Perhaps I should introduce myself. I am an attorney, currently employed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Relax, Doctor. Let me assure you. This is not that kind of letter. I mention my work only preemptively, anticipating what you might say: For just as it is your business to diagnose the physical and psychic pain of your patients, so my job requires me to be a bit of a student of human nature. To be good at what I do, I have had to learn to read the minds of criminals and innocent men, witnesses and jurors.

So, at times, my work requires me to leave my own skin and enter the skins of others. Yours, for example, Doctor. I should be able to take one look at a man like yourself and know what you are thinking and feeling, perhaps even begin to figure out why you do what you do. That is how we win cases, Doctor.