.

Kerri has an aunt who makes her living as a psychic, and every now and then this genetic predisposition rearsits head. Or maybe she’s just been working for me long enough to know most of my secrets. At any rate, sheknows what I am thinking. “She says your father’s taken up with a seventeen-year-old and that discretionisn’t in his vocabulary and that she’s checking herself into The Pines unless you call her by…” Kerri glancesat her watch. “Oops.”

“How many times has she threatened to commit herself this week?”

“Only three,” Kerri says.

“We’re still way below average.” I lean over the desk and close the catalog. “Time to earn a living, Ms.

Donatelli.”

“What’s going on?”

“That girl, Anna Fitzgerald—”

“Planned Parenthood?”

“Not quite,” I say. “We’re representing her. I need to dictate a petition for medical emancipation, so that youcan file it with the family court by tomorrow.”

“Get out! You’re representing her?”

I put a hand over my heart. “I’m wounded that you think so little of me.”

“Actually, I was thinking about your wallet. Do her parents know?”

“They will by tomorrow.”

“Are you a complete idiot?”

“Excuse me?”

Kerri shakes her head. “Where’s she going to live?”

The comment stops me. In fact, I hadn’t really considered it. But a girl who brings a lawsuit against herparents will not be particularly comfortable residing under the same roof, once the papers are served.

Suddenly Judge is at my side, pushing against my thigh with his nose. I shake my head, annoyed. Timing iseverything. “Give me fifteen minutes,” I tell Kerri. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

“Campbell,” Kerri presses, relentless, “you can’t expect a kid to fend for herself.”

I head back into my office. Judge follows, pausing just inside the threshold. “It’s not my problem,” I say; andthen I close the door, lock it securely, and wait.