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Law and Disorder

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Meanwhile, in the battle with her ex, a new problem flared: the loan he had given her so she could keep the house and repay him his equity. With 2 percent interest, Law's remaining balance on the $30,000 note worked out to, uh, $32,500.

His court documents said she hadn't made the $300 monthly payments and hadn't honored the provision to put the house up for sale if she missed three consecutive payments. Over the several-year period, her total contributions were $2,600.

When her former husband sought to enforce those terms, Law scoffed at the notion of such a motion to have the house sold and the proceeds split.

His motion failed to allege with "particularity" how she failed to comply with the divorce decree, Law replied. Besides that, the decree did not award her ex any money -- only a note in which she promised him to pay. So it could not be enforced by a court, she argued. And the statute of limitations had expired on claims by her ex, she alleged.

In one of her filings, Law sounded downright gracious: Let him surrender any interest in the house, and she'd let him keep his retirement payment.

Law lost the court ruling but kept the case alive with lengthy appeals all the way to the state supreme court, which decided to hear the case.

As that appeal started, she left the city attorney's office in May 1990 and became an assistant U.S. attorney assigned to McAllen.

Her move to McAllen, she wrote in a request to extend a filing deadline, "consumed and is consuming huge chunks of the undersigned's time and mental and physical energy."

In fact, she said, she was still commuting from Houston to the job in McAllen.

Some of the other employees in the U.S. attorney's office say they sensed something bizarre was going on with their new colleague. For at least a portion of the time, they say, she did more than work in the South Texas office -- she was living in it.

One U.S. Attorney's employee says staffers would occasionally find Law taking sponge baths in the restroom, during the hot Rio Grande Valley summer. One story centered on Law asking a clerk for a favor as the office was closing. She needed a ride. The clerk said sure, and Law directed her to a cafeteria. She told the clerk to wait in the car while she ran in -- and ate dinner. Then the clerk drove her back to the office.

Law's turn as a federal prosecutor ended in six months, with the decision not to retain her. Attorneys there say she handled various mundane illegal-immigrant cases and little more. Her résumé filed four years later with the city estimated her federal caseload at ten.

By December 1990, Law was in "solo legal practice." For at least a couple of those years, that meant focusing on her continuing appeals battle with her ex-husband. But in April 1992, Law had a new distraction that required a delay in the proceedings, her court documents said.

She was running for the post of justice of the peace. Her request for a continuance said, "She has ... been unable to focus the necessary time and attention on this matter to be adequately prepared for trial and will not be available until after November 3, 1992."

Her campaign target was Justice of the Peace Howard Wayland, who presided over the southeast Houston and Harris County area. Wayland was first elected in 1981 and had never drawn an opponent before.

But Law apparently figured he had two possible weaknesses: He was a Democrat. And he was a senior citizen.

"Let's talk practicality," Law said in a mail-out to voters in that district. "Howard is 64 years old. If he is re-elected, he will be 65 a few days after being sworn in and will be 69 years old if he finishes the term he is now seeking."

Wayland had no history of health problems. Law, who was 50 at the time, told The Houston Post she knew of no problems regarding her opponent's age -- but she still believed it was a viable issue and could be a factor against him.

Law also returned to the courthouse to sue a Republican primary opponent, alleging irregularities in his filing for that election. Her suit was thrown out as too late.

She lost her first race for office in November 1992. It would be nearly a year later that an undisclosed settlement was reached in the suit over the 11-year-old divorce decree.

The conclusion may have had something to do with what happened a month before that ending: Janice Law got married, and not to just anybody. She was the new bride of Donald Jansen, a political heavyweight and partner in the prestigious law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski.

In a paid marriage announcement in the Houston Chronicle, it was explained that "the bride and groom met through political campaigns."

And politics was the dominant theme of the write-up.

About 375 of their closest friends gathered for a wedding conducted by Catholic Monsignor Vincent Rizzotto himself.

It was poetry in motion. Then-state district judge Greg Abbott (now a state supreme court justice) read one poem. Jansen recited Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee."

And in case anybody missed the connections of the wedding cast, that was emphasized in the wedding announcement. Rehearsal dinner courtesy of best man Louis Macey (the announcement gave his years on City Council, 1975 to '79). Matron of Honor was Tony Lindsay, the state district judge married to state legislator Jon Lindsay, a former county judge of Harris County.

There also was GOP chairwoman Betsy Lake and judges Caprice Cosper and Jim Scanlon.

As for the honeymoon, the woman who had fought forever over an ex-hubbie's lump-sum retirement was on her way to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park and, oh yes, Russia.

Despite the well-connected nuptial crowd, none of the wedding gifts was a judicial bench. That would have to come later.

In 1994 Law ran against incumbent Jim Barkley for a county court at law criminal bench. She lost. But she gained herself a substitute municipal court position, courtesy of Houston City Council.

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