`Philadelphia' Haunts Senate Hopeful Whose Firm Fired Hiv-Positive Lawyer

By the time of the trial, his edges were so sharp he had to sit on a pillow. He was 6 feet 4, 100 pounds, skin draped on bone, his neck floating in a white collar. He was suing the law firm that had dumped him when it learned he had AIDS.

"I actually begged him," the dying attorney told the judge. But his supervisor "got up, said he was sorry and left."

As the man testified, his eyes rested on his mother. It was hard for her to look back, and when his lips began to shake, she had to leave the room.

The case unfolded in Philadelphia in 1990 in a real courtroom, not a movie set. It was one of the lawsuits studied by the makers of "Philadelphia," which opened this month. Like the film's main character, Clarence Cain, 37, was a funny, bright, successful lawyer who won a discrimination case against his employers before he lost to the disease.

But the Cain plot has a twist. Cain worked for one of the multi-state chain of Hyatt Legal Services offices. The chain's head, Joel Hyatt, is now running for the Senate, the Democratic favorite for the Ohio seat being vacated by his father-in-law, Howard Metzenbaum.

Political rivals have been highlighting the parallels between the stories.

"The movie is fiction," Hyatt says. And this is true. In the Hollywood tale, the law firm's chief, played by Jason Robards, is anti-homosexual and unrepentant. The real story has more nuance and ultimately is more intriguing. Yes, Hyatt approved of Cain's

dismissal. But Hyatt has since apologized and says he has grown since then.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, perhaps more than any other human affliction, renders a person vulnerable. Cain lost his ability to defend himself - defend his health, his job, his apartment, his pride.

Cain spent his final months in poverty, back home in Newport News, Va., with his mother, a retired bus driver. Of 10 children, Cain was the only one to attend college. He had helped support them all. Suddenly his siblings were sending him beans and canned corn. They all pitched in to buy him a television.

Because of his role, Hyatt also has become vulnerable.

Advice for an actor

Richard Silverberg was Cain's lawyer. Walking to his law office and on his way home, Silverberg would think of his former client as he watched the "Philadelphia" film crew trundle in and out of City Hall to shoot the trial scenes. He never spoke to anyone. He never saw Denzel Washington, who portrayed the attorney representing the AIDS-stricken man. If Silverberg had, he would have offered Washington a tip based on his own experience:

"Do everything you can to be sensitive. Your client's life is over."

He tells the story, how he became friends with Cain when they were both working at Hyatt.

Cain arrived in 1986, a University of Virginia law school graduate, recruited for the firm's fast-track program. He managed the Falls Church, Va., office and was quickly promoted to regional partner, in charge of the Philadelphia area - 10 offices and 75 employees. Just before he got sick, they gave him a raise. With a $44,000 salary, Cain was one of Hyatt's highest-paid regional partners.

Then one day in July 1987, Cain didn't show up for work. And then another day passed, and another.

He was in the hospital with pneumonia. The first week he kept his briefcase beside him and took business calls with an IV needle in his arm. Then he informed his supervisor of his long-term diagnosis.

"Clarence's superiors just couldn't cope with the concept of his sexual orientation," says Bruce Bikin, a lawyer who once worked with Cain at Hyatt's firm in Philadelphia. "And AIDS - oh my God, they thought - how is this going to reflect on Hyatt?"

Silverberg left the Hyatt firm protesting against the treatment of Cain. During the two years he represented him while working at other firms, Silverberg exasperated his bosses, who called Silverberg "obsessed." During one job interview, a partner peered over his desk and asked, "Just what kind of friends were you?" He lost three jobs.

Silverberg ended up working at home on his sister's computer and sneaking into an old employer's office after hours to use the copier. He was 33 at the time, a year out of law school, had never handled an employment discrimination case or any major case, and was up against a team from a 243-lawyer firm. Even his father chided: "Don't be a martyr."

Cain and Silverberg eventually won. Raymond Broderick, the presiding judge, wrote in his opinion: "Within days of learning Cain had AIDS, the defendants switched this young lawyer onto another fast track - one calculated to remove him."

A U.S. district court awarded $107,888 in damages and an additional $50,000 in punitive damages.

`We made a big mistake'

His voice is even, not calm, but perfectly balanced, like a wheel on a wire - the slightest push and it's off.

"We made a big mistake," says Joel Hyatt.

Again: "People understand that I made a mistake."

And again: "The manner in which we responded to Clarence's illness was inappropriate. I tried to make it right, but it was too late."

In his deposition, Hyatt acknowledged that he supported the decision to remove Cain. The firm had at the time offered Cain, instead, an entry-level job in Virginia at half pay, and later, in an attempt to settle, an administrative post in Kansas City.

Cain refused both. At the time, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the attorney representing Hyatt, Andrew Meyer, said of Cain: "He sits in poverty of his own doing. He simply could have taken a job. You don't get to create a problem and then complain about it."

During the trial, Cain's former employers painted him as inept and uncooperative.

Today, Hyatt says of Cain: "He was an ambitious, talented person trying to succeed. We identified that and put him on a specially designed fast track."

Today, the voice of Hyatt is unqualified regret. There's a plea in it: Don't threaten all I've built. At 27, Hyatt - together with his wife, a college fraternity brother and a guy he met in law school - revolutionized the practice of law with storefront offices and standardized fees. They created the nation's largest private law firm and beamed TV commercials nationwide, starring Hyatt.

All this, while Hyatt waited for his Senate seat. For a decade he'd been talking about making a bid when his father-in-law stepped down.

And now, this movie, this "Philadelphia" fiction, is being used by foes. "Not out of concern for Clarence Cain or the AIDS issue," Hyatt claims. "It's an upfront desire - can we destroy Joel Hyatt?"

As a senator, Hyatt says, he would work to increase AIDS research and education. He is active with AIDS charities and meets regularly with HIV-positive patients. When he walks into their homes, Hyatt says, he remembers a man he didn't care enough about: "When I go there, I think of Clarence."