Excerpts from Chapter 5:

As closings go, this was as good as it gets, because all three parties involved-the buyer, the seller, and the real estate agent-were working hard to accomplish the same objective. Then, as we progressed toward a closing, I observed a phenomenon I was later to discover occurs prior to most real estate closings. My professor [1] "sharpened his pencil" (his words) and continued to find one cost after another that he either had not previously considered or hadn't known about.

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The closer we got to the closing, the more my professor sharpened his pencil. Being a Type Number Three [2], he was very nice about it and never came right out and said that he did not intend to pay my fee. He just mumbled a lot of negatives, and the more figuring he did, the more he mumbled-and the more concerned I became.

In fact, my concern became so great that I dared to ask myself a question that only an inexperienced reptile [3] like me would dare ask: "If the buyer and seller in a real estate deal are represented by attorneys as a closing, why shouldn't the real estate agent also be represented by an attorney?"

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After all, didn't I have a vested interest in the deal, too? Nonetheless, ... I thought ... my professor would take it as an insult to his integrity and probably use it as an excuse not to pay me at anything at all. In a sense, I was being intimidated by my own thoughts.

Finally the big day arrived-my first real estate closing. I talked to my professor just a couple hours before the closing ... he said he felt terrible about it, but, after adding up all the figures, there was no way he could spare even $100 out of the proceeds of the closing, let alone $6,500.

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I then made a bold decision. I scurried over to the office of an attorney friend of mine, showed him the document my professor had signed, described the conversation I had just had with him, and explained that the closing was about to take place. The attorney and I then went over to my professor's office and found that all the parties involved were in the process of preparing for the closing.

Whereupon my attorney sat down with the other two lawyers, and the THREE of them went through the mechanics of finalizing the deal. Although I didn't understand the principle at the time, what I had going for me at that closing was the unwritten, universally accepted understanding among all attorneys that I subsequently dubbed the Universal Attorney-to-Attorney Respect Rule. It's kind of analogous to "honor among thieves." ...

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P.S. I got my $6,500 fee-at the closing.

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First, not only did I not have a written agreement with my professor, I didn't even have a clear verbal agreement. Our understanding was vague, at best. all I had done was volunteer to try to "solve the financial problems in Cincinnati" and if "successful" (which also was not defined), I was supposed to be "paid handsomely in return." In other words, there was no agreement, written or verbal, that morally obligated me to present my professor with offers to buy out his interest in the property. I was strictly on my own, and my fiduciary responsibility was to myself.

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In addition to learning how a Type Number Three [2] operates, I received a bonus in this deal in that I got an answer to my naive question, "Why shouldn't a real estate agent also be represented by an attorney at a closing?" Firsthand experience had emphatically given me the answer: "He should!"

Regardless of the business you're in, never allow yourself to be intimidated into believing that you aren't entitled to the same rights as the so-called principals in a deal. I say so-called because, from your standpoint, you ARE a principal. If you have a vested interest in a deal, you have a right to protect that interest, regardless of the size of your stake relative to the other players' shares. Just don't expect the other principals to agree with your viewpoint. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

[1] he refers to the people he learned a lot and got an expensive education from as his professors... these would be either the buyer but more often the seller

[2] Type Number Three, who, like Type Number Two, assures you that he's not interested in your chips. Unlike Type Number Two, however, he sincerely means what he says. But that's where the difference ends. Due to any one of a number of reasons-ranging from his own bungling to his amoral standards for rationalizing what's right and wrong-he, like Types Number one and Two, still ends up trying to grab your chips. Which means that his supposed good intentions are irrelevant to the final outcome.

[3] he refers to himself as a reptile like a tortoise.. he's "slow", but slow and steady wins the race

EDIT: What is missing above is the setup. How he went about trying to obtain the deal and "setting" the buyers offer price. He opened himself up to be easily squeezed and excluded from the deal. Luckily he had the seller sign a "letter of understanding" as things started unfolding that mentioned his fee so that his lawyer could at least retain it and keep the deal on the rails.